tabletoppingboardgames 
At first glance, Ninety Nine looks very straightforward. You build rows of cards, you score points, and you race to 99. That’s really it. But once you actually sit down and play, it becomes clear that the interesting part isn’t the goal, it’s all the decisions along the way. Mostly about timing. And about how greedy you’re willing to be.
You’re working on your own personal card row, trying to make it longer and more valuable, while at the same time keeping an eye on the shared discard piles in the middle of the table. Those piles change constantly and often ruin whatever nice plan you had in your head. The game ends the moment someone reaches 99 points, so there’s always this feeling that things could be over sooner than you expect.
The game uses only cards. Numbered cards in different colours, plus a few reference cards that remind everyone how the discard piles work. Each player has a hand of cards, a personal draw pile, and a personal row that you’ll build up, score, wipe, and start again several times during a game.
👥 2-4 players, ages 8+
⌛ Playing time: 30 minutes
📝 Designer: Reinhard Staupe
🎨 Artwork: Oliver Freudenreich & Sandra Freudenreich
🏢 Publisher: KENDi (review copy provided)
Gameplay overview
At the start of the game, each player gets six cards in hand and a personal draw pile of fifteen cards, face down in front of them. Two discard piles are placed face up in the centre of the table. Play goes clockwise, and every turn follows the same three steps: add a card to your row, optionally play cards to the centre, then draw back up to six cards.
First, you must place exactly one card from your hand into your personal row. The first card can be anything. After that, cards have to go in strictly increasing order from left to right. Gaps are fine, but numbers can never go down. On top of that, each colour may only appear once in your row. So even if the number fits, the colour might block you.
How long your row is determines how many points it’s worth when you score it. One card scores one point, two cards score four, three cards score nine, and so on. It’s simple math, but the jump in points gets big very quickly, which makes every extra card feel tempting.
You’re allowed to score and clear your row at any point during your turn, either before or after placing a card. If you ever can’t legally place a card in your row, you’re forced to score it and clear it immediately, then start a new row. Sometimes that’s fine. Sometimes it hurts more than you’d like.
After adding a card to your row, you may play cards from your hand onto the two shared discard piles in the centre. Each card has to follow one of three rules based on the top card of the pile: same colour, exactly one higher, or together making exactly ten. You can switch freely between the two piles and mix the rules however you want. Or you can skip this step entirely if nothing fits.
To end your turn, you draw cards from your personal draw pile until you’re back up to six cards in hand. If you empty your personal draw pile while doing this, the game pauses for a moment. You immediately take fifteen new cards to form a fresh draw pile and score an instant fifteen points. It’s a nice bonus, and it definitely matters.
Play continues like this until someone reaches or passes 99 points. As soon as that happens, the game ends on the spot.
Artwork, components, and visual design
Ninety Nine comes in a small box and doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a card game. Inside, it really is just cards. No boards, no tokens, no extra bits.
The number cards go from 0 to 10 in ten different colours. The design is clean and very readable. Big numbers in the middle, smaller ones in the corners, solid colours that are easy to tell apart. Functionally, it does exactly what it needs to do. You never struggle to read a card or tell colours apart.
Visually, there isn’t much decoration. No illustrations, no theme trying to pull you into a story. It’s all very neutral. To be fair, that works for this game. The focus is clearly on the mechanics, not on atmosphere. Still, if you’re someone who really values theme or artwork, this might feel a bit plain.
The reference cards explaining the discard rules are genuinely useful. They stay on the table the whole game and prevent a lot of small questions, especially with new players.
Our experience
Ninety Nine was easy to teach and quick to get going. After one round, everyone at the table understood the flow, and turns moved along smoothly. The structure becomes second nature pretty fast, which helps keep the focus on decisions rather than rules.
Most of the time, it felt like we were pulled in two directions. You’re thinking about your own row, but at the same time you’re watching the centre and waiting for an opening. You’re constantly switching between thinking long-term and reacting to what just changed in the centre. Some turns feel calm. Others feel like you suddenly have to rethink everything.
Scoring happens often, both from clearing rows and from emptying draw piles. Because of that, points climb quickly, and having one person actively track the scores felt necessary in our games. It worked fine, but it does add a small administrative pause every now and then.
One thing we noticed with new players is that many instinctively try to match numbers on the discard piles, like in UNO. That’s not how this game works, and it took a bit of unlearning. Once that clicked, the discard phase became more interesting and less automatic.
Player count made a clear difference. With fewer players, the discard piles stayed stable longer, which made planning easier. With more players, things changed constantly, and the game became much more reactive. In both cases, the centre of the table kept everyone engaged, since one turn could completely shift what was possible.
Our thoughts
Ninety Nine doesn’t feel groundbreaking. It doesn’t try to surprise you with something wildly new. Instead, it combines familiar ideas into a system that works cleanly and without much friction. You always understand why something is good or bad, and the game is very honest about its incentives.
The personal row is where most of the tension sits. Longer rows score much more, but they’re harder to finish without getting stuck. Because scoring grows so fast, it’s very easy to get greedy. In our games, an eight-card row scoring 64 points completely changed the situation at the table. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, everyone reacts.
Scoring early turned out to be more important than we expected. Clearing a small row can be the right move if it avoids being forced into a terrible score later, or if it opens space for a key card. The game rewards players who are willing to let go instead of always pushing for the maximum.
The discard piles are where most of the thinking actually happens, and they matter more than you might expect at first. Strong players don’t just make better choices, they often end up doing more on their turn because they see small chains others miss. Cycling through your draw pile faster and hitting those fifteen-point bonuses can matter just as much as building a huge row.
One thing we didn’t fully love is the ending. The game stops immediately when someone hits 99 points, which means not everyone gets the same number of turns. In close games, this can feel a bit abrupt and slightly unfair, especially for players later in the turn order.
Ninety Nine rewards players who stay flexible and pay attention to timing. It’s not about perfect plans, but about knowing when to push and when to stop. And honestly, sometimes stopping early is the smarter play.
📝 We received a copy of Ninety Nine from KENDi.
