Push your luck mechanics are some of the most pure form of gaming, and one of the few that can be distilled down to a single action: flipping a coin or rolling a dice. It’s the latter in the case of 5 Up, an incredibly easy to learn game that’s perfect for taking on the road.
Here at B3, a lot of the text in our board game reviews amounts to us quickly summarising how to set up and play a (well, at least one) round of it. That’s definitely not going to be the case with 5 Up, which could probably come boxed in a small matchbox, with the rules printed on one side… although that perhaps wouldn’t be anywhere near as fun and visual as it’s cool travel case.
‘How simple is 5 Up?’ you might ask. Incredibly, is the simple answer. The pouch includes a single, six-sided die and sixty tokens (ten for each player), with the inside of the pouch doubling as the playing field. When I say playing field, what I mean is that it’s the logo of the game with five circles around it, each one showing a number from one to six — excluding five — corresponding with the faces on the die.
Playing is, at least, as simple as explaining the components. Player one grabs the die and rolls, if the number is 1-2-3-4 or 6 and uncovered then they cover it up with one of their tokens and they can then choose to roll again or pass to the next player. If it the number they rolled is covered then they snatch up all of the tokens on the board.
This is, of course, bad, as you’ll want to dispense of all of your tokens in order to win — so you’ll want to roll until you buckle, and you definitely won’t want the person in front of you to cover over too many before passing to you… because you can always choose to pass rather than risk another roll.
A die roll of five is the wrinkle here, and what gives 5 Up its name. That’s because rolling a five will allow you to place one of your tokens right back into the case and eliminate it from the game. This is not only incredibly easy to remember, but also a clever balancer: This ensures that the number of tokens will gradually decline, and that there’s always a 16%~ chance that you can roll safely.
This makes 5 Up an incredibly quick little thing to pick up and play, however one where one tricky player (one with incredibly luck, and a willingness to push it) can completely change the pace and intensity of every player… and that’s a rare and wonderful thing in such a small package.
You can grab a copy of 5 Up from Amazon.
