No Thanks is the game I reach for when I want to watch a perfectly calm friend slowly lose their composure over a small pile of plastic chips. It fits in a pocket, teaches in a minute, and somehow wrings an agonizing decision out of you every single turn. I have stared at a single card for longer than I would care to admit.

The deck is numbered roughly from three to thirty five, and the higher the number, the more penalty points it costs you. On your turn you face the current card and you have two choices: take it onto your pile, or place one of your precious chips on it to say no thanks and pass it along. Here is the genius. Those chips are also points in your favor, and a card in an unbroken run only counts its lowest value. So that frightening thirty might be a steal if you already hold the thirty one, and the chips piling up on a card make taking it more and more tempting by the second.

The whole game is that squeeze. You are watching your dwindling chips, eyeing which cards connect to your runs, and trying to guess whether to grab a card now with its juicy pile of chips or gamble that it comes back around cheaper. Run out of chips and you must take whatever lands on you, ready or not.

It teaches instantly, plays quickly, and packs shockingly tense choices into the simplest possible package. For a filler that punches far above its tiny size, No Thanks is one I will never stop carrying.

Are you a hoard your chips player or a snatch the chip piles early player? Tell me below, and tell me the card you regret taking most.

If purchasing this game, consider using our affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3RGsWRi