Use Up All Your Sick Days: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Card Shedding, Real-time, pattern matching
Player Age: 6+
Player Count: 1 - 6 Game Designer: Dylan CoyleGame Artist: Andrei Ebreo
BGG Weight: 1.33Publisher: Charming Games CollectiveTime to Play: 10 - 20 Minutes
Year Published: 2026
Player Age: 6+
Player Count: 1 - 6
BGG Weight: 1.33
Year Published: 2026
Introduction:
Use Up All Your Sick Days (hence known as Sick Days) is a card shedding game, the main twist is the card shedding is a real time game. If a player plays illegally they leave the card on the stack and draw two replacement cards. If the player depletes a hand of seven cards three times they will win.
Game Anatomy:
Days of the Week Cards:
There are 10 animal suits of cards,.
Each animal has a identifying colour and a card for each day of the week going from Monday to Sunday. This is the main deck of cards that will need to be shed by players.
Event Cards:
There are seven unique event cards. Each game two are shuffled into the deck. When an event card is played it acts as a wild allowed to be played after or below any card, each event has a unique rule around play. These are mostly easy to recall rules like when played upon the player has to cheer "Happy New Year" for the new year event or stretch their arm before playing onto the top of the Water Cooler event.
There is also Pizza Party which is a more complex event. As part of setup, pizza tokens will be setup equal to the player minus one. When the pizza party event is played the active player will announce "Pizza Party" all players will now rush to gain a pizza piece. These pizza pieces will be used later to nullify one punishment.
Tired Worker Tokens:
Each player gains two tired worker tokens during setup (one if playing six to eight players). These tokens simply represent how many times players need to shed their hand of cards. Whenever a player has an empty hand of cards they discard a tired worker and draw back a hand of seven cards. If they have no tired worker to discard they win. All tired workers look unique but work the same. The work place is filled with a diversity for species after all.
Setup:
- Add two events into the deck then shuffle the deck.
- Deal each player seven cards.
- Each player gains two tired workers (one tired worker at six to eight players).
How To Play:
The aim of Sick Days is to shed a hand of seven cards three times. This is a simultaneous game where players can play their cards at any point. The card allowed to be played is either the next day or the same worker (as the card on top of the pile).
If a card is played the same time as another player or a player immediately plays after themself a punishment occurs. The punishment that occurs is the play will continue but the player with the foul move will have to draw two cards. Other punishments that may occur are playing the wrong card, accusing someone of a display and being wrong and not following the played event properly.
Each card in the game has a doctor's note on the card back. As a turn a player may play any card face-down as a doctor note and announce that they "Are Sick". On a separate turn they may then play this doctor's note on the pile and announce "I'm Back". Punishments can still occur when this happens if they play the same time as anyone else.
Everytime a hand is empty that player will discard a tired worker token and immediately draw a new hand of seven cards. If this happens and there are no tired workers for that player they win the game.
Final Thoughts:
- Unique theme of a critter workplace.
- A hand of seven cards being depleted creates a good range of choices at the start and tension at the end of a hand.
- Easily portable
- Secondary game with same components in the box catering for player counts under three. Set in the theme of HR allocating animals sick days.
There is a chaos to real time card shedding games. Sick Days still keeps up the fast card play tempo but actually has a calmer more strategic atmosphere. While still maintaining rapid card play. Players are trying to empty their hand three times by playing the same animal or the next day. The catch is when a player plays the same time as another player, plays two cards in a row or simply the wrong card they get punished by leaving that card behind and drawing two new replacement cards. Charming Games have created a good mix of charm and decisions while keeping the game perfect for young families. I can easily recommend Sick Days as whimsy real time family game with a good blend of speed and attention.
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