Published by Randolph Games, Romi Rami offers a quick family card game experience in a little box, which might remind you of Rummy, but the extra contract cards and trophy rewards add an additional element of interest that made it a hit with me!
Included are two decks of cards—number cards with four suits
(cherries, hearts, clovers and diamonds) and contract cards, which present
various card group challenges, crown objectives, and joker tokens.
Toss the four double-sided trophy tiles in the air and use
the sides they land on as your game’s goals. At the center of the table, deal
six number cards to start the draw market and four contract cards. Each player
draws three number cards as their starting hand and receives one joker tile.
The joker tile can be used once per game to substitute for any one number card
when fulfilling a contract.
The number cards display a range of numbers 1–5 and any one
of the four card suits. The contract cards show different combinations of
number cards needed to fulfill them and each represent one of the four suits. For
instance, a contract card might require three card numbers in a number sequence
and four cards of the same number and be the cherry suit. When a player
fulfills a contract, they do not have to match the suit of the contract card,
but if they can match any numbers, they will receive one point for each one
that does match.
On a player’s turn, they do the following:
- Draw up to three cards from the display that either have the same suit or the same numbers.
- Check to see if you can fulfill a contract. If you fulfill a contract, take the contract card and start or add to your face-up contract fulfillment stack with just the tops of the cards showing. If any of the number cards used to complete the contract match the suit of the contract card, place those face down next to your fulfillment stack and discard the rest.
- Check to see if you have more than ten cards in your hand and if so, discard down to 10. If you have less than three remaining cards, draw from the deck to end with three cards.
- Refill the number and contract card displays.
The game ends when any player fulfills a specific number of
contracts based on player count. For example, in a two-player game, there must
be seven contracts fulfilled. The required number decreases with increasing
player count. Once a player fulfills that number, the game ends at the end of
the current round, then scoring is done and the player with the most points
wins!
Scoring:
1 point if you still have your joker token.
Point value of all contracts completed.
One point for every card in the suit-matching pile.
Why I love this game: Romi Rami comes in a compact box and it is easy to learn with fun scoring objectives that change with every game. For 2–4 players and plays in 30 minutes. ~ Marsha