No one I know plays ROOK, and the instructions were hard to follow. Frustrated, I turned to the only legitimate source of proper ROOK rules and regulations: YouTube. Most of these types of instructional videos are not too much help, although you can find some helpful tips and tricks, if you know where to look. Some tutors start somewhere in the middle of a game, which is annoying as all get out, some tutors leave you with more questions than answers (Hi ExpertVillage), and then some tutors are downright surly and rude. Fortunately, you find a diamond in the rough that should be more viral than it is helpful ^_^ (Note: The video drags on for a bit, and I can't understand most of what the people are saying; with that said, viewer discretion is recommended, yet it looks like harmless fun from where I'm sitting).
It took some practice and card playing to figure ROOK out. Eventually, I purchased an older version of the game that used language I could understand; I mean, I'm an eighties kid LOL Like most Euchre-style games, ROOK involves bidding, trumps, and sometimes partnership, but that depends on how you play. Unlike all Euchre-style games I came across over the years, there is one particular card that makes me cringe at the sight of it.
In my ROOK box, the top card in the deck is the ROOK card. Not only is it the ultimate high card of the game, and worth twenty big points, but perched above the "20" is a hand-drawn, creepy, possessed raven o_O With its head turned, as if something went bump in the night behind him, the black bird looks ready to begin its ascent into the midnight sky! This representation is nothing compared to the famous cawing or "laughing raven" that graced ROOK card boxes for generations.
I can understand why my older sister hates birds, and why this bird makes Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" look like a hummingbird migration. If I have to play any game with that bird, I would rather run out of the room in terror ducking my head from every bird I see for the next three days. According to rookcards.com and the Rook Card Collectors Association, game enthusiast and inventor George Parker, and his wife Grace developed the game from the standard deck, replaced the face cards with numbers ascending from 11 to 13, added four "14" cards, and replaced the suits with colours. Finally, for some wacky reason no one knows, Mrs. Parker added a high card, and called it ROOK, after a type of raven thus bringing the deck to fifty-seven cards. The creepy, hand-drawn, cawing, ROOK playing raven came later, and the game would eventually become mainstream (For more on the birth of ROOK, click here!)
I didn't introduce ROOK to my friends as of yet; I'm afraid the game would descend into a discussion about the creepy bird on the box o_O It does look intimidating at first, but I assure you ROOK will grow on you and your circle of game playing friends ^_^
In my ROOK box, the top card in the deck is the ROOK card. Not only is it the ultimate high card of the game, and worth twenty big points, but perched above the "20" is a hand-drawn, creepy, possessed raven o_O With its head turned, as if something went bump in the night behind him, the black bird looks ready to begin its ascent into the midnight sky! This representation is nothing compared to the famous cawing or "laughing raven" that graced ROOK card boxes for generations.
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| NEVER MORE! o_O How can he win with a hand like that?! |
I didn't introduce ROOK to my friends as of yet; I'm afraid the game would descend into a discussion about the creepy bird on the box o_O It does look intimidating at first, but I assure you ROOK will grow on you and your circle of game playing friends ^_^
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