Parade

I frequently buy card and table top games with a particular audience/family member in mind. My teenage daughter loves card games and she loved this Parade card game as expected... what surprised me was how quickly my nine year old son learned the game and understood the push your luck aspects and underlying strategies. He beats me regularly and that’s a plus because I hate dumbing down my play for kids or new gamers and this card game allows new learners and kids to compete well early on. As a parent, I especially love the stealth math and critical thinking skills this game requires.Simple to learn, plays well with a diverse crowd and has excellent production value & durability (card stock, & color images). If your remotely interested in this game, don’t hesitate to buy it. It’s a keeper for gaming with kids, family and other gamers!

The instructions of this game are Very easy to learn yet the game itself is quite engaging for a player who enjoys strategy. Best played with multiple people BUT I enjoy playing this with 2 players very much as well. Can replay with 2 players at least 3-4 times before wanting to switch to a new game. Size makes it easy to toss into purse for on-the-go. This can be a quick game although with the right people who really think about the next card they want to play it can (enjoyably) go on for 30+ minutes. Need a few feet of table space to play as cards are laid out in a row (the "parade") as you play along. I recommend this game for dates, 2-players or as a starter game for parties to get people in the mood for the longer more involved games to come OR toss this game in after a particularly long board game to break things up a bit. Happy gaming!

The game is simple enough even for children to learn, and moderately fun even for adults to play. It's a nice traditional style card game, the sort of thing that one could imagine playing with a normal deck of playing cards -- except you couldn't quite do that with Parade, because there are five "suits" instead of four.And you wouldn't want to do it anyway, because part of the appeal here is the magnificent Alice in Wonderland themed art, which is quite beautiful. Even the box is attractive -- you may not be able to tell from the photos here, but that light grey color on the box is actually metallic silver, and it's really impressive to look at.Parade is just one of a series of small-box traditional style card games from Z-Man -- you may also want to check out Arboretum, Chimera, and Black Spy -- but Parade may very well be the best of them all.

The Parade Card Game is simple to learn yet offers opportunities for strategic play that one normally finds in more complex games. Playing a card from the hand may or may nor require that cards are removed from the parade layout on the table. Cards removed from the parade are added to the player's cache and their values totaled at the end of the game. Low total wins. Cards count their printed value, unless a player has taken the majority of cards in a suit. In that case, the cards count only 1 point each. Sometimes more is less. Play ends when one player has taken at least one card of each of the six suits, or the discard pile is exhausted.The dynamics of the game set up the strategic considerations. For example, it might be better to capture the cards that give you all of the suits to end the game on the spot, if your opponents have more points than you. If you have high cards in a suit, it might be a consideration to take in the majority of the suit, if possible, to reduce the count to 1 point per card. I have played games where the difference between winning and losing has been only 1 or 2 points. A couple of right, or wrong, decisions concerning which card to play can make a difference in the outcome. That's exciting card play.

Pros- Easy to learn and teach. Would take less than 15 minutes combined.- Fast to play. Would take around 15 to 30 minutes.- Flows smoothly. Doesn't feel heavy, thus you can play it to relax after a long day at work.- Highly interactive. A bit mean, maybe.- Has tons of luck, but also requires some strategy.- 1000% better than No Thanks, and this is playable with 2 players. But why is No Thanks more popular?! Another similar game is Take 5.- Playable with 2 players. But definitely better at 4 or more players! With just 2 players, it may happen more frequently that if one draws low-numbered cards while the other high-numbered cards, then the winner would always be the one who plays high-numbered cards as the other player who draws low-numbered cards will just keep on collecting more unwanted cards. But if there are more players, so e.g. 3 players before your turn in a 4-player game, then the bad luck is divided more equally among the players, making the game more enjoyable to play as you wouldn't always have all the bad cards. But with just 2, it could happen more frequently.- With 2 players, you can play many games with this deck such as Parade, Arboretum, and Hats.- The mechanism at the end of the game where players will simultaneously reveal additional cards to add to their sets is brilliant and exciting.NOTE: Before I start with the cons, don't let this negatives sway you out of the game, this is just a simple and replayable game after all! This will definitely stay in my collection. If this wasn't a simple filler game, then for sure I would have already sold this. But given its simplicity, ease of play, and replayability, this would definitely be part of my collection.Cons- The moves that you will perform from turn to turn are obvious, no agonizing turns. Not much decision making. Because every turn, you have 5 cards, from which you can just count which one will result to the lowest number of cards taken, which is fast to do. In programming, it's just like the "greedy algorithm". It's very simple to just create a simple computer program that will automatically choose which card to play. No need of a complex AI, just simple code that performs normal counting.- While the game is a bit fun, it lacks the same excitement that you feel with the suspense and unpredictability of playing e.g. Take 5, Scout, etc. While predictability is a good thing with heavier games like Spirit Island, Concordia, Dominant Species: Marine, etc., here however being a light game, it makes the outcome of the game and what will happen on your turns to become very predictable already, making it less exciting and thus less fun.

Play this with some friends and immediately wanted to buy it on Amazon. Easy to learn, beautiful illustrations and very engaging.

Easy game to learn. Fun card theme. Love that its a different game every time.

Love this game! Easy to learn and takes a lot more strategy than expected, so it's simple yet challenging! One of our new family favourites.

Great game and very underrated with awesome illustrations. Glad it’s back in print. Bought as a gift and arrived in good condition.

J’adore mon jeu merci!