Top 9 Favorite Push-Your-Luck Games

[@ludwigmises]

While not exclusively a push-your-luck game, standard trick-taking card game Hearts has some great push-your-luck moments if someone tries to “shoot-the-moon.” In the game, you’re trying to avoid taking hearts; points count against you. But if you can capture all hearts (along with the Q of spades), you saddle all the other players with points. Once you try to go for it, other players may catch on and deliberately win a heart to thwart your plan, leaving you with a bunch of negative points.

[@namethem00]

@@ludwigmises Our family loves hearts, works well with a wide range of players as well which is a plus. I am yet to get others to try it, but I am interested in the Chinese version of hearts. I want to say it's translated to weed out the pig or something. Anyways, I believe it's just a more complex version

[@scotmattison3367]

Couple that I like: Dreadball - Sports game where you can evade, dash, catch and throw your way to victory with dice rolls that can boost your actions. Thunder Road Vendetta - a lot of moments you can push your luck to get the advantage to win the game … and if you don’t you die gloriously. In general, I love sports games and I think push your luck can really give you the feel of “the joy of victory or the agony of defeat”.

[@carlosb.6851]

Mad respect for Sergio. Nice to see him here.

[@PablowingUrMind]

Chicken! and Ya Blew It! are two I like. Both happen to have exclamations in their title and cylindrical containers 😂

[@keithrex1481]

My two favorite ones are Quacks of Quedlinburg and Incan Gold.

[@Kartenhouse]

I love both Clank! and Quacks of Quedlinburg. In terms of other Yahtzee-type games (such as Dice Throne), I was a bit surprised not to see King of Tokyo on the list. I especially like the Dark Edition as it compensates you a bit for rolling three 1s which is generally a pretty bad result. For Clank!, we introduced a house rule in our gaming group: We stole Dune's atomics mechanism, allowing each player to wipe the shop once per game. It leads to more dynamic games, as sometimes you get stuck with bad shops. One more thing to add about Quacks: I love how well balanced it is, despite the heavy luck element. The rat's tails really work well in this game.

[@AndrewWatsonChangingWay]

I'd go for Can't Stop with 4 or fewer, Incan Gold with more. Also like Ra, Quacks,...

[@RubyRevolution2015]

I thought that I would hate push your luck but I was won over by Namiji which includes a fun mini game of fishing for shrimp until two crabs cause you to lose your haul. It is a low stakes and very fun addition to a great gateway game.

[@jameystegmaier]

I love those elements in Namiji!

[@TheSlussDogg]

I have to recommend: Port Royal (designed by Alexander Pfister) Bloodborne: The Card Game (designed by Eric Lang) Megaland (designed by Ryan & Malorie Laukat)

[@vincedemarco5585]

I was a little surprised that Living Forest wasn’t mentioned.

[@jameystegmaier]

That's a fun one!

[@StevenStJohn-kj9eb]

I'm someone who doesn't mind a little bit of randomness if it's buried in a ton of agency. I don't mind games where you draw from the deck and you might not get the card you were hoping for, or rolling dice and having to deal with the results. But pure push your luck games I really dislike. Maybe I just know too much math, but these games always have an optimal decision when to stop. If I try to defy the odds and I'm successful, I don't feel clever or bold, I just feel lucky. If I win a game I want to have been more clever, not the benefit of dumb luck. It's plenty possible to win a push your luck game by making many objectively bad decisions (press your luck when the odds are against you) and then just getting lucky. So you actually win by making bad decisions. I really hate that. A game like Clank In Space is perfectly fine for me: I have a lot of control in how much of my clank goes into the bag, and every draw involves all players, so it's not like it's up to me to "press" my luck. Deciding when to get out is a strategic decision involving an understanding of what other players are doing, not a guess at some random outcome. This feels more like an event-driven game, where at some point an event happens that effects all players. Similar with Ra. I think the main press your luck element in Ra is when you are the only player left, but I've rarely been in that position.

[@nirszi]

After watching this video and others recommending Spots I bought it and played it today with my kids. We love push your luck here, MLEM might be our favorite. Anyhow we were somewhat disappointed with Spots, the only agency we felt we have is only when picking the tile to turn over, after rolling the dice the next choice was always pretty obvious and we didn't find the mitigation options satisfying enough. Maybe we need to play with more advanced tiles but I don't think this will be a keeper. Shame because we love the theme.

[@jameystegmaier]

Thanks for sharing your first impression! I find that I have a fair amount of agency in Spots. You're right that part of it is the tile you choose, but a big part of it is when to stop on your turn, both for maximizing the current action and considering when to pursue a turn when you complete all current dogs, as that immediately completes all of them instead of you needing to take a turn to do that.

[@bushibayushi]

If you haven't already, try PUSH - it's a great push your luck game ;)

[@jameystegmaier]

I own Push, and I like it!

[@foyoGames]

Valiant Wars is a cool pyl deckbuilder

[@jameystegmaier]

I'm not familiar with that one. What is its push your luck element?

[@foyoGames]

​​@@jameystegmaierit's a blackjack bust type of thing, if you hit 2 curse cards from your deck then you waste your whole turn, can't buy anything from the market or fight anything. Now that I think about it, it's alot like Mystic Vale.

[@jameystegmaier]

@@foyoGames That sounds great! A bit like Quacks and Living Forest too.

[@foyoGames]

@jameystegmaier Only played Quacks the 1x, long ago, but Yup, busting. Still waiting to play Living Forest :(

[@kostiantynshapran163]

Hi Jamey, have you tried off leash hours variant(playing with all trick tiles) for Spots? What do you think about it?

[@jameystegmaier]

That sounds intense! I haven't tried it.