Sushi Go! (+ Surprise!)

Sushi Go! plays over three rounds, in which each player receives a hand of cards. Everyone secretly chooses one card to keep simultaneously and passes the rest to their neighbor, until all cards are gone. Each card scores in its own way: pairs of tempura, sets of three sashimi, escalating sequences of dumplings, and nigiri that can be tripled with wasabi. At the end of each round, you tally the points, except for pudding: those only count after the final round, where the player with the fewest pudding cards loses points. After three rounds, the highest total score wins.

Sushi Go! is one of THE classics among light card games and makes the drafting mechanism - known from games like 7 Wonders - accessible to truly everyone. The rules fit on a coaster, but beneath that simplicity lies a tactical tension: which card do you keep, what do you pass on, and what do you absolutely not want your opponent to have? Nan Rangsima's cute artwork with the smiling sushi characters makes the game particularly inviting and contributed to its worldwide success in over twenty languages. Reviewers praise it as the perfect entry-level game and filler: quickly explained, played in fifteen minutes, and with enough depth to also engage experienced players. A timeless gem that, after ten years, still appears on almost every recommendation list.