Our Verdict
DNUP is the perfect Christmas board game. Small and affordable, it gets your brain whirring and your mouth giggling for minimal investment. Lovers of games like Scout might find its card shedding mechanics a little same-y, but I think owning both is more than justified. DNUP is quirky, devious, and great fun for all ages and experience levels.
- Quick yet addictive
- Clever, clean rules
- Delightfully mischievous
- Delightfully mischievous
- A bit confusing to teach
- Quite similar to Scout
The big C is approaching. You know what I’m talking about. Michael Bublé stirs from his nest, and Mariah Carey’s sky-high tones are shaking the earth like an approaching T-Rex. Fir trees and slay bells haunt the supermarket aisles. It’s almost…Christmas time.
Some of you absolute animals started Christmas shopping in October (or even earlier), but November is the first socially acceptable month to do so. That means some of you are hunting for new board games to gift – or be gifted. Which of the year’s new releases are worth your money?
There’s a fair few. Our best board games guide diligently tracks the year’s top tabletop titles, so I recommend a quick browse. If your attention span is struggling, though, take this one recommendation, straight from the editor’s mouth. DNUP is one Christmas game everyone should buy – and it costs just $14.90.
I tried to resist buying a copy of DNUP at first. I was a huge fan of Kei Kajino’s previous design, the sleek card shedder Scout. But DNUP sounded too similar for me to own both. Do I really need two card shedding games with a unique hand-flipping mechanic?
The short answer is yes, good lord yes. Indulge me, though, and listen to a long answer that explains how DNUP plays.
DNUP is a race to empty your hand of cards, Uno style. The twist is your hand has numbers on both ends of each card. You can rearrange your hand as you like to create sets (cards of the same value) or runs (cards ascending or descending in order). The one thing you can’t do is flip your hand upside down.
On a typical turn, your goal is to play a set or run from your hand. If you’re the first player, you can do that no problem – even if you only plan to play a single card. After a turn or two, though, one condition must be met: your set or run must beat any already on the table.
Cards you play don’t get discarded immediately. Instead, they hang out on the table in front of you until all opponents have taken a turn. Survive that long, and you can safely discard the set. However, if a rival beats your hand before then, the cards return to your hand – flipped to their alternate number.
To beat an existing hand, yours must include higher value cards. A set of two cards only competes with other two-card hands on the table, and the one with the highest value wins. The losing hand becomes a new problem for its owner to solve. This simple mechanic turns DNUP into a dynamic game of take-that, where you’re constantly meddling with your friends’ plans to win. It’s the ‘how very dare you’ of card games.
But what if you can’t beat any existing sets? Lucky for you, there are alternate ways to spend a turn. You can add a single card from your hand to somebody else’s set, for example. That makes theirs stronger, but you at least lose one card from your hand. Plus, it might bring them into competition with another set of the same size already in play – forcing someone’s cards back into their hand. There’s that dastardly DNA again that makes DNUP so delightful.
If you’re still feeling desperate, you can take the set in front of an opponent, adding it (rotated) to your hand. Remember, you can’t flip cards around once they enter your hand, but you can otherwise rearrange them however you like. Adding cards directly opposes your goals, but it’s a slow, strategic move that might set up some powerful shedding later on.
If you’re still stuck, you can spend your turn rotating your entire hand. This is an absolute last resort, but sometimes it’s a necessary one to create new, playable sets and runs.
That’s all there is to it. The first player out take two ‘d’ and ‘n’ tokens, and the first to get four (and spell the word ‘dnup’) wins the game. DNUP is a snappy 15-minute affair that packs plenty of tactics into its short runtime. It’s quick, mischievous, and clever. In other words, it’s the perfect gift for the board gamer who has everything, or the family member you’re trying to welcome into your favorite hobby.
Want more tabletop recommendations? Hit me up in the Wargamer Discord – I’m always keen to chat about board games.
Source: Wargamer
