Seeing David’s post on Ligretto reminded me of Dutch Blitz, a perennial bestselling card game since 1960. I’m pretty sure it has similar rules: start piles in the middle and work your way up numerically, relying on how fast you can play your cards and cycle through your deck.

Dutch Blitz has its own web site, where it calls itself a “Vonderful Goot Game”.

The speed-based card game has been a favorite for children and teenagers for some time. One of my daughters is hooked on Jungle Speed, and the other on Spit aka Speed.

It looks like these games fall into two rough categories:

• Players cycle through their deck, building up piles in the middle and trying to run out of cards. Examples include Dutch Blitz, Ligretto, and Spit, as well as themed games such as Lift Off.
• Cards are flipped up, and each player has to react first to the new face up cards. Players try to run out of, or collect, cards. Examples include Slap Jack, Jungle Speed, Set, My Word, and Halli Galli.

There may be others; that will take some additional research.

If you’re looking to make an educational game, this is probably the right mechanic to use. Racing to place the correct operator onto a math equation or verb to complete a sentence is guaranteed educational and fun at the same time.

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