Mushroom Sort

About this board game

Mushroom Sort is a Poker-like set collection and deduction game for 2–4 players, played in about 30 minutes.

Players compete to brew the best mushroom soup by building hands from a deck of 32 mushroom cards. The deck contains four colors, with values from 1 to 8. A distinctive feature is that each card’s color is visible on its back, giving players information they can use to predict hidden card values.

At the start of each round, every player receives cards and chooses one to place face down in the center of the table. The remaining cards go into that player’s tableau, also face down, and each player receives one additional card as a starting hand.

• Hidden information: Visible colors and concealed values create opportunities for deduction.
• Card claiming: On a turn, choose a card from another player’s tableau and place a wooden token on it to show ownership.
• Poker-like scoring: Evaluate hands using combinations such as pairs, straights, and full houses.

Players take turns claiming cards from opponents’ tableaus. The final token may instead be placed on one of the central cards. Once all tokens have been placed, the selected cards are added to the appropriate players’ hands, which are then evaluated.

The strongest and second-strongest hands score points each round. After a number of rounds equal to the number of players, the player with the highest total score wins. Mushroom Sort combines set collection, deduction, and competitive hand building into a compact contest where every claimed card can influence the final result.