Designed by: Reiner Knizia
Zero Down (previously published as Zero) is a card game where you’re trying to score the least points.
The deck is made up of seven suits of different colours, each numbered 1-8. Players are dealt nine cards each, and five are placed in a face-up display on the table. Play is simple – on your turn you simply take a card from the display, and replace it with one of your own!
What you’re trying to do is score the least points – five of the same colour or the same number scores zero (which is good!) while anything else simply scores its number value (bad). A minor twist here (helpful!) is that if you have more than one of the same number, you only score it once – i.e. four fours will only cost you four points, not sixteen. The ideal hand here is five of the same colour and five of the same number (with one card forming part of both) – scoring you zero points. If you achieve this, announce it immediately and the round instantly ends.
The other way the round ends is after the second person has passed – choosing not to swap cards. In this instance all other players get one more turn before scoring. Play as many rounds as there are players, and the person with the fewest points is the winner!
Yet another clever little game from Dr Knizia's back catalogue, Zero Down is a lovely, simple filler game that thankfully no-one saw fit to paste a theme on to. The 'knock's bring some nice tension to it and there's room to really push your luck in the last few turns of a round, and yet it's a game I find quit relaxing. You can have a conversation while playing it - in a good way.
One can certainly keep an eye on what other players are picking up, and factor it into your decisions. But it's not a game replete with Take-That-ery.
It's a fast-moving game.
The ideal hand is that zero hand mentioned above, but the problem is going for it might end up rather expensive if the round ends - and it may well do - before you get there. Would it be safer to go for a collection of low-scoring cards? Probably - but then that's what many others will be doing too, meaning they are chucking away 7s and 8s... should you go for them? Argh!
The game experience will be the same each time. But that said, a very simple rule-set still manages to provide agonizing decisions.
2-5
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
This designer almost always manages to integrate a devilish catch into his games, whether the luck-pushing silliness of Heck Meck, the tactical 2-player jousting of Battle Line or the classic game of domination, Tigris and Euphrates. Despite its simplicity, Zero Down is no exception - as evidenced in the brief window into my mind in Brain Burn, above. It's fairly repetitious I suppose compared to many games, but rather more-ish all the same.