Gadget Builder
Designed by: Tom Lehmann
Gadget Builder is a card game where you want to get rid of your cards. By playing them – or turning them into gadgets!
The deck is made up of a bunch of suits each numbered from 1-7, plus a wildcard. Players are dealt 8 cards each, the top card of the remaining deck is flipped over to begin the discard pile and the game begins. On your turn you have three options. You can play a card on top of the discards if it matches either the colour or the number. You may then also add more numbers of the same suit you just played, as long as they are in the same suit and ascending: for example, you play a 3 in yellow. You can now add a 4, 5, 6 and 7 in yellow if you have them.
If can’t or don’t want to play, you can draw the top card from the deck, which you can then play afterwards (as long as you’re playing the card you just drew).
Or you can build a gadget.
The purple suit has the same numbers as others suits – and can be played just for their number value as per usual. But each also has a ‘gadget’ option, which requires you to discard some cards (and draw replacements) to build it. The gadget then sits in front of you on the table and can be used once per round: each functions like a special ability, giving you for example a bonus turn, or extra discards, or forcing opponents to pick up an extra card. If you go out first – ie get rid of all your cards – your gadgets must also be used up at this point. You can use one gadget per turn, and can optionally ‘power down’ a gadget without using it.
As soon as any player discards their final card, they win the round. Players keep any gadgets they have, and all remaining cards are shuffled and a new round behinds. First to win three rounds (or four in a two player game) wins the game.
Sam says
It really feels like designer Tom Lehmann wanted to make a modern UNO, and on that front Gadget Builder, I feel, broadly succeeds. It’s a mite more complex so it doesn’t quite have the immediacy of Uno. The gadgets demand a bit of familiarity to use them properly. But that extra complexity makes it, for me, more interesting, more fun and more revisitable than its predecessor. Whilst I’m not <much of> a snob about Uno, I think it shows its age in how it can run a little long and occasionally feel like the game is happening to you rather than with you. Gadget Builder, for all that you need 5 minutes to explain it rather than 30 seconds, is going to reward you with more of a sense of agency over events – as well as the fun of using gadgets.
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Take That!
Not much. One or two gadgets do have a spicy edge, but the predominant focus is shedding your cards.
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Fidget Factor!
Pretty low, especially with fewer or no gadgets.
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Brain Burn!
It's an UNO-esque task of getting rid of your hand. The question is, how much time do you invest in the helpful gadgets? While you're doing so, you're not shedding any cards.
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Again Again!
The numerous gadgets and the breezy playtime do give Gadget Builder an easy, moreish sensibility.
