Ratuki

A card-slamming frenzy from start to finish 2 – 5 players ages 8 and up

Ratuki (pronounced ra-too-kee) is a very face paced card game that is simple to play but frustrating to try to win. Read on to see what makes this game fun and learn all the rules.

Set Up

To set up Ratuki you first need to separate the cards into their colour piles. Each player gets a coloured stack. This pile is their draw pile. Next, each player takes the top three cards from their draw pile and makes this their hand.

The Cards

There are five styles of cards. There are the dice cards, the sticks, the numbers, the words and the finger cards. All of these cards are equal. Each card has a number (in a different style) from one to five.

There is one more type of card. The Ratuki card. These cards are wild. When you play them, you need to announce what the card represents. Example: when you play a Ratuki card you say, “three”.

Playing Ratuki

The number one rule in Ratuki is that there are no turns. Everyone plays at the same time, racing to get rid of their cards.

When all players are ready, the dealer calls out, “Ratuki.”

Now all players race to play their cards. To start a pile, a player needs to put down a 1 card. There can only be the same number of piles as there are players. Therefore, if there are three players then there can only be three piles going.

Next, a player can put a 2 card on top of any pile.

After a two is played, a 1 or a 3 can be played. This goes for 3 and 4 as well where the card on top can be plus one or minus one.

When a pile is sitting with a 4 on top, a player can place a 5 card on top. This player calls out “Ratuki” and takes that pile and adds it to his score pile. A new pile can now be started.

The Ratuki Hand

At any time, a player may only have three cards in her hand. When she places a card onto one of the center piles, she takes a card off of her draw pile and adds it to her hand.

Note: a player may only use one hand to play and to pick up off of the draw pile.

Getting Stuck

If at any point play is stalled (or you want to refresh your cards) you can place one card from your hand into your junk pile and draw a new card from your draw pile. The card in your junk pile will count against you when it come to scoring.

Note: it is a good idea that when this happens, all players take turns being the one to junk a card.

Going Out

When a player runs out of card –has played all the cards in her hand and her draw pile—then she calls out “Out”. All other players stop playing immediately.

Scoring

The cards in your score pile count as one point each.
The cards in your draw and junk piles are worth minus one point.
Subtract the negative cards from the score cards and that is your score for that round.
The cards that are in the playing piles are not counted.
The cards are then sorted out into colour piles, shuffled and play begins again.

Winning Ratuki

The player who reaches 100 points first is the winner.

What We Like

This game has a frenzy pace, it is fun and chaotic, just what we like in a game. It is easy enough for players of all ages to play. Ratuki doesn’t take very long to play the whole game and it can be shortened to single rounds if a shorter game is needed.

What We Don’t Like

Because everyone plays at once, it can get chaotic. This can be frustrating for players who are not speedy players. Next, the box. It is a good size, however, for all the cards to fit you need to separate the colour cards, a bit of a nuisance. The only other issue is that some of the cards are hard to read in the quick time needed. This is just part of the game but still it takes come concentration.

Is Ratuki Worth It?

Ratuki is a fast pace game of luck and skill. It can be frantic and noisy but if your family like the card game Spoons, then they’ll like this one too. For speed lovers, we recommend adding Ratuki to your Family Game Shelf.

To get your copy shop Ratuki here. Canadians can get Ratuki here

For more fun card games, check out our card games. If you’re looking for more fun check out our game reviews and dice games too.

Rating:

Pros: easy, fast,
Cons: noisy, not for slower players
Mom: critical thinking, observation,