Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Cinderella's Dance was first released under the name Count Up 21 at a January 2019 event called "??????????" ("Is This a Trick-Taking Game?"). This two-player game may or may not be a trick-taking game, and is, in a sense, intended to live on the edge.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
Cinderella's Dance was first released under the name Count Up 21 at a January 2019 event called "??????????" ("Is This a Trick-Taking Game?"). This two-player game may or may not be a trick-taking game, and is, in a sense, intended to live on the edge. The game consists of a deck of cards (numbered 1-21) and two optional scoring cards. To set up a round, shuffle the cards, remove five from play, then deal each player eight cards. The starting player plays any card, then the next player either plays a card at most three higher than the previous card — so on a play of 5, the next player could play 6, 7, or 8 — or passes. When a player passes, the previous player collects the played cards, stacks them as a scored trick, then leads a card. When a player is out of cards, you resolve the current trick, then the player who has collected more tricks wins the round; in case of a tie, the player who collected the last trick wins. The first player to win three rounds wins the game.