Cockroach Poker

If you are looking for a bluffing game that looks better than your standard poker cards, this is the game for you. Definitely worth playing a few rounds.

We love this game, as long as you don't mind a bluffing game. The artwork is fun, too - same-same for like-cards, but all with their own unique difference. An enjoyable game.

Good fun, better with adults than kids (as you can start being actively mean), though kids are fantastic liars! In large groups, you get some really interesting meta games coming out - especially once someone gets two of a kind, and people then start targeting them... Great artwork, and good size make it an excellent travel game too

Es un juego de cartas entretenido y fáciles reglas. En 5 minutos te pones a jugar y enseñas las reglas a un jugador nuevo aún más rápido. Convivencia con los niños muy buena.

I have a favorite saying from one of my nephews that games regularly with us and it's this. "I always tell the truth.....unless I'm lying." That phrase typically comes up at most of our monthly gaming sessions, and when bluffing games are a regular part of your group's plays you know many things about your group. In general, they are all a bunch of dirty liars, you can’t trust any of them, you know that one of them smiles ever so slightly when they are trying to pull one over on you, and lastly they will always look forward to a new bluffing game. Because of those things Cockroach Poker came to find its forever home in a corner of our gaming shelf with many of the other games that focus on bluffing. This game is incredibly tense yet ultimately satisfying for as simple as it is. Players need only take a card from their hand, slide it across the table towards another player and declare for example, “This is a scorpion.” The real game started moments before when you locked eyes with that player and they smiled as they slid that card towards you, an amount of tension developed and your heart quickened as you wondered why they selected you as their target. Now you are on the spot and have to decide what to do, the pressure is on and you have to begin sorting out the intricacies of a game where all that has occurred is card was given to you. The biggest component in this game is not the delightfully drawn cards featuring rats, scorpions, spiders, or cockroaches, it is the players seated around the table with you. The same friends and family who an hour previous were your partners in a cooperative game, are now staring you down with a smirk you wouldn’t have thought possible from them. Cockroach Poker develops all of its hilarity, deception, trickery, anxiety, and cheers of success directly from all of you, and this is utterly brilliant and pleasing on a level often not reached by other bluffing games. It thrives on a bit of chaos which develops in the room as players shuffle cards back and forth, trying to force other players to accumulate 4 of one kind of insect represented in the deck. However, the goal is not to win this game, no, the goal is to force another player to lose. This creates an atmosphere that is ripe with mistrust and sneaky tactics where you will eventually lose faith in anyone’s ability to tell the truth and that may eventually be your own downfall. This is of course all in good fun; the amusingly drawn characters on the cards make them pleasant and fun to pass around. It is never bad when you make an incorrect choice, or even lose the game. Someone’s sneaky smirk from seconds before erupts into shared laughter between everyone playing when someone has to take a card. The unique goal of not winning but instead forcing someone to lose is a refreshing change from most games as well. You will feel the pressure each time you must decide whether to accept or pass a card, or find secret relief when you notice a pattern developing that is aimed at a player other than you. There is a larger game at play in the background between players as alliances are formed and a common goal can be achieved by working together. This plays well with higher player counts, can be enjoyed, laughed about and a great time had by players age 6-99. You can set the tone for game to be silly and fun for new or younger players and a bit more confrontational when you’re among a group who plays bluffing games often together. It is easy to enjoy any style of play with Cockroach Poker, and in the case of my dear nephew who is always telling the truth except when he lies, well buddy, I guess I’ll get you next time…..maybe!