The Totally Insane Card Game
Reviewed by Brutilus

Published by: Gary and Susan Fowler
Playing Time: 10 minutes and up
Rating: 1 of 10

Upon completing my first game of The Totally Insane Card Game, I realized that this game must be an incredible amount of fun when your consciousness is thoroughly, pharmaceutically altered. Otherwise, it's just an immense steaming pile with poorly written rules.

The warning to not read through the instructions worried me. After all, shouldn't you know in advance how each card is played? There is no real logic behind what moves are legal to make. The instructions are terrible in general.

There are four sets of "quick reference" cards that explain how each individual card is to be played. That's ridiculous! Either a card should be self-explanatory, have instructions written on it, or should not be in the game. Even the detailed instructions on how to play each card in the manual were a bit unclear as to when and how a card could be played. Did I mention that there were over 25 different kinds of cards in the deck?

Victory conditions are not clearly stated, but it does say that when any player reaches 500 points, they lose. As near as we could figure, it was a last man standing arrangement.

Game play never reaches any kind of flow. It was always a bit stuttered. Any game should be able to attain a sense of flow for first-time players or they will never go back to the game. The lack of flow eventually lead to all 4 players in the game leaving the table somewhat frustrated and unsatisfied with the gaming experience.

I think that The Totally Insane Card Game could achieve some degree of success and be playable if they pared down the number of different types of cards and gave the rulebook a complete overhaul. The rulebook should be more detailed in terms of how play is to proceed and give clearer examples of legal moves. As it is, The Totally Insane Card Game comes off as a ponderously large and overcomplicated Uno variant.

The only place that I was able to find a copy of this game for sale was Wizards of the Coast.

Totally Insane Card Game is copyright Gary and Susan Fowler. Article and photo copyright 2003 MillionairePlayboy.com.