This Games Goes To Eleven: A Card Game of Numbers and Take-That

Get the discard to 11 and force another player to add cards to the score pile, but overshoot the mark and you’ll be adding those cards to your own.

Published by Gamewright, This Game Goes to Eleven is a light card game designed for 2-6 players and playable in 20 minutes.

Gameplay

The deck is made up of number cards. You shuffle the deck and deal each player three cards to form their hands. To start the game, you draw one card from the deck to start the discard pile. Most cards have a value of one through nine. On your turn, you play one card from your hand and add it to the discard pile, then draw back up to three cards. If the cards in the discard pile add up to less than 11, it is now the next player’s turn. If it is exactly 11, you take the discard pile and give it to any player, who then adds it to their score pile. The next player in turn order then starts a new discard pile with any card from his hand. If, after playing a card, the discard pile adds up to over 11, you take the discard pile and place it in your score pile.

You cannot play a card that is the same number as what is currently on top of the discard pile. If you choose to play a matching card, you instead place it next to the discard pile, starting an additional discard pile.

There are two special cards in the deck. First, there are the 11 cards — when you play an 11 it instantly sets the discard pile to 11 and you can give the discard pile to any other player. There are also the 0 cards. When another player plays an 11 card, you can instantly play the 0 to force that player to take the discard pile. Or you can play the 0 on your turn, to reset the value of the discard pile to 0.

The game ends once the draw pile runs out and everyone is out of cards. Players then count up how many cards are in their score piles, and the player with the fewest cards wins.

Review

This Game Goes to Eleven is a very, very simple card game. It’s in the same vein of games as Uno or Crazy Eights. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with those games, and it’s totally fair to have a great time with them, but we typically look for something with a little bit more to the gameplay and This Game Goes to Eleven does not provide that.

You have very little control over what you play. Sometimes you only have one option, and even when you have multiple cards that you can play it feels like luck most of the time whether you can force a particular opponent to pick up the discard pile or not.

It is a fun touch when someone plays the same number card as is currently on top of the discard pile to start multiple piles and it’s fun to have multiple piles to choose from when deciding where and what to play, although the additional piles don’t stay on the table long. Also, the take-that of picking who takes a discard pile when you hit eleven, can also lead to some fun social moments. Additionally, if you don’t like the take-that of the game, there is a variant where each time a player gets the discard pile, he passes the guitar pick to the next player. Then when the discard pile hits 11 it goes to the player with the pick rather than allowing the active player to choose who gets it.

The artwork is definitely an unusual style, and some people may like it, but we very much didn’t. The number cards are pretty plain, and we disliked the pictures for the 11 and 0 cards.

Gamewright is an excellent company that very seldom disappoints us, but This Game Goes to Eleven did. We didn’t enjoy our time with it. That being said, there are going to be some players who enjoy the rock and roll theme, will like the unique art style, and are looking for a very simple card game to play with family groups.

Pros: Very easy to learn, a good fit if you’re looking for a super light casual card game, you can choose to keep or remove the take-that element of the game

Cons: Players often don’t feel like they have any real choices during gameplay

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.