Taki (Hebrew: טאקי) is a commercial card game developed by Israeli game inventor Haim Shafir. The game is an advanced variant of the Crazy Eights (which is played with regular deck of playing cards) with a special card deck and extended game options. It was published in 1983 by Shafir Games. The game cards were designed by Israeli artist Ari Ron.
Contents
Game overview
Each player follows the preceding card, laid on the table, with a card of the same color or figure. Special cards may change the direction of play, skip a player's turn, make other players draw cards, change the color and allow a player to discard more than one card. The game includes 112 cards (2 identical sets of 56). The object of the game is to discard all the cards in your hand.
Rules
The cards are shuffled and each player receives eight. The rest of the deck becomes the draw pile. The top card in the draw pile is turned over and placed face up next to the draw pile to form a discard pile. The upper card of the discard pile is called the Leading Card. The youngest player goes first. Starting clockwise, each player discards a card (or cards) onto the leading card, by (a) matching its color; or (b) matching its number or figure; or (c) using a SuperTaki, Switch Color, or King card. A player who cannot play draws one card from the draw pile. It may be used only in the next round. A player who is left with one card in his hand must announce "Last card!" If he fails to do this before the next player made his move, he draws 4 cards from the draw pile. The game ends when the first player has discarded his last card.
Special Cards
All the cards which are not regular number cards are Action Cards. An Action Card can affect the player who uses it, the next player or all the players. These cards are the heart of the game and the key to winning.
A TAKI card must be closed at the end of its use by declaring "Closed TAKI!" after the last card. If the player does not close the TAKI, it is considered still "Open" and the next player may use it to get rid of all his cards of the same color. The TAKI remains open until one of the players who made use of it declares "Closed TAKI" or if a card of a different color has been played.
End of the game
The first player to exhaust his hand is the winner. The winner opens the next round.
Scoring points
The points scored are penalty points. At the end of each round the winner scores (-100) points. All the others score the sum of the cards remaining in their hands as follows: For each Number Card - The value of the card. For each Action Card - As listed for each Action Card. After 6 rounds, the points are counted up and the winner is the one with the lowest score.
Another version of this game is Coco-Taki, which uses animal sounds.
Educational benefits
Researchers have determined that playing card games such as Taki have educational benefits for children.