Kites

Kites is a co-operative real-time game where players must think on their feet and act fast. The premise is that the players are putting on a kite show for a hopefully-admiring audience, but the kites in question are represented by sand timers that we keep flipping to prevent them ever running out!

The five timers start on their sides, with all the sand clearly at one end. Everyone is dealt a hand of kite cards and play begins when the starting player lifts the white timer to start the sand tumbling through the hourglass. Then in turn, players play one card at a time from their hands, and replenish from the deck.

The goal is to go through the entire deck of cards without the timers running out. When you play a card you must flip the matching timer: the colours/symbols are red, yellow, orange, blue and purple. Some cards only match with one timer, but many make you flip two. The white timer has no matching cards at all, but any single-symbol card can be played to flip it over. When – or if! – you exhaust the deck, you must still play all the remaining cards in your hands, but you cannot flip the white timer from this point! So there’s a kind of extra drama as things escalate for the last few seconds.

If you empty the deck – you win! If you don’t, the number of cards left unplayed (in your hands and the deck) gives you a kind of rating.

That is the basic game, but you can also mix in some challenge cards to make things harder, if you’re finding it’s not stressful enough already. Airplanes cause a temporary lull in communication: considering successful play involves a lot of chat, it can be tricky to navigate the silence. Crossed lines enforce a card-swapping with your immediate neighbours, and Storms cause all timers to be flipped. There is four of each challenge card: you can add in all of them or just a few, to your personal preferences.