In L.L.A.M.A, you want to get rid of the cards from your hand as quickly as you can, but you might not be able to play what you want, so do you quit and freeze your hand or draw and hope to keep playing? We have been gifted a set of L.l.a.m.a for us to try and see how easy it is to play with players aged 10-37.
How Do You Play L.L.A.M.A?
In order to start playing the game each player starts with six cards in hand and the rest make up the face-down pile. Turn over the top card from the draw pile to create a discard pile. You are now ready to play. The youngest player goes first and takes one of these 3 actions for their turn.
Play A Card
The top card on the discard pile determines which card can be played. You can play a card of the same value as the top card or one with that value plus one. Llamas can be played on 6’s or other Llamas. On top of a llama you can play another Llama or a 1 – nothing else.
Draw a card
Draw 1 card from the draw pile. You can’t play a card on the same turn so the turn passes to the next player. IF the draw pile runs out don’t create a new one, this option is INVALID if the draw pile runs out.
Quitting
If you can’t play a card or don’t want to, and don’t feel like drawing a card either, then you can ‘quit’ the round. Place your cards face down in front of you and wait until your next turn.
then you go to the player on the left.
the end of the round
the round ends immediately if:
- One player has played all of their cards
- ALL players have quit the round
- If all but one player has quit the round that player continues on their own. They may not draw cards though from the deck.
Scoring in L.L.A.M.A
This is where we got a little confused so hopefully I have worked it out correctly. At the end of each round you must get tokens for each card you have remaining. This is called negative points. Each card is worth its value in points and Llamas are worth 10 points. You only count each value once though i.e. if you have 3 cards that are a 4 then you only count one lot of 4.
White Markers are 1 points
Black Markers are 10 points
You can swap markers freely at any time (You can exchange ten white tokens for one black token at any time), if you manage to play all of your cards and you have markers from before, then you may return one of them at a time.
You then shuffle all the cards and begin a new round, in which the first player to play will be the one who emptied their hand or was the last one to quit in the previous round. The game ends the round that at least one player has forty or more total points. Whoever has the fewest points wins!
Our Views On The L.L.A.M.A Card Game
At first we found it a little complicated so we started off just playing as Nick and I to try and work out how to play it, the rules etc but once we sorted that we really enjoyed it. The younger two kids found it a little long winded and confusing but soon enjoyed it once they got used to the rules and the way it worked.
Where Can We Buy L.L.A.M.A?
You can purchase L.L.A.M.A at Amazon**, Travelling Man, Zatu Games
**DISCLAIMER: This is an affiliate link – if you purchase from this link I may receive a few pennies from Amazon. It doesn’t increase the price you are paying.
DISCLAIMER: This item has been gifted to us but our opinions do not reflect on the products company, or the thoughts of any social media companies we have shared this review on.
We give our 100% honest opinions on the products we test and we have declared it is an AD and gifted as required by the ASA guidelines
