El Cagao is a fun, easy card game that you can take on three computer opponents or challenge up to three of your friends. Then game is nicely animated, fairly easy to pick up and challenging within it's own right.
El Cagao is a card game where each player is dealt 12-13 cards. Amongst these cards is the Joker or El Cagao. On each turn a player will take a card from the next player and then discard any pairs in their hand. You continue to take turns until one player is stuck holding the El Cagao.
The Main Menu for El Cagao has options to start a new game, resume a game, access your options, view the help screen, rate the game and view the local leaderboard. Options have choices to play a single player or multi-player game, choose your player icon and deck style. Multi-player games are played in "pass and play" fashion (you pass your Windows Phone around).
You start by wagering on your hand and your winning odds are based on your placement. First place obviously has the greatest pay out while the poor soul left holding the Joker wins nothing.
Once all bets are placed, the game starts and cards are passed around. Pairs are automatically discarded and should you pick the El Cagao, you can arrange his placement in your hand in hopes your opponents will choose him on the next turn. The game can be played in rounds with players advancing as long as they have money to bet. Each player starts with a $500 pot to bet with.
El Cagao was a fun game to play and while there is some skill involved, most of it is pure luck or chance. My only criticism would be that the cards are a little on the small side. Then again, you're dealing with a rather large hand so I doubt they could be much larger.
The game ran smooth and wasn't a bad way to pass the time with. Not sure I'll be playing any marathon games of El Cagao but it will make the rotation of games I play to pass short periods of time with.
There are two versions of El Cagao available. You have a free, ad supported version that you can find here (opens in new tab) at the Windows Phone Marketplace. There is also a $.99 ad free version of El Cagao that you can find here (opens in new tab).
