The holiday-themed 12 Days takes the familiar "Twelve Days of Christmas" song and twists it into a quick-playing card game. Over twelve rounds, players try to re-gift unpopular cards while keeping cards that are strong enough to win the day, while also keeping a careful eye for bonus scoring at the end of the game.
The gift deck consists of eighty cards: one partridge in a pear tree, two turtle doves, and so on up to twelve drummers drumming, as well as one card each for Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Shuffle this deck, then deal each player twelve cards. Each round a new holiday card is up for grabs, with the cards ranked from 1 to 12 and being worth 1-12 points. In a round, a player:
Gifts a present to the player to his left,
Opens presents and tries to win the day with the best present, and
Buys a new gift to refill his hand.
More specifically, all players simultaneously pass one face-down gift card to their left-hand neighbor. Then everyone chooses one gift card in hand and reveals them simultaneously. Whoever plays the lowest gift card wins that round's holiday card; in the event of a tie for lowest, with the Clauses counting as zero, then the next lowest card wins. Each player then draws one card to bring their hand back to twelve cards.
After twelve rounds, players score points for each holiday card they've collected. In addition, whoever holds the most gift cards for each rank scores as many points as that rank, with all tied players scoring in the event of a tie. Whoever has the most points wins. Happy holidays!
12 Days Review!
- Accessible and quick to teach
- Family-friendly and holiday-themed
- Artwork evokes the season and enhances mood
- Every card has value; interesting balance of low and high cards
- Good transition from traditional card games to a board-game style experience
- Might be too lightweight for players seeking deeper strategy
- End-of-game scoring can feel fiddly for some players
- Not ideal for very long play sessions
- gift-giving; festive competition; Santa and Mrs. Claus appearance
- Christmas season; gifts exchanged across the 12 days of Christmas
- Spades
- Hearts
- Euchre
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card passing — each round players pass one card to the left and draw from the right, keeping a 12-card hand
- Gift exchange — special zero-valued Santa/Mrs Claus cards auto-win tricks but must be given as gifts to other players
- Set collection and scoring — points are tied to the day numbers; end-of-game scoring rewards most of each rank and cancels equal numbers
- Trick-taking — players play cards; whoever plays the lowest card wins the trick; later rounds scale in points
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- the artwork of this was really fun that stained glass type of thing
- i really like how every card was valuable in certain situations
- you could teach this at a christmas gathering
- it's the perfect segway from traditional card games into a board game
References (from this video)
- Accessible family-weight with engaging theme
- Deep, emergent strategy via multiple scoring avenues (tickets, excursions, bonuses)
- Extendable with variants for more depth
- Rules can be heavy for a lightweight title; math-heavy scoring can be intimidating
- Some players may find scoring arcane or combinatorially complex
- holiday travel, managing warmth and crowds, scoring through excursions
- Norway cruise, holiday villages, Arctic scenery
- instructional demonstration with playthrough
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Color-coded passengers and purple bonuses — Different colored passengers are crossed off; purple passengers unlock bonus abilities when two are collected.
- Dice rolling — Roll dice with a heated section; heated dice require warmth to activate; values determine movements and scoring.
- Dice rolling with heated dice — Roll dice with a heated section; heated dice require warmth to activate; values determine movements and scoring.
- Extensions variant — River tiles extension adds more tiles and allows longer paths to villages and more excursion options.
- Heat management — Spend heat to activate heated dice; excess heat reduces options and ties in with excursion costs.
- Median-based sorting — Order dice by value around the median; values above the median go on heated side, below on cold side.
- Range-based movement — Move a cruise ship a number of spaces equal to the die's value; excursions must remain within range of the ship.
- Ticket and excursion scoring — Complete ticket rows by selecting dice; excursions score as a function of the number of tickets times excursion value.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Everything higher than the median goes on the heated side.
- The median is four.
- Ties are not enough.
- In phase two, do not cross out any fire symbols when using the green guy.
- That's the most important part.
References (from this video)
- Seasonal appeal for fans of holiday games
- Accessible for families
- Availability limited; potential repetition in play
- Seasonal ornaments and gifts as cards
- Holiday countdown game in a boxed format
- Light and thematic family game
- Gingerbread House (holiday drafting line)
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card drafting — Draft cards to score with set alignments.
- set_collection — Collect cards representing calendar days with special effects.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- we have to say thank you to everybody out there for subscribing
- the energy of Pax unplugged was unbelievable
- the experience is driven by the person who's rolling the dice
- this is a long-term game for me