lorimartinez's Full Review: Deal or No Deal Card Game
One of my eight year old son's favorite television shows is Deal or No Deal. He recently saved up some allowance money and bought this game.
The premise of the game is pretty much identical to the television show. The game starts out with twenty-six briefcases, one of which contains $1,000,000. The other cases contain amounts starting at $.01 up to $750,000.
The contestant chooses one briefcase, leaving the others on the board. In each round, the contestant must choose a different number of briefcases from the board, eliminating (he hopes) the lower numbers and leaving the larger numbers - primarily the $1,000,000 which he obviously hopes is in his case!
After each round, a "banker" "calls" the contestant to make a monetary offer, which is based upon which cases the contestant has opened and what amounts are still left on the board. The contestant can take this deal and walk away, or say "No Deal!" and hope that at the end of the game his case contains the $1,000,000, or at least another one of the high amounts.
The home version comes packed in one attractive silver briefcase, which is about the size of a lunchbox. The case contains twenty-six Briefcase Cards, twenty-six Cash Cards, twenty-six Banker Cards, nine Round Cards, a pad on which to record which dollar amounts have been revealed and the instruction booklet.
To play, shuffle the Cash Cards and place them face down on a table. Cover each card with one of the numbered Briefcase Cards, keeping them in order from number one to twenty-six. At the very bottom place the nine Round Cards face up. The Bank Offer cards should be shuffled and kept face down in a pile.
The directions indicate that this game is for one or more players. We have found that it is best to play with at least two players, so that one can be the host and one can be the contestant. It's even better to have a third person to be the banker. To begin playing, the contestant chooses a briefcase, which is removed from the playing area by a player other than the contestant so that the contestant cannot see the cash card beneath it.
In Round One, the contestant must open six briefcases. He or she chooses any of the remaining briefcase cards, one at a time, to see what amounts are underneath. As each amount is revealed, that amount is crossed off of the pre-printed game pad. If two people are playing, the Host then takes the top bank offer card and offers that amount to the contestant. The contestant can take that amount, the "Deal!" or can choose to keep playing to try and get more money, so that there would be "No Deal!" at this point in time (or as my son would say "You'll be sooorrrryyyyyy"). Play continues in this same manner, with less briefcases having to be opened in each round.
We don't play the game quite that way. Shuffling the offer cards makes the offers too random. To make the home game more like the actual television game, we have the "host" or "banker" make offers based on what amounts are left on the board. If choosing the offers at random, a contestant who has just uncovered the $1,000,000 and $750,000 could be offered the top offer of $400,000, which didn't make sense to us.
One problem with this game is that the highest amount on the bank offer cards is $400,000, while the highest amount that you can get from choosing the correct briefcase is $1,000,000. In the real game, offers can be higher. We've also found that, since there are only twenty-six offer cards, there are some offers we'd like to make that aren't available. For example, the offers go from $500 to $1,000 to $2,500 to $5,000. What we've done is allow the option of "verbal" offers. I guess we could just make up some additional cards if we were feeling very proactive!
If, at any point, the contestant chooses the deal, that is the amount of money he wins and the game is over. If the contestant has gone through all eight rounds without taking a deal, he will have revealed the amounts under twenty-five of the cards, and will win the amount under the briefcase card that he originally chose.
According to the directions, when there is more than one player, each person is the contestant two times and whichever person has won the most total amount of money is the winner. Each round takes about 20 minutes and once we've each had a turn we're usually pretty much done with playing so we leave it at that. There are three of us in the family, but my husband loves being the banker, so it works out great for us for my son & I to each have a turn being the contestant. My son particularly enjoys making up alter-egos so when he is the contestant he can be a different person each time. Last time he was "Fancy Andrew". We had to make him a mustache, which he taped to his face.
The Deal or No Deal Card Game is recommended for ages seven and up, and that age range seems fair given the strategy needed for the game. The game is fairly easy to learn and use. My one complaint is that it takes several minutes to sort out the cards and set up for each round (which *I* always have to do!). However, there isn't really any way around that, other than buying the DVD version.
We purchased the game on sale at Toys-R-Us for $9, so I feel like we got a "Deal" right there. The silver carrying case is very sturdy, and stores everything nicely. The game cards are also sturdy. The game comes with a fairly good sized scratch off pad; we scanned it into our computer and made copies before we used them all.
Deal or No Deal is a fun game for the whole family. And if the rules don't all work for your family, just change them to suit you!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 9.00 Type of Toy: Game
Age Range of Child: 9 Years or Older
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