Card Game Preview: Dead Man’s Draw

Dead Man's Draw card game — Ready to press your luck and plunder some loot?

Earlier this summer we had a chance to play a soon-to-be-published, press-your-luck, card game that we think families will enjoy: Dead Man’s Draw

We say soon-to-be-published, because within the first couple days of being up on Kickstarter it reached it’s funding goal. So that means it’s a done deal. It WILL be published.

Now we watch to see how many stretch goals will be reached before the final day of the Dead Man’s Draw Kickstarter campaign. And considering there’s almost 4 weeks to go in the campaign, I’m sure it will surpass all the levels Mayday Games has set.

So if you want the game, jump on over and pledge. Because once a Kickstarter campaign reaches the funding goal it’s essentially a pre-order system.

Dead Man’s Draw Game Play

So what’s the card game all about?

Check out our short video preview to get a quick view of how to play Dead Man’s Draw.

Can everyone in the family enjoy Dead Man’s Draw?
As you can see in the video, it’s a very quick playing game with simple choices. The most basic choice is simply – do you reveal and play another card or stash what you’ve played so far?

Press your luck too much and you’ll be saying goodbye to the treasure.

And in our experience, everyone in the family enjoys press-your-luck type games.

The short game play time is also a big plus for a game with kids. Once the draw deck is depleted, the game ends and players total up their points. (Banking your treasure soon can be a good thing.)

Also, players only score their highest value card of each suit. So having only 1 card of a suit doesn’t matter much as long as it’s a high value.

With card values ranging from 2 to 9, that also means it’s easy addition for kids.

Special Suits

Dead Man’s Draw is more though than just press-your-luck. The fun of Dead Man’s Draw lies in the various abilities of each suit.

When a card is played, the player MUST activate the suit ability (even if it would hurt that player).

With 10 different suits in the game, it may seem that remembering the special ability of each may be tough. The good news is that the ability of each suit is simple to remember. And the art on each card is well associated with the ability for helpful cues.

Chaining a series of cards and their abilities together can be quite fun – especially because it means your luck is running rather well.

To see the special abilities of each suit, check out our preview video – since we run through a chain of all the suits being played: