Serpentino (1972)

This simple game consists of tiles with parts of cute colorful snakes. The players try to make the longest snake.Serpentino is a Dutch game for younger children. There are two ways of playing, one more suited to very young kiddies. The 54 cards are used, to form seven snakes. Four of the snakes have seven parts to their body plus a head and a tail, whilst three other snakes have four parts to their body plus, again, a head and a tail. Four children can play the simpler game. The cards are shuffled and placed face-down in a stack. In his turn, a player takes the top card and if it is a head, he places it in front of him. Now, on future turns, another card is drawn. If it is a body part, it is added to the head and so on. The idea is to for each player to make a snake as long as possible after drawing a head, but if a tail is drawn, that completes the snake and a new snake must be 'started' by drawing another head card. Unusable cards are discarded and are shuffled once the draw pile has been exhausted. The winner is the player who has made the most snakes or, as an alternative, the player who has made the longest snake. The slightly more difficult game only uses the four snakes with nine parts. A single child can probably have fun just making snakes, perhaps consisting of a head, 40 body parts and a tail.