Yes, the name is too cute for its own good and creates all sorts of alphabetization and pronunciation dilemmas (“Hello, I’m Peter, and I’m anal-retentive. All the games on my shelf face the same direction and, whenever possible, are sorted according to publisher and genre.” “Hi, Peter!”). Get over it. And while you’re at it, get over the packaging and graphic design which seem to have been in cryogenic suspension since the 1970s. It’s what’s inside that counts, and 5ive Straight offers a cute little card/board game which your relatives will happily play and which might pleasantly surprise you.
The essential concept is one we’ve seen before. Multiple times, in fact, in games like Sequence and Touché. Faced with a grid, form five in a row by playing cards from your hand which let you claim spaces on the board. Mephistopheles is in the minutiae, as it were, and the designer of 5ive Straight made a couple of interrelated choices which elevate it above the pack.
The board is a “high-impact” plastic 10x10 grid with spaces numbered 1-100. The first key decision was to arrange those numbers in a spiral radiating outward from number one in the center. Combine this with the fact that a card entitles you to claim the corresponding space or any unoccupied space of a higher value, and you’ve got some interesting possibilities. The lowest numbers are obviously the hardest to peg into, and they’re also located in the prime real estate in the center of board. The highest numbers line the periphery of the board where they’re least useful. It’s easy to set up five-in-a-row on the high numbers, but it’s just as easy for your opponents to block.
The lower numbers are therefore doubly-crucial. They provide the greatest versatility in peg placement, and they provide access to the tactical high ground at the heart of the grid. Deciding how to use them means choosing between immediate needs and future possibilities. Low numbers are extremely useful to keep around for defense. There’s nothing more frustrating than needing to block a space but not having a low enough card to do so because you rashly used it up a turn or two earlier.
To add another wrinkle, players don’t automatically draw a card after playing one- it’s an either/or proposition. Subject to a maximum hand size of four cards, each turn you must choose between playing a card or drawing one. The implications are obvious- it’s always better to have more cards, yet to get them you have to give your opponent a chance to get in a one-two punch. The balance is that the tables inevitably reverse.
Three players can play individually. If that’s not enough, the game can fit more via partnership or team play. Many players prefer this version, but beware the additional random/risk factor it introduces. Do you make the defensive play yourself, or go on the offense and hope your partner has the right cards for the needed block? There’s a small chance of intuiting your partner’s holdings based on what they play, but with only four cards being held at once and with the frequency with which new ones get added, it’s more guesswork than deduction.
5ive Straight scores points over its similar cousins mentioned earlier because it actually gives you interesting, non-trivial choices to make during play. Those others offer two different places to play a given card, but in 5ive Straight there are as many as one hundred. Which card to play, and which of the two spots to play it, are usually obvious or meaningless decisions in the other games. Here that’s usually not true. Which isn’t to say we’re looking at a deep game here, by any means-- this is firmly in the family camp. But I’ll take a family game with tactical decisions over a family game without any day.
The publisher may be in California, but make no mistake-- 5ive Straight is vintage middle-America. It’s the kind of game your grandparents would play. What might surprise you is that it’s probably a game you wouldn’t mind playing either.