QUARTO VS SKIP-BO

Quarto is a board game for two players invented by Swiss mathematician Blaise Müller. It is published and copyrighted by Gigamic. The game is played on a 4×4 board. There are 16 unique pieces to play with, each of which is either: tall or short; red or blue (or a different pair of colors, e.g. light- or dark-stained wood); square or circular; and hollow-top or solid-top. Players take turns choosing a piece which the other player must then place on the board. A player wins by placing a piece on the board which forms a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row of four pieces, all of which have a common attribute (all short, all circular, etc.). A variant rule included in many editions gives a second way to win by placing four matching pieces in a 2×2 square. Quarto is distinctive in that there is only one set of common pieces, rather than a set for one player and a different set for the other. It is therefore an impartial game.

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Skip-Bo is a commercial version of the card game Spite and Malice, a derivative of Russian Bank (also known as Crapette or Tunj). In 1967, Minnie Hazel "Skip" Bowman (1915–2001) of Brownfield, Texas, began producing a boxed edition of the game under the name SKIP-BO. In 1980 the game was purchased by International Games, which was subsequently bought by Mattel in 1992. A mobile version of the game for iOS was released by Magmic in September, 2013. There is a new version called "SKIP-BO Mod" that comes in a white and blue case. Two to four people can play at a time as individuals, or, six or more players in teams (no more than three partnerships). The object of the game is to be the first player or team to play out their entire stock pile(s). The player with the middle age goes first. Each player is dealt 30 cards (recommended 10-15 for faster gameplay) for their pile with only the top card visible, and a hand of five cards, and the remaining cards are placed face down to create a common draw pile. The shared play area allows up to four build piles, which must be started using either a "1" card or a Skip-Bo, and each player also has up to four personal discard piles. Each turn the active player draws until they have five cards in hand, though there are cases of not drawing more cards to equal five cards, instead doing a draw of a certain number of cards. They must play either the next card in sequential order or a wild Skip-Bo card, using either cards in hand, the top card of their stock pile, or the top card of any of their four discard piles. If the player can play all five cards from their hand, they draw five more and continue playing. When no more plays are available, the player discards one card to either an empty discard pile or on top of an existing one and play passes to the next player. When a build pile reaches 12, it is removed from the board and that space becomes empty for another pile to be started; play continues until one player has played their final start card.

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