Oh, Pharaoh! is a simple card game by Thilo Hutzler, published by Uberplay.
Players: 3-4
Time: 40-60 minutes
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)
The Components
Oh, Pharaoh! comes in a small box with the following components:
- 90 cards
- 1 game board
- wood bits:
- 1 rulebook
Cards: The cards are all printed at a small size on plain, though sturdy card stock. (I'm always a bit disappointed when card stock in a card game isn't coated and/or textured, but this stock is heavy enough that I'm pretty sure it'll stand up to play.) The fronts are full color, while the backs feature a plain sepia texture over line art.
79 of the cards are "buiding stone cards", which each show a value between 1 and 9 carved onto a large stone (or else has a big blank space for one of the wild cards). There are more of the low-value cards than the high-value cards.
10 of the cards are "special effect cards": 5 thieves, 2 tax collectors, and 3 pharaohs. These cards unfortunately have no text on them to explain what they do, but we only had to look up one of the cards once in the game, and after that everything was obvious.
The last card is the "game end" card which is only mixed in after a couple of rounds of play.
The artwork on the front of all the cards is cartoony, nicely thematic, and overall enjoyable.
Overall, the cards were much smaller than I like to have for a predominantly card-based game, and were a bit hard to shuffle all together as a result. However, after having played through the game I understood the reason for the size decision. With pyramids often topping out at five levels, full-size playing cards might have filled on the space on a table.
Game Board: This small two-panel board is a turn track for the game. It depicts 11 spaces in an isomorphic view with cartoon art that is again nicely evocative and matches the art on the cards.There are a few spaces wherein the rules for the game slightly change and these are clearly marked.
The board is sturdy, full-color, linen-textured, and overall high quality.
Wood Bits: The "score keeper" is a plain wood cone that's used to mark position on the game board. The die is a plain wooden die marked 1-6 with the pips inked in black.
Rulebook: The rulebook is a four-fold glossy rulesheet that's attractively produced and filled with pictures and examples. There were a few points that I thought were a bit vague (particularly having to do with wild cards: do they score if used as the only card in a row? and: can they be used for values higher than 9?; but also having to do with the all important pyramid building: can you enlarge pyramids sideways?). We were able to come up with decent consensus rules for all these situations, and beyond them the rules were simple and easy to understand.
Box & Tray: The box is a small square box produced to the German standard: which means quite sturdy and linen textured. It's unfortunately quite oversized for a game that mainly consists of a deck of small cards. There is a tray in the box which keeps the cards from going all over, which is quite useful, though the tray clearly wasn't designed for the game (it may be a standard that Uberplay is using for other products in their small-box series: we'll see).
Missing from the game is a way to mark the scores of the players, though that's somewhat understandable given that they'll reach a few hundred points each. Paper and pencil work fine.
A reference card for each player listing how many of each card there was would also have been quite valuable, since, as mentioned, the distribution varies from the low-number to high-number cards.
Overall I found the components of Oh, Pharaoh! slightly above average, thanks to the colorful & attractive artwork and the high-quality board, and thus I've awarded them a "4" out of "5" for Style.
The Game Play
In Oh, Pharaoh! you build pyramids of cards of increasing value in order to score points.
Setup: The game starts with each player being dealt 7 cards and the score keeper being placed on the first space on the game board. Three unique cards are then flipped up next to the draw pile (if at any time more than one of the same card appears among those three, it's discarded and redrawn).
Pyramids: The whole game centers around pyramids of cards. These are sets of cards arranged in a rough pyramid, with rows stacked on top of each other. Each card pyramid must be at least 3 cards big and include at least two levels. There are also some additional rules for building: each pyramid level must have fewer cards than the level below it; the cards in each pyramid level must have a value exactly one higher than those on the level below; and all cards in a pyramid level must be of the same value.
Order of Play: Each turn a player follows this sequence of play:
- Score Pyramids
- Draw a Card
- Take Actions
- Discard a Card
- Adjust Hand to Seven
Score Pyramids: At the start of his turn a player may decide to score a pyramid he has in play. Initially two level or higher pyramids may be scored, but after the score keeper reaches the sixth space on the game board, only three level of higher pyramids may be scored.
The value of a pyramid is equal to the value of the cards type used to build each level times the number of levels of a pyramid. For example, a simple, regular pyramid might have one "5" over two "4"s over three "3"s. The value of this pyramid is: (3 + 4 +5) x 3 or 36.
After a pyramid is scored, that point total is marked down for the player and then the entire pyramid is discarded.
Draw a Card: A player may now takea card either from the draw pile or from one of thre three face-up cards; if a face-up card is taken, it's replaced from the draw pile.
Take Actions: A player may take a number of different actions during the core of his turn. They are: trade; build pyramids; enlarge pyramids; play thieves; or play tax collectors. There is no limit to the total number of actions that can taken during a player's turn.
Trade. Simply, a player may exchange cards in his hand with cards held by other players. It's entirely freeform trading, provided that the active player is involved.
