Crazy Eights
BGG rank
BGG #31,450
BGG rating
4.5

Crazy Eights

Rules assistance for Crazy Eights

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

  • 2–5 players
  • 20 min
  • 4+
  • Complexity 1.1/5

Rules assistant for Crazy Eights

What would you like to know?

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

Crazy Eights is a board game for 2–5 players, 20 minutes per game, and ages 4 and up. Its main mechanics are Hand Management and Matching.

Similar games

About the game

Public domain card game which plays with a regular deck of cards. The idea is to get rid of all your cards FIRST. Everyone gets some number of starting cards (like 5), and must play a matching card (colour/suit/value), or pick up 1 from the 'stock' pile, and either play THAT or pass. There are many variants, according to Hoyle. Some have 8s as the wild card (any colour/value), while other use Jacks - hence the alternate names. All seem to have at least one 'pick up #' card, and one 'skip a turn' card. Variants also include pick-up 2s, which could accumulate if more 2s were played consecutively (pick up 4, 6, or 8), and Jacks as the skip-a-turn. In other variants played with 4s as skip-a-turns, Aces as pick up 1s and Queen of Spades as pick up 5. Crazy Eights is the game upon which the commercial UNO is based.

Publishers

  • (Unknown)
  • Super Impulse
  • ASS Altenburger Spielkarten
  • General Mills
  • Korea Boardgames
  • Fundex
  • F.X. Schmid
  • Ravensburger AG

Questions and answers

Crazy Eights supports 2–5 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.