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Cost: $12
From: Winning Moves
Players: 3-5
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Type of game: Beer 'n' Pretzels
Skill level: 8
Complexity: 4
Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 19, Summer/Fall/Winter 1998
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Winning Moves hasn’t exactly been batting a thousand. Since their inception a few years ago they’ve offered up rereleases and retoolings of out of print games, deluxe versions of classic games, and a smattering of new but mostly uninspired efforts. With It’s Mine! they’ve finally hit one out of the park- and wouldn’t you know it, Reiner Knizia’s the pinch hitter who connected.
It’s Mine! is a game of chicken played with cards. One player deals up cards one by one. As cards get added to the table, the dealer talks up their virtues in his best carny hustler style. When the set of cards is attractive enough to another player, he claims them by slapping a mat in the center of the table and crying out, “It’s mine!” Often more than one player will take the plunge at once, but it’s the first one to get his hand down who gets the cards and becomes the next dealer.
Players can take up to three sets of cards each before they’re freezed out of the rest of the round, which ends when the deck runs out or when all players but one have collected their three sets (the odd man out gets the rest of the deck). Then everyone totes up their scores.
There are five kinds of cards in the deck. The simplest provide -2 to +4 points to their owners. “Double or Nothing” cards are worthless alone, but award -4 to +6 points for each identical set of two. Whoever collects the most “Toast or Most” cards gets a ten point bonus (the individual cards are worthless). Jackpot cards only score as a set- the more of them a player collects, the more he scores for them. And wild cards are worthless by themselves, but instead match up with any unpaired Double or Nothing card to complete the set.
Whoever has the highest score wins the hand. Winning two hands wins the game.
When we first read the rules for It’s Mine!, we weren’t impressed. But by the end of the first hand, we were hooked. The tension of waiting as long as possible while still getting the jump on your opponents is addictive. I found myself thinking, “Just one more card,” only to have someone else thinking exactly the same thing and getting the drop on me. It’s like a shootout in the old west, with everyone’s fingers twitching in anticipation of the quick draw.
It wasn’t long before the psychological games began. Most satisfying is faking a slap on a marginal set of cards to goad an opponent into a reflex slap, eating up one of his three strikes.
Players have to beware of waiting too long to strike. When the negatives start hitting the table, card sets can get quite large before becoming attractive enough to spur a claim. This leaves the deck much smaller than players might expect, so it’s important to be flexible and be willing to take smaller sets than you’d like. A small set is better than no set if the deck runs out! Remember that it’s okay to take a negative Double or Nothing card as long as you don’t take another, and the Toast or Most and Jackpot cards are virtually worthless unless you collect a lot of them.
It’s Mine! is similar but superior to Tom Schoeps’ Burger Battle from FX Schmid. Both games involve players making a decision about whether to grab the current pile or wait until later, but Burger Battle’s sequential (turn-based) play sequence is far less exciting and its scoring less interesting. It’s Mine! puts the right spin on the concept, yielding a tense and fast-paced family game which is a real hoot to play.
For once, the US gets one of Knizia’s games first. Bravo to Winning Moves for publishing this, and let’s hope this is the beginning of a trend toward original games of high quality from them.