Whenever I ask math teachers their favorite math games, the two that always seem to come up are Prime Climb for numbers and operations and Set for visual perception, critical thinking, and logic. The Set card game has won 35 different best game awards, including Mensa Select and Parents’ Choice, and the first time I played I could see why.
I will say I had to read the instructions a couple of times to understand the rules, but once I got it the game was easy to jump into playing. The only thing you need is the deck of cards, and only 12-15 cards are on the table at a time, so you can play it anywhere, even with limited space. You can play alone or with any number of players. People of all ages can play together. Everyone plays at the same time so there is no waiting for turns. While a full game takes about 20 minutes, you could easily adjust the number of rounds for a shorter or longer game. As one of the Amazon reviews said, “This has enough complexity to keep adults going and enough simplicity for children to play.”
Here is a short tutorial explaining game play:
Variations:
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