Escalation is light, fast, anti-trick taking card game that is thinly themed around the concept of a war among neighbors. This game is just a deck of cards numbered from 1 to 13 with some wild cards and two special “neighborhood watch cards”. In terms of card distribution, there are more cards of lower values than of higher values The cards themselves are sturdy and come in a hard double-deck box like the kind used for Bang and No Thanks!. Some people will enjoy the artwork which does tie into the theme nicely since the higher value cards show an “escalation” in the weapons used to fight the neighborhood war. I would have liked to see some more dastardly tactics depicted like pouring lime on someone’s lawn or tp’ing a house and fewer actual weapons (a reference to the fence-covered Wilson from Home Improvement would have been funny too) … but that’s me. The rules also come on a single double-sided card so this is a very portable game.

Each player is dealt six cards and play will proceed clockwise from the lead player. The lead player may throw down any single card or a set of cards all having the same number (e.g. 3 cards that each have a value of “4”). Wild cards may be used as part of a set. After playing the card(s), the player announces the numeric total of the cards he or she played and then refills his/her hand to 6 cards. The next player must play cards that exceed that total and then the next player and so on …A neighborhood watch card allows players a free pass when played on their turn (i.e. they do not have to play cards to exceed the previous player). If a player can’t exceed the previous player’s total or chooses not to then that player must take all the cards that have been thrown down, placing them in a scoring pile. That player then leads for the next “trick”. Eventually the draw deck will be exhausted but play continues and the round ends when one player is out of cards. At this point each player scores one point for every card they took and for every card left in their hand. The lower your score, the better you did. You can play as many rounds as you like but one round per player is suggested.

There is some strategy to the game as you need to decide how much you want to "escalate" the current trick, when to play single high cards, and which low cards to hold on to as you try to build a high value set. Also, you are probably going to take a few tricks during the round and deciding when to take cards is important. It's better to take a pile consisting of one or two cards than to get stuck with a pile of 15 or 16 cards.

To me, Escalation is the kind of game that Knizia is best at. Not that this is his best game but he is definitely good (and prolific) at making quick, mathematical, lightly themed games. It’s not brilliant or amazingly original but it is very easy to learn, has a nice luck/skill balance, and is fun. The box says 2-6 players but this is not true. With two players, this is little more than a game of war with the win going to the person who gets better card draws. Sure there is a little strategy but… go play Schotten Totten if you want a good two player game. I’m getting a little sick of titles (particularly Knizia titles) being billed as 2 player games when they suck for 2. With three players, I’ve noticed a small problem in that the two neighborhood watch cards are a little overpowered as you can wind up playing a card and the lead gets passed right back to you by the other two players. With 4 -6 players the game works very well (maybe it's a little chaotic with six but not terrible) and playing multiple rounds tends to smooth out bad luck.

For $10 this is a good value. I would recommend it as a nice game to take to places like restaurants, bars, and coffee shops when you want to play something fast & easy to teach.