dnup (Pronounced Down-Up (Holy cow does it ever feel wrong to not capitalize the name of the game)) is the latest game from Kei Kajino, the designer of the wonderfully brilliant and unique game Scout. dnup also uses the two-cards-in-one concept where a card has one number on one half, and if you flip it upside down, there’s a different number on the other side. But this time there’s no theme. I suspect that after every single review lamented how the circus theme in Scout just didn’t make any sense, he said, “f*** it,” and just made a great new card game.

In dnup, players are trying to lose all the cards from their hand. the twist is kind of the complete inverse of Scout. When you get your hand, you’re allowed to sort your cards, but you may not flip any of them over. On your turn, you perform one action, and then play continues around and around the table until someone has shed all the cards from their hand.

There are four possible actions to choose from. The first is playing a set of cards from your hand to the table. When you do, you must play a number of cards that is unique. That is to say, if someone else already has two cards on the table, you cannot also play a set of two cards unless the value of your pair is higher than theirs. If your value is higher, the player who played the inferior set must pick up their cards. And the golden rule of dnup is that whenever cards are taken off the table and added to a hand, they are always flipped over.

Another action is adding one card from your hand to an existing set on the table. If adding that card would cause the set to match the size of another set already in play, then the set you’re adding to must have a higher value than the existing set. If it does, the player with the lower-valued set must pick up their cards.

The third thing you can do is simply pick up someone else’s set. Just reach across the table, scoop up all the cards, flip them over, and add them to your hand. The last action is flipping over all the cards in your hand.

The last quirk is that if the set of cards you played on your last turn managed to stay on the table the entire time, that is to say that nobody forced you to pick up your set, and no one chose to put it up from you, then before you do your action, you simply discard that set from the game, slowly whittling down the pool of available cards in the round.

Players continue taking a single action each, going around and around the table until someone manages to shed all of their cards. That player earns two points. Play continues until someone else also sheds all their cards, earning one point. The game continues until someone has achieved four points, and then they are the winner of dnup.

I’ve often complained about games that have this handcuffing feeling. Games where you have things you want to do, but you just can’t do them because of various arbitrary restrictions. And I do get that horrible handcuff-y feeling in dnup quite a bit. Like, all I need to do is put my two fives down on the table and I’m out, but someone else played two sixes before me, so now I’m left without any good options.

This is a much bigger issue in much bigger games. I find this feeling in most prevalent in games designed by Alexander Pfister, this feeling just frustrates me to the point where I don’t enjoy the game. Maracaibo and Blackout: Hong Kong come to mind, although it’s been a long time since I played either game, so maybe my memory is getting a bit fuzzy on exactly why I didn’t like those games so much. But now I’m getting a little off topic.

I don’t mind the handcuffing feeling so much here. It is frustrating, don’t get me wrong, but the rounds are also just so short. If you’re a little stuck, you can make a slight pivot by picking up someone else’s cards or flipping your cards over, and then a couple minutes later that round is over anyway. You shuffle up the whole deck, deal out a new hand, and there are really no lasting consequences. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Being handcuffed, not able to act and losing out on winning a hand isn’t the end of the world because there’s more game to play right away. Those handcuffs aren’t holding you back for two and a half hours. It only lasts a couple of minutes.

I initially played the two-player variant of dnup, and I quite enjoyed it. In the two-player game, each player takes two turns in a row, giving you ample opportunity to change and adjust your plans. It lets you work around those handcuffs and gives you a bit more control over your strategy.

In a five-player game, the tempo was a lot more chaotic. A lot more hoping that someone else would beat your set so you could pick up the cards and have them flip around into exactly the right cards you needed. Or hoping nobody else plays a set of three because your three ones are exactly what you need to go out. The game became much more opportunistic and much less predictable the more players you added.

That said, dnup is easy to teach, easy to learn, and easy to play. The cards are big and colorful, albeit with no theme attached. That’s not a downside in my book, but overall it doesn’t quite have the same charm as Scout. I’m not sure if I’m not as hooked on dnu[ because Scout was the first game where I encountered cards with two different values on opposite sides, so it felt so fresh and innovative, or if I’m simply missing the novelty of not being able to sort your cards at the start of the round, forcing you to play tactically to collapse runs and sets into useful combinations in your hand. I cannot tell you how much I love that mechanic. I do like the coldness of dnup, the feeling of denying your opponents by sending cards running back to their hands. That direct interaction is absolutely lovely.

In the end, I like dnup, but not as much as Scout. They do feel like quite different games, but I kind of struggle to think of a situation where I would choose to bring out dnup over Scout, other than playing with people who have already played Scout and have heard of dnup, and want to give it a shot. I prefer dnup over Scout as a 2 player game, but I already have a ton of 2 player games that I love to play, and I’m not sure if dnup is going to be able to squeeze its way into that crowded genre.

I don’t think it’s a harsh criticism to say that I don’t like dnup as much as Scout. Scout is one of my favorite card games of the last several years, and dnup is still a clever, fast-playing card game. I enjoyed my plays of it, and I’ll happily play it again. For a mere $18 CAD, it was an easy buy. But I just don’t see it replacing Scout on my shelf or in my heart.