Cup the Crab

Cup the Crab is a light family-friendly push-your-luck card game from Mandoo Games. It's themed around hermit crabs searching out new homes and it's designed by Michael Feldkotter. The game is played over seven rounds and it takes 3-5 players.

The game comes with a deck of 70 cup cards with values 1-10, tho' not all numbers are represented. Players are each dealt 14 cup cards plus three crab cards, two bottle cards and two octopus cards. Each round players select three of their cards to take into their hand and they are the ones they'll be playing with for the turn.

Cup cards are played to create a stack. You can play to an existing stack or start a new one, tho' there can't be more than three stacks on the go (four stacks in a five-player game). If you play a crab card on a stack, you take that stack and the card values in the stack represent the points it will score you. Bottles close off a stack and prevent any more cup cards being played there, as well as preventing a crab card from being played to that stack. If a stack has a bottle card on it, only an octopus card can be played there and that will take that stack in the same way as a crab can take an unbottled stack.

That's the entirety of the rules, making Cup the Crab a super easy game to teach and learn. It's a game where you have to make key decisions about which cards to take into your hand each round while trying to second-guess which cards other players are holding; and crucially whether they have taken a crab or octopus card into their hand... It certainly helps to keep track of which cards other players have already played and so what they still have available to them. You each only have three crabs so you obviously want to make them count with decent cup scores so nobody wants to take a crab into their hand too early; however, you equally don't want to hold onto your crabs too long because if everyone has crabs left in the last couple of rounds then again you could end up with slim pickings.

Generally it's best to play a bottle card when you know you'll be the first player in the next round so you can capitalise on it with an octopus, but another player might reason that that's what you're planning so they take an octopus in hand a round earlier to nab the stack you bottled on your last turn of the round...

The comedic theme combines with the bluff and second-guessing gameplay to give Cup the Crab something of a party game vibe, and it's a game that children can play as well as adults. Cup the Crab plays quickly too: even with a full complement of five players you can run through your seven rounds in just 15 minutes. That makes it a fun filler.

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