Keep
Keep is a must have from Small Box Games. It is easy to throw in your pocket or purse and have available for any situation. Keep is a drafting game that takes roughly 5 minutes per player and can play 2-5 players… yeah, that’s right, it can be as fast as a ten minute game. The idea is to earn the most coins before a player runs out of cards. Earn your keep inside the Keep.
Waiting for breakfast … play keep. Early for a movie… play Keep. Friends late for game night… play Keep, then bitch at them for being late to game night. Girlfriend in the changing room… play Keep ( not sure who you would take shopping with you and a gf… but you get the idea) !!!
Let’s take a look at whats inside this little deck box!
Remember… Good things come in small packages! ( I resemble this remark!!!! As a 5’1 and 1/2 female I strongly believe this.)
We have Character cards, item cards, and the Royal Decree!
Character cards
Who are you going to be? Each character has an action as well as a point value.
Item Cards
Item cards are items that have coins on the bottom, usually 1 coin each and basic items. There are a few Prized items as well for a bit more coin.
The Royal Decree is the first player button.
You also have an itty bitty double sided rule book. Sweet and simple.
Now how do we play? That’s a cinch. Let’s set up…
Separate the characters and items and shuffle each deck. Deal each player 3 character 
cards and they choose who they will be in the Keep. Then take the 2 characters they didn’t choose as well as the rest of the 
characters and shuffle them up with the items.
( when they play their character they will play it face down in their play area… they use the word Cloister but i find that is a funky term and it makes me think of religion or something… not board game ish.) Place character cards with the mask up..landscape. If you are selling the cards or using them as money you place them with the coins up… portrait.
Example of a play area…… Top left card is a sold card for 3 coins, item cards played face up. Next, a character card played face up and a secret character card face down with mask up.
Deal out the hands. 
- For 2 players 7 cards each
- For 3 players 9 cards each
- For 4 players 8 cards each
- For 5 players 6 cards each
The rest of the cards form the deck and the player with the most change ( who carries money anymore? ) Gets the Royal decree and can choose to go first or last.
How do you play?
Hand check! … Check to see if everyone has as many or less cards than the royal hand. If they don’t, discard till they do. If no one has any cards then the game is over!
Player turn! … Well it’s easy; you play one card on your turn… Be it an item card, face up in your play area… A character card, face down in your play area… or play a character card as an action from your hand, face up and then unless it states otherwise discard it.
Now, if you don’t have a character card played face up, then as a bonus action you can flip over a single character card and use its action as well as keeping the card. You can only do this once.
Pass! … Once all players have played you hand over all of your cards in your hand to the player on your left! ( See I told you it was a draft game. ) You will continue playing till a player runs out of cards. Remember… as the cards change hands so does the Royal Decree!
Once the game has ended go ahead and count your points. Most points win!
Let’s rock a game out!
We will be Playing with Me, Me Too and Me Again! My three favorite people.
We have set up the game… each player has their hand and their first character
Me Too has too much change therefore she is the one to choose to go first.
She plays … 
An addition character card.
Me Again Plays … 
An additional character card.
Me plays … 
A face up Item card.
Now we are going to Draft the card hands
SWITCH!!!
Me Again chooses to go first, she plays… 
the beggar! She is playing this from her hand as a action. This allows her to draw a card and sell it. 
Me’s turn… She plays 
a character card face down.
Me Too!… 
Plays a item card… a prized item card.
SWITCH!!!
Switch!!!
Now we will keep going. Once a player has no more cards let’s take a gander at what’s under these cards and count our coins!
Me for 16
Me Too for 21
Me Again as the winner at 25!!!
Once you’re done it has the quickest clean up! Hope you enjoyed the post!
Thank you all for reading and as always, suggestions and comments are always welcome.
Have a game you want me to show? Let me know.
-WarBird signing off.
WarBird Gaming 