Wanna go WILD? Do you like to play Cribbage but, want to add a little spice to the game? Then it may be time to go Wild. This Crib additive will make you laugh and cry. Buy it here.
Wild Cribbage is played by drawing one of 31 Wild Crib cards every time a multiple of five is counted during the play. For example, if the dealer opens with a 9 and the other player lays down a 6 , bringing the count to 15, the player would score 2 for 15 and then draw a Wild Crib card and follow the instructions on it.
The instructions on a Wild Crib cards can be good or bad to the person drawing or his opponents. Some give you interesting scoring modifications based on the cards played (If you drew because of a run, double that score! Otherwise, everyone else gets a go!) or (Take 2 points for every 9 played! Lose 2 points for every 6 played!), others are very simple (“Take 2 points!”). Some can cause dramatic shifts in scoring (If it’s your Crib, double that score!) or (Go back the number of points in the dealer’s Crib!)
Some cards leave the player in the stinkhole. The stinkhole is a term for hole 120 on the Cribbage board. In Wild the stinkhole is wherever you draw one of the stinkhole cards. The only way to leave the stinkhole is by scoring one point (either by last card, his nobs, or a go). All other points are ignored until a one has been scored.
Some of the rules are vague and you many question the effect and play of the Wild card. For example, drawing a Stinkhole card because you counted to fifteen. The official rules encourage you to make up your own rules and playfully prohibit alteration of the rules once made up.
Here is one review of someone who’s played the game. Our responses are in bold italics.
I have played this game several times with my brother-in-law. We both love Cribbage and we were both very unimpressed with the changes this game offered. While some of the cards offered a fun change of pace, such as each player using a different cut card, the added rules destroy all of the opportunities for strategizing that Cribbage offers. We found ourselves wondering why we should you carefully consider which two cards to place to place in the Cribs when a randomly drawn Wild Crib card could prevent us from scoring them? Comment: The whole point is the wildness, fun and conversations created by the turn of a Wild card.
The Wild Cribs cause the game to move far too quickly and cause a significant runaway leader problem. If a dealer has both his own Crib and a Wild Crib, the means he is scoring three hands to the pone’s one. Alternating who has the Crib keeps Cribbage balanced; allowing the Dealer to take two to three Cribs in a row introduces an unfair and purely luck-driven advantage to one player. Comment: A Wild Cribbage game is at it’s finest when played with 4 player and could drag a game late into the night. It’s high-grade when played with 3. It’s respectable with 2 players. And sad with only 1.
By far the weakest element of the game is it’s fondness for leaving players stranded where they are on the board, unable to score because they are in the stinkhole. 7 of the 31 cards, nearly 25% have the potential to leave the player in the stinkhole.
Wild Cribbage is a bad game, made all the worse for its missed potential. By focusing more on the cards that added some fun and variety into the game and less on the stinkhole, this could have been a fun “party-game” variation on Cribbage. As it is though, it is a boring and unplayable mess. I rate it, without hesitation, a 1 of 10.