Rack-O
Overall Rating: 8/10
Age: 8+
GLAM Age Range: 6-Adult
Number of Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 20 min
Publisher: Hasbro
Complexity: Low
Available At: Amazon.com
Quick Take: Classic family game. Be the first to get your cards in order. I played this so much as a kid and it still holds up. My 6 year old daughter is rather choosy when it comes to playing games and this one passed with flying colors. It's ideal for building number awareness and some basic probability skills. Perfect for a nice, mellow game night.
How to Play: Your goal is to have all of the cards in your Rack-O rack in order, lowest in the front and highest in the back. The dealer hands out one card at a time to players who places them in their rack, starting from the back and moving forward. Once your rack is filled you lay the remaining pile of cards in the middle of the table and flip over the top card beside it to start the discard pile. The players take turns drawing one card either from the discard pile or the deck and replacing one card from their rack. The card that is replaced must be placed on the discard pile and the next player can choose to pick up that card or one from the draw pile. The first player to get all 10 of their cards in order from low to high wins the game and shouts out Rack-O!
Variations: There are official scoring rules that we have never used because it just never seemed necessary. But according to the official rules, whoever gets to 500 points first is the winner. You score 75 points for getting Rack-O. I would only play in this manner if I was playing with only adults. You can also play reverse, from high in the front to low in the back. And technically for a two player game you're supposed to get three cards in sequence in order to get a Rack-O. For example, you would need to have 15, 16, and 17 or a similar number run in order to win.
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