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I remember playing a card game I'd like to find and buy, but I don't remember the exact name.

It is a game which we played with its own special-design deck. The cards have numbers going up to a bit above 100 (maybe 111?) and points represented by a few auerochs heads. A few special cards have unusually many auerochs heads.

I don't remember the exact rules, but I know that there are three piles laid on the table. The players have to discard cards from their hand onto the piles, with the number of the card played (and maybe also the pile size?) Constraining the cards which can be played, determining on which pile the card must land, and also whether a player has to take a pile as a kind of trick. At the end, the player with the fewest auerochs in his tricks wins. I think there might have been drawing of cards from a face down pile too, but not sure about that.

I remember it as a very dynamic game with simple rules and little wiggle room (once you choose a card to play, many events follow automatically) but at the same time lots of fun. There is no obvious winning strategy, and the ranking can change up to the very end.

I can't say if the game absolutely required the special deck, or If it could have been a modern redesign of a traditional 104 + some jokers card game, but it looked more like an independent design (no obvious relation to sous or traditional card values). It was in German, I can't say if originally produced in Germany. Search for additions card games only returns references to magic cards.

Can anybody help me identify it?

1 Answer 1

5

I think you're talking about one of the following:

All are variations on the same theme, so take your pick.

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    Yes, it was Take 5. In an amusing twist of fate, it is called Hornochsen ("horned bulls", a slang for "idiots") in German, which my mind bowdlerized to Auerochsen (the animal aurochs in German) and this is why I haven't been able to find it by my auerochs search.
    – rumtscho
    Jun 11, 2015 at 9:08
  • Reading the rules in depth, what I played was the original "6 nimmt" (translated as Category 5 in the USA) and not the derivation "Hornochsen" (translated as "Take 5"). But the original game still talks about Hornochsen even if it's not in the name. Thank you, this is definitely the same game.
    – rumtscho
    Jun 11, 2015 at 9:16
  • I thought Take 5 and 6 Nimmt are the same game. As in, if you play the 6th card onto a stack, you take the 5 cards that were already on the table.
    – freekvd
    Jun 11, 2015 at 13:48
  • I looked it up in a German game database. Take 5/Hornochsen is a minor variation of Category 5/6 nimmt. It is quite possible that both use the "take the 5 cards" rule, there are some differences in other rules though, and maybe some differences in the cards themselves (e.g. additional cards), I don't remember all details.
    – rumtscho
    Jun 11, 2015 at 13:56

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