Game Preview: Bucket King 3D, or Noooo, They Be Stealin’ My Bucket

Game Preview: Bucket King 3D, or Noooo, They Be Stealin’ My Bucket
Board Game: The Bucket King
Board Game: Bucket King 3D
Stefan Dorra's card game The Bucket King was released in 2002 by German publisher KOSMOS, then later by Rio Grande Games. While not a trick-taking game, the design feels something like one in that you need to evaluate the strength of your hand after the deal, then build a bucket pyramid with the buckets matching the colors of the cards in the deck.

What's the connection between cards and buckets? During the game that follows you'll be challenged to play cards in a particular suit, and you can't do so (or choose not to), you must knock out a bucket of that color from your pyramid, thereby also toppling any buckets that it supported.

Bucket King 3D from Jolly Thinkers takes the pyramid concept and brings it to life, replacing the flat cardboard buckets of the original with plastic buckets — a reverse Penguin to Pinguin-Party, if you will. While this might seem like a gimmicky change, poking out the plastic buckets and trying not to knock down extra buckets — or just poking super slowly and attempting to maintain pyramidal structural integrity — adds a goofy bit of fun to the game, mirroring the new, more expressive art of this edition.

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