Miscellany: Coup card game review

Whenever my sister and her husband come down, we break out the board games. Mostly we play "light" Euro strategy - stuff like Catan and Carcassonne - but sometimes there's just not enough time to roll dice or lay tiles.  For quick hits of gaming, we turn to "party" style card games like Coup.

In Coup, each player controls two character cards with unique powers (the Duke, for instance, allows you to take more money from the treasury than normal). The rub is that your character cards are hidden from everyone else, so you can fool people into thinking you have powers that you really don't. Be careful, though - if someone correctly calls your bluff, you lose one of your cards. If you accuse someone of bluffing but are wrong, you lose a card, too.

Coup is not terribly deep, and often very dependent on luck. However, the bluff mechanic holds up well whether you are playing once or twice (games last 10 minutes tops) or over and over again. For the price and size of the game, it's a fun, surprisingly social game.