Skip-Bo Card Game

Invented by a woman in Texas called Minnie Hazel Bowman, who called herself Skip, and named it after her own nickname.

Skip-Bo has been in print since 1967 and Mattel have never had to change it, because the design is airtight. You are dealt a stock pile and the only thing that matters is emptying it. Numbers go down in sequence, one to twelve, into four shared build piles, and the wild cards let you cheat the order when you are stuck.

The tension is in the discard: you must end every turn by discarding, and everything you discard becomes ammunition you can use later or a wall you have built in front of yourself. Two to six players, and it stretches to a genuinely wide age range because a seven-year-old and an adult are both just counting upward.

Perfect for: Caravan parks, long afternoons, and relatives who consider Uno beneath them.

2-6 players | 20-30 minutes | Age 7+