The penitentiary is in chaos. Prisoners are on the loose and rioting, and it’s your job to restore order. To make matters more difficult, the inmates are grouped into seven factions, and you have to round up as many of these gang members as you can to have any hope of success.
Lockdown! is a streamlined, themed version of the card game Canasta, specifically designed for two players. The 64-card deck consists of 49 Gang cards and 15 Special cards. Major improvements include simplified scoring and opportunities for cunning card play.
One of the problems with Canasta is that the player (or team) which takes the inevitable, massive discard pile will usually win the round. In Lockdown!, discard piles are far more manageable, and you can even remove up to two of them from the game! (Don't worry, there's a counter to this.) Additionally, four cards will score a meld (as opposed to seven in Canasta), and of course there are incentives to go higher than four.
Lockdown! plays quickly, and most of the rules are on the cards for easy reference. First player to 100 wins the game!