Cootie
BGG rank
BGG #31,469
BGG rating
3.5

Cootie

1927

Rules assistance for Cootie

Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.

  • 2–4 players
  • 20 min
  • 3+
  • Complexity 1.0/5

Rules assistant for Cootie

What would you like to know?

Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.

Cootie is a board game released in 1927 for 2–4 players, 20 minutes per game, and ages 3 and up. It was designed by William Schaper and J. H. W. and its main mechanics are Race, Set Collection, and Dice Rolling.

Similar games

About the game

Players race to construct a plastic bug, rolling a die to see which piece they get to add. The Hennepin History Museum states that the first Cootie game was designed by William H. Schaper in 1949. However, Schaper's game was not the first based upon the insect known as the "cootie". The creature was the subject of several tabletop games, mostly pencil and paper games, in the decades of the twentieth century following World War I. In 1927, the J. H. Warder Company of Chicago released Tu-Tee, and the Charles Bowlby Company released Cootie; though based on a "build a bug" concept similar to Schaper's, both were paper and pencil games. Schaper's game was the first to employ a fully three dimensional, free-standing plastic cootie. Known in Australia as Creepy Critters and in the UK as Beetle Drive.

Publishers

  • Hasbro
  • Klee
  • Toltoys
  • Milton Bradley
  • AMIGO
  • Gibsons
  • Basic Fun, Inc.
  • E. S. Lowe Company Inc.

Questions and answers

Cootie supports 2–4 players according to the catalogue. This range comes from the publisher’s listed player count, so the game can be set up for any group size within it. Some setups, rules and scoring details may still vary by player count, so check your edition’s rulebook for the exact configuration.