Build Pyramids. A player may play a brand-new pyramid by playing a number of cards straight from his hand. Initially, each player may only have one pyramid in play at a time, but after reaching the third space on the game board, each player may have up to two. A pyramid must always be legal, and is built using the rules discussed above.
Enlarge Pyramids. A player's existing pyramid may also be enlarged by adding rows to the top or to the bottom or by expanding current rows.
Play Thieves. If a player has a thief he may play it. This allows him to try and take a stone from an opponent's pyramid; to be successful, the player must roll the number of levels of the target pyramid or higher on the six-sided die. If this theft makes the pyramid illegal, the target player takes stones into his hand as appropriate, possibly leaving a smaller pyramid behind.
Playing a pharaoh card prior to the die roll protects a player from a thief.
Play Tax Collectors. If a player has a tax collector he may play it. This allows him to take a random card from each other player's hand.
Playing a pharaoh card prior to the selection protect a players from a tax collector.
A Note on Jokers. There's one final type of card a player may play, the Joker (which I've been referring to aboev, more accurately, as the wild card). You can play these anywhere in your pyramid to replace any other number.
However, on your turn, you can also take a wild card contained in a pyramid belonging to another player if you can replace it with the correct building stone number.
Discard a Card: After taking all his actions a player may, if he likes, discard one card from his hand.
Adjust Hand to Seven: Finally, a player either draws or discards as required to bring his hand to seven cards. (Usually, this means drawing, as a good player will nearly empty his hand on most turns.)
Moving Along the Game Board: Every time a pyramid is scored, the score keeper is moved one space forward on the game board. As already noted, when it reaches space #3, players can now build two pyramids simultaneously, and when it reaches space #6, pyramids now must have three levels to be scored.
When the score keeper reaches space #10 the end game begins. The Game End card is shuffled into the deck of cards, and when it's drawn, the game ends immediately.
Ending the Game: At the end of the game, any legal pyramids still out are scored. The player with the most points is the winner.
Relationships to Other Games
I'd call Oh, Pharaoh! a set collection card game on steroids. The most popular set collection card game is, of course, Rummy, where you try and collect either sequences (2-3-4-5-6) or groups (2-2-2). In Oh, Pharaoh you instead collect a sequence of groups needed to form a pyramid (2-2-2-3-3-4). It's an interesting and well-considered variation of a classic mechanism. The card distribution is also far varied from a standard deck of cards. There are many more low cards (13 "1"s) than high cards (3 "9"s), which correlates with their corresponding value in scoring.
On top of this hybrid set collection mechanism are a number of interplayer activities. You can trade with other players, you can steal their cards, and you can partially collapse their pyramids. These actions give players more control over their destinies, but also increase the chaotic content of the game considerably.
The Game Design
Oh, Pharaoh! offers some very different gameplay from a more standard Rummy, but the overally sensibilities and strategic values seem about the same. Here's some of the good points of the game:
Great Balance for Set Building: Almost everything in the game successfully makes it easy for players to collect sets they're interested in. You can choose face-up cards, trade cards with other players, steal cards from other pyramids, and discard bad cards. Together these take out some of the frustration and random draws of classic Rummy games, and instead allow you to play a bit more strategically.
Nice Risk & Brinkmanship: The thieves force a player to consider issues of risk & brinkmanship. When you've got a nice pyramid, do you score it immediately, or do you risk it staying out another turn, in the hope of it becoming even more valuable? This can often be a hard decision because the value of the pyramids goes up dramatically as you increase the number of levels, but your pyramid also becomes a bigger target. This also creates a nice sense of dramatic escalation for other players.
Here's some of the less appealing points of the game:
A Bit Long: At 45-60 minutes, the game is a bit long to act as a filler and a bit repetitive by the end.
Thieves & Tax Collectors Quite Powerful: The thieves and tax collectors are quite powerful--perhaps overly so. It's a shame that when the drawing of the other cards is so well balanced, as mentioned above, that the drawing of these particular cards can help win or lose the game.
King Making Issues: Closely related, the value of the thieves gives potential king-making power to their holders. It's just a little too easy to knock the top player down, and if this is done at the end of the game, the outcome will often determine the entire game's outcome.
Math Intensive: The math required to calculate the values of the pyramids can be a bit intensive. I had zero problems myself, but I suspect some others could find the additions and multiplications a bit excessive.
Overall, I found the game an interesting alternative to Rummy. I don't think it plays more strategically, just differently, perhaps even a bit less strategically due to the inherent chaos introduced by the thief and tax collector cards. I've thus given it an average Substance rating: "3" out of "5".
Conclusion
If you enjoy set collection games, and are looking for an alternative to vanilla Rummy, this is a nice possibility. I don't find it as strategic as a Mystery Rummy or Coloretto, but it's nonetheless a solid game, particularly as a casual or family offering where its simplicity may win out over a more strategically complex game.
This is one to bring home to the wife, husband, and kids.
Review Summary