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Shipwrecked is a blind bidding game where players bid for items. Each item has a point value towards winning, an income that is generated per turn, and a value that the item is worth if you sell it back to the bank. Each item also belongs to a certain category of items (example food, clothing, etc). To win you must have 150 points total or 100 points in one category. Point values on cards range from 10 to 50 points.

At the beginning of a players turn, he collects any money he is entitled from the income of previously won cards, then he flips over the top card of the items. This item is the item everyone bids for.

Each player has a small deck of bid cards If I remember correctly, the deck consists of 3 pass cards (possibly 4), 2 stop cards and 1 strike! card.

Everyone chooses and places one of their bid cards face down. Then the question is asked, does anyone want to stop the bidding? If someone DID play a stop card, and they wish to reveal that they did so, they must reveal their stop card and then the bidding is stopped. All of the other cards are also flipped over. If no other stop cards are revealed and no strike! cards are revealed, the winner of the bid pays 5 gold (for being the first round of bidding) and wins the card. That's pretty much the bidding process.

If no one declares a stop in a round, the bidding then moves to the next round. The cost to purchase the card is now one less than the previous round of bidding (during the last round of bidding it is possible to win a card for free).

If a strike card is revealed after a stop has been declared then whoever played the strike! card wins the bid. If two or more strike cards are revealed, they cancel each other out. If more than one stop cards are revealed, then all players who played stop cards must look at their previous bid rounds; whoever played the most passes in previous rounds wins the bid. If it is a tie, then all players involved in the tie, must pay the current price for the card, then they must start over and rebid for the card from scratch! This can be particularly costly if this occurs in the first round. (For example, Betty and Sam both play stop cards in the first round, where it costs 5 gold to purchase an item. Both must now pay 5 gold to the bank, and they must bid again for the same card). This can get ESPECIALLY nasty if it happens several times in a row.

If you win a bid for a card and don't have the money to pay for it, then you must sell one of your previous cards back to the bank and use that value to purchase the new item. If you don't have enough after that, or you don't have any cards to sell, you are declared bankrupt and you're out of the game.

Shew! No on to the review. I LOVE THIS GAME! A normal game of shipwrecked takes about 20 minutes to play. Any game that is this short and is this fun is a winner in my book. It makes a great 'filler' (I've added to my favorite filler games box along with Golf Mania and Guillotine). Shipwrecked is a great game for 'non gamers ' or as an introductory game as well. The social aspect of the blind bidding is wild; second guessing everyone and getting pissed off when they screw up your strategy is hilarious! I rate this game a 9 out of 10. Some people may rate it less because it's more of a 'lite' game, but that is PRECISELY why I rate it so high. Any game that is this fun and this short is a winner. Oh did I mention NO player downtime. What's not to like!

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