I have a fun card game to share with you today from Timberdoodle, Clumsy Thief Junior. Clumsy Thief Junior is manufactured by Melon Rind and is a 2-4 player game geared for ages 5 and up.
What's included in our game? Our game contains 76 cards - 70 of them are food cards, 4 of them are thief cards and 2 of them are trap cards. And there is also a small pamphlet of game rules.
What's the object of this game? Basically all players add two numbers together to make 10 in order to collect food cards. The player that ends up with the most food cards wins, that's it!
How do you play? Each player is dealt 7 cards with the remaining cards placed in a deck face down. All players look at their cards looking for two food cards that add together to make 10 (9 and 1, 6 and 4, 2 and 8, etc.). They place these cards face up in front of them. After everyone has made their own stacks, players can get more stacks from other players. They can do this if they have a card that when added to the top card of a stack will make 10. So if another player has a stack with a 2 and 8 on top, you can take that stack by placing a 2 on top of the 8 to make 10. After all the stacks are made and taken, players replentish their hands by drawing from the draw pile until they have 5 cards for the next round. There are special thief cards that can be used to take any stack. A trap card can be used to take a stack with a thief on top. When the deck is gone, the game is over!
I love that young players use mental math in this game. Cards are constantly switching hands so you never know how things will end up and who will win 😉. I like that all players are playing at the same time so there is never a lull. This is a fairly fast paced game and it generally takes ~ 10 minutes for us to finish a complete game. Clumsy Thief Junior is currently included in Timberdoodle's Kindergarten Curriculum Kit and we definitely recommend it. Just watch out for that sneaky raccoon 🦝.
