Top Ten rules: how to play and how to win

Top Ten quick rules

The goal

Top Ten is a cooperative game: all the players are on the same team. Each round, everyone gets a secret number from 1 to 10 and invents a response to a theme, more or less intense depending on their number. The CAP’TEN must put the responses in order; each mistake moves a token from the unicorn zone to the poop zone.

A round

The CAP’TEN reads one of the two themes on the top card, for example a name for your dog, from the least scary to the really scary. Everyone gets a secret Number card, the CAP’TEN included. The CAP’TEN answers first, then the others in any order: 1 calls for the weakest response, 10 for the strongest.

The responses

You answer with words or with a mime, staying on theme. You may not give your number, even indirectly: with the 3, no “three little pigs.” You may repeat your response, without changing it.

Putting them in order

The CAP’TEN names players one by one, from the lowest number to the highest; each puts their card face up on the mat, and the CAP’TEN ends with their own. Each card lower than the previous one moves a token to the poop zone, but the round continues. Then the CAP’TEN role passes to the left.

End of the game

If all the tokens are in the poop zone, at any time, the game is lost. If any tokens are left in the unicorn zone at the end of the 5th round, you win.

With 9 players

Start with all 8 tokens. The CAP’TEN gets no number and does not answer: they only put the other players’ 8 responses in order.

The Expert version

The CAP’TEN calls the exact number of each card before it is turned over; each wrong call costs a token, and the order no longer matters. They don’t reveal their own card: if the others guess its number, a token returns to the unicorn zone.

Beginner traps

You only lose a token if a card is lower than the one placed just before it: 4, then 2, then 3 costs only one token. Undealt cards stay hidden. And the CAP’TEN answers too, except with 9 players.

How to win Top Ten

No points

Top Ten has no points: the whole team wins or loses together.

Victory

If at least one token is left in the unicorn zone at the end of the 5th round.

Defeat

As soon as all the tokens are in the poop zone, at any time in the game.

Official level

At the end, compare the two zones. Only unicorns: Champions. More unicorns, or as many as poops: Pros. More poop: Not bad. The Ludingo sheet records the unicorns left and the rules played.

Example ending

With 6 players, the team starts with 6 tokens. During one round, the cards come out in the order 2, 7, 5, 9, 8, 10: the 5 after the 7 and the 8 after the 9 cost 2 tokens. With no more mistakes, the team ends with 6 − 2 = 4 unicorns and 2 poops: a win, at the Pros level.

Common mistakes

• Counting a mistake for every card out of place: you only compare with the card placed just before.
• Stopping the round after a mistake: it goes on to the last card.
• Moving tokens back to the unicorn zone between rounds: you don’t touch them, except in the Expert version.
• Forgetting the CAP’TEN’s card: they answer and their card is placed like the others, except with 9 players.

How to set up Top Ten

Setup takes a minute. Only the number of tokens depends on the player count.