Officinalis

Players use a custom 55‑card deck organized into seven plant families, each with five common cards (values 1–5), one rare (10) and one toxic (−3). Two special cards and four specialist cards add bonuses and scoring modifiers. Each round a trump family is revealed from undealt cards. The lead player plays a card and subsequent players must either follow the family (playing any higher or lower value), play a trump, or, if void in trump, play any card. Tricks are won by highest trump or, absent trump, by highest card of the led family; the trick winner leads the next trick. Rounds end when the five rare cards have been collected. Collected cards score by face value, with specialist assignments secretly doubling a player’s points and certain card combinations granting extra points. The game is played over seven rounds.

Players: 1–4 best 4
Playing time: 20–30 min
Age: 7+
Complexity: 1 / 5