Vantage (1985)

Overview

There are 106 cards: 5 suits (red, yellow, green, blue, purple) of 1-14, four Wild cards and 28 Action cards (Cards Up, Black Out, Pass One, Lose One). Each suit contains one special "BIG" card used in scoring (Red 10, Yellow 6, Green 7, Blue 12, Purple 2). Initial deal is four, Action cards in a separate stack.

On your turn, you turn over an Action card and follow its instructions. You then match, build or discard one card from your hand. Cards Up turns all cards on the table face up, Black Out face down. Pass One means everyone passes a card to one's right. Lose One means you put a card down face up.

Matching concerns the card values; you can collect cards of the same value as the played card, or pairs of cards that add up to that value. Building means you match as above but leave the matched cards as a pile, vulnerable to another player's matching. This is usually done so you can collect another card from your own hand (so you would "Build eights" with the table's 5+3 and your 8, hoping to "Match eights" on your next turn with your other 8). Discarding is what you do if you cannot Match or Build. This increases the table's pool of cards open for matching or building.

After you've played your 4 cards in this way, another round ensues, and so forth until the entire deck has been gone through. Scoring is +10 for the most cards collected, +8 for the most Purple cards collected, +6 for the most Red cards collected, +4 for each "BIG" card collected, +2 for each 1 card, +2 for each Wild card.

During a Black Out, you must memorize which card is which; if you declare a play but get the cards wrong, your played card is simply added to those already face down on the table.