SNAP Review – Trapper Keeper Game

The Trapper Keeper Game is for 2-5 players ages 8 and up, and it takes about 20 minutes to play. Published by Big G Creative, the Trapper Keeper Game is very on-brand. It comes in a miniature Trapper Keeper holder, in three possible designs, so there’s a good chance you’ll say “that’s the one I used to have!”

We’ll tell you about the game quickly. Listen for six minutes, or read on below.

How to Play

Every player gets a Trapper Keeper branded folder, with vertical pockets, just like you remember.

Shuffle the locker cards, then place them in nine equal stacks and flip the top card of each stack. Choose someone as “teacher’s pet” – they’ll be the first player each round, and also will be in charge of the “bell cards” (we’ll come back to these in a minute).

Take Cards

The teacher’s pet flips over the next bell card to start a round. Normally, players can select a single row or column from the 3×3 grid, and take all the face-up cards in that row or column. The bell cards specify another pattern of cards that players can choose as an option.

Some rows or columns may contain less than three face-up cards; if you choose that set, you still only take the cards that are face-up.

However, if there are three or fewer face-up cards at the end of anyone’s turn, the players flip over the top card from each face-down stack, “opening the lockers”.

Types of Cards

There are seven types of cards in Trapper Keeper Game, and they each score in different ways.

Quizzes score whatever point value is listed on them (1,2, or 3 points).

Homework rewards the player who has the most. Whoever has the most Homework cards at the end of the game gets 6 points. The second-place player receives 3 points. In case of a tie, every player tied for that place (first or second) gets the specified points.

Secret Notes score in sets. A unique set of Notes from all four different classmates scores 12 points! If you have three different Notes, you’ll get 6 points, and so on – a single Note will still get you 1 point. You are allowed to score multiple sets of unique Notes, but each Note can only be scored once.

Detention Notice – You score 2 points for each detention notice, as long as you don’t have the most. The player with the most detention slips gets nothing.

Signature cards do not score on their own. Pair them with a Field Trip or Report Card.

Field Trip scores 4 points if there’s a Signature card paired with it.

Report Cards score 1 point for each Homework, as long as you also have a Signature Card. These stack nicely: if you have four Homeworks, a Report Card, and a Signature, you’ll get 4 points. But if you have four Homeworks, two Report Cards, and two Signatures, you’ll get 8 points.

The Doodles

There’s another form of set collection happening during the Trapper Keeper Game – doodles! Most of the cards have doodles on them – red doodles on the left side and blue doodles on the right side.

When you pick up your set of cards off the lockers, take them as a group and put them together on one side of your folder.

At the end of the game, the person who has the most of each type of doodle “showing” in their folder, gets 5 points. The person with the second-most gets 2 points.

And that’s the game! Go through six rounds, selecting sets of cards and stashing them in your folder. At the end of the game, tally up and see who has the most points.

Impressions

Like other games from Big G Creative (Happy Little Accidents, Monster Crunch, Carpool Karaoke), Trapper Keeper Game is a light game of set-collection with a heavy dose of nostalgia.

Because it’s such a light game, our kids had no trouble playing. But they weren’t particularly drawn to the game, because they never had Trapper Keepers, and are currently in the thick of actual school with homework and quizzes. They did enjoy reading out the terribly wrong answers on many of the cards, though.

If your family likes set collection, this would be an easy way to teach it to your kids. It’s more straightforward than Sushi Go! or other light set collection games we’ve played.

We like that the table presence of Trapper Keeper Game is limited to the ten stacks of cards (nine lockers plus the bell deck), since everything else is held in the folder in your hand.

Quality: great

Nostalgia: high

Mechanics: solid, no twists

How do we rate it? Well, we colored in 3.5 stars on our 5-star notebook for the Trapper Keeper Game.

Find the Trapper Keeper Game exclusively at Target.

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SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?

The Family Gamers received a review copy of Trapper Keeper Game from Big G Creative, LLC for this review.