This is a play review, so my knowledge of the rules is not foolproof. Poison is a game of maths and trick taking, so you could just as easily break out a pack of regular cards and play Contract Whist. To be honest, you could break out a pack of regular cards and play Poison based on this review, but it wouldn’t be as fun.

In Poison you get a deck of cards in a big box, and why the big box you ask? Well it has three cauldrons in it made out of thick good quality cardstock; the box is also good quality and has that ‘linen’ finish. The cards have numerical values rated from 1 to 7 with a graphic of a potion bottle on them, and are colour coded in purple, blue and red. Some of the cards have green poison bottles with a numerical value of 2.

You essentially are playing Pontoon or Black Jack, each player places a card in turn in a cauldron, and the volatile mix of chemicals is safe until someone places a card in a cauldron that tips the numerical value of the accumulated cards above 13. Whoever messed up the mixture leaves their card in the cauldron and puts the rest of the cards from that cauldron in front of them, hence the trick taking element.

You can only have one colour of card in a cauldron, and once a cauldron has one colour of card in it, all other cards of the same colour must go in that cauldron. Poison cards can go anywhere. Tactics wise you can play cards that take the value of cards in a cauldron to 13 so that another player has to ‘bust’ the mixture, and you can bust the mixture yourself to take a preferable hand of cards to what else might be on offer.

At the end of the game you score 1 point per card that you have collected, and 2 points per Poison card. If you have the most cards of a given colour, excluding Poison cards, which you have to keep, you can discard all of those colour cards. Whoever has the least amount of points wins the game, but I can’t remember the tie breaker if more than one player has 0 cards for example. 

Poison is very simple, and very good for casual gamers. The artwork is colourful, and it is easy to end up adding your own thematic elements of bubbling noises and witchy cackling as play progresses. It has a small amount of strategy, and you are always involved in the game because you have to constantly reassess your options as the number count in the cauldrons changes.

We played it with five or six players, and I would say that it is probably best with four or more players just because of the additional interaction. I expect that kids with suitable maths skills would get a kick out it, especially if it was Halloween or they were playing witches dress up.