5 Alive

About this board game

5 Alive is an abstract card-playing game for 2–6 players that takes about 30 minutes to play. Each player begins with five lives, and the winner is the last player with any lives remaining.

On your turn, play one card from your hand and add its value to the running total. With normal cards, the goal is to avoid taking that total above 21. Play a card that pushes the count past 21, and you lose a life, making every choice a risk as the total rises.

There is more to 5 Alive than simply adding numbers. A variety of wild cards can change the flow of play and create opportunities to recover or disrupt your opponents.

• Reset the running total.
• Skip the next player.
• Reverse the direction of play.
• Cause other players to draw extra cards.

Careful hand management can also turn a well-timed play into a major setback for everyone else. If you play the last card from your hand without taking the running total above 21, every other player loses a life. This gives players another way to apply pressure while trying to preserve their own remaining lives.

With its simple central target and changing card effects, 5 Alive combines easy-to-follow play with tense decisions around timing, totals, and special actions. The game includes 108 cards and instructions. Originally released in 1990, it was re-implemented by Boom-O.