Does your family love Wednesday Addams in the show Wednesday? Or maybe you love dark and gloomy humor. Either way, if you also love strategic games, Wednesday is a sure win.
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Setting Up the Game
Wednesday is a card game with some wasted space in the box, but it’s a really cool box (and not too big), so we kept it. There is one Wednesday card to denote who is Wednesday each round. Six round cards, with specific ones for the first and last rounds; however, the number of rounds changes based on how many players are playing and the inside rounds are placed randomly.
The main deck is composed of color and gray-scale (“dark”) cards. All cards have a number between 1 and 3. When scoring, the dark cards are positive and the color cards are negative. You’re going for the highest score, so avoid the color cards.
Each player is dealt 3 cards and the rest are placed face-down in the center to form the draw deck. Wednesday begins by drawing one card and placing it face-up. All other players EXCEPT Wednesday play one card from their hand, face-up. All players should be able to see all the cards that have been played now.
Playing Wednesday
Wednesday collects all the played cards (the card she drew and the cards everyone else played) and adds one card from her hand. No one else will know what card Wednesday added. Wednesday then arranges all of these cards in numerical order. She can choose whether color or dark cards are first, mixed, or in any other order, but the cards must be in order based on their number.
Wednesday then lays out the cards, face-down, next to the round cards. The lowest cards must be next to the round cards, so she’ll place all the 1s (in any order she chooses), all the 2s (in any order), and then all the 3s.
Wednesday is the only player to know what all of the cards are and what order she places them in. Every other player knows what all but one card is, but they don’t know how number duplicates are arranged.
Choosing Cards
Finally, players choose cards, one at a time. After choosing a card, turn it face-up so everyone can see. Wednesday always chooses her card last and will have two cards to choose from. The last card is placed at the bottom of the deck without being revealed to anyone.
Some rounds have you choosing cards for yourself, while other rounds have you choosing cards for another player. Rounds tend to go rather quickly once you get the hang of the game.
This game is definitely a winner for our family and it’s fabulous for developing working memory. If your family enjoys this card game, they might also like Crows or Gloom.