Yes, you read that right. Crazy Ates, not Crazy Eights. Most of you know the original, Crazy Eights, with the boring numbers, but Crazy Ates steps it up a level: each number has a food allocated to it!
Possibly my favorite is 10, the banana split. But what’s really fun is when you add the colors. You know how in Crazy Eights, there are colors as well as numbers to match? Hopefully, you know what I’m talking about. Anyways, something my cousins and I like to do is think of a food of that color and add it to the dish of that number. For example, a blue number 3 could be the blue cheese burger. Or a purple 9 could be an eggplant quiche. It adds just a little more flavor to the original play.
8 stands as the wild card, depicted by a steak with ice cream on top (please don’t ask). If you don’t have a matching number or color to the card in play as of your turn, you can play your favorite dead cow topped with dairy to get you out of drawing! The goal of the game is to be the first person without any cards left.
Both the Crazy Eights and Crazy Ates are simple and good for little kids while not being brain-numbingly boring for the adults. There’s still a level of strategy involved, even if it is pretty small.