I just discovered that I owe a big thanks to a guy called EndersGame who has posted both our YouTube videos about Chicago Cribbage on BoardGameGeek. Moreover, AI gives a direct link to my blog about Chicago Zombie Cribbage—which was not a demo about it but a joke about combining Chicago Cribbage and Zombie Cribbage 4 years ago, but hey, whatever.
And EndersGame has posted both our demos to BoardGameGeek both of our demos of Chicago Cribbage, the first one in 2021 and the rematch in 2022. EndersGame also posted the link to my blog post about the rematch.
I think our Chicago Cribbage YouTube videos are the only instructional videos for the game. The rules are on the web.
We’ve also played CrossCribb and King’s Cribbage. We no longer have any of these games. But we’re about to get something called Wicked Cribbage and Crib Wars. Stay Tuned!
This just in; we found a Crib Wars game on Amazon for only $20! I’ll have a lot more to say about Crib Wars/Cribbage Wars tomorrow.
We’ve been thinking about taking this game out for a spin for a while.
Sena also ordered something called Wicked Cribbage. I don’t know anything about it except it’s a deck of special cards which gives you a chance to cheat during a regular cribbage game. It’s yet another Calvinball cribbage item similar in nature to games like Crib Wars.
This reminds me of another variant we used to have: Chicago Cribbage. We don’t have it anymore, but it’s pretty complicated and the rules are on the web. In fact, I just found out that our demonstration of it is posted on BoardGameGeek. It also comes with a special card deck which has cards that allow you to essentially penalize your opponent.
Another Calvinball crib variant we messed around with was Zombie Cribbage about 3 years ago. It comes with a rickety 61-hole folding plastic board that often got stuck closed and the pegs were plastic zombie figurines!
One of the Zombie Cribbage variants involved using jokers although the rules for using them was tough to figure out. There were two female and two male zombies. One of the guys had a big hole in his chest and was missing an arm, which is actually normal for zombies. The cards are decorated with zombies.
We also considered trying to invent a mashup of Zombie and Chicago cribbage that we could call Chicago Zombie Cribbage. If you played your reverse counting card, you could tell your opponent, “Walk like a zombie, only backwards!” That never got off the ground, or should I say out of the grave?
Our zombie cribbage game YouTube video is at the top of a google search, but only because there are no similar videos made, apparently! There are plenty of mistakes in it, but it didn’t really matter. It got over 300 views. We don’t have the game anymore.
And the other news is even more absorbing. I’m not sure how it happened, but a squirrel got in the house and took a few bites from my pumpkin spice cake. And it brought a cribbage board, but forgot a deck of cards!
And another thing! We just found out that the Michaud Toys company has again today replaced the message (missing in the last couple of days) that U.S. orders are subject to a 35% tariff and a 25% UPS brokerage fee paid before delivery!
We finally played our Zombie Cribbage game in honor of upcoming Halloween this month. We filmed it on an interesting sort of high-top table with just enough room on it for the board and playing cards.
Zombie Cribbage is played on a on a 61-hole cribbage board, replete with images of creepy bony fingers poking out from under a manhole cover and a chainsaw to battle zombies. The game naturally plays a little faster than the usual 121-hole board.
The face cards and two jokers are decorated with grisly zombies. The pegs are tiny but equally grisly.
The background Halloween images are free from Pixabay.
I was in my usual form—making miscounts and the like, yet incredibly I won the game. We didn’t try to make a video without errors. That’s impossible because my brain is pretty much bran. I did omit the part where I almost knocked over the camera tripod.
We finally got our Zombie Cribbage game the other day. We also got a Chicago Cribbage set, which doesn’t come with a board or pegs, but has a gorgeous full set of 52 in-pack cards along with wild cards allowing you to get an edge on your opponent—maybe.
The zombie pegs themselves are pretty small, but fit surprisingly well in the peg holes in the folding 61-hole plastic peg board. The zombie figures are in various dramatically spastic attitudes which zombies typically have when fighting over who get the brains. One of them is missing an arm, but that’s completely normal for zombies. The face cards have brightly colored zombie heads.
We’re still trying to figure out how to play the jokers included in the deck for the wild card gameplay variations, which include Lowdown Zombies, Reveal Your Zombies and Zombies, Run!
However, it’s not hard to mix the Chicago Cribbage wild cards with the Zombie cribbage game. You can find the rules for using Chicago Cards on the web, which like the cards in the included 52 card deck, are decorated in a colorful a 1930’s style gangster theme.
You can tell from the names of the Chicago Cards what they allow players to do: Deal Again, Cut Again, Reverse Counting, No Fifteens, and Trade Hands. When you play the Reverse Counting card, you can tell your opponent, “Walk like a zombie—only backwards!”
The makers of the Chicago Cribbage game variation say you can play it in 30 minutes. It took us over twice that long to finish a game marked by back and forth sniping with the Reverse Counting cards (each player gets one of these) on every deal. You might be surprised at how seldom that works to set your opponent back, especially if you counter with the No Fifteens card. We sometimes end up inching forward and backward only a few peg holes.
You have to know how to play regular cribbage to play both Zombie Cribbage and Chicago Cribbage. As someone once said, cribbage is a game that takes an hour to learn but years to master. Opinions differ on how much luck and skill are involved. Some say it’s 50% luck and 50% skill. Others who play at the tournament level, like those in the American Cribbage Congress (ACC), say there’s a lot more skill involved than you think.
Sometimes, playing all your Chicago Cards might not give you the edge that you hope for. In order to get the perfect hand, you can use both of your Deal Again and Cut Again cards–and not get much. Then what?
Go Retire Psychiatrist 