How to play Lockout!

Lockout! is a two-player strategy game. You play it with one standard 52-card deck, on a board that is unique to Lockout!: thirteen spaces, one for each rank from Ace to King, grouped into three zones. Control more of the board than your opponent when the cards run out.

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Setup

• Shuffle the deck. Both players draw from it.
• Each player draws 5 cards.
• The board has three zones: the Tempo zone (A, 2, 3), the Point zone (4 through 10) and the Wild zone (J, Q, K).

Your turn

1. Optional: discard one card and draw a replacement. Each discard costs you a point at the end of the game.
2. Play one card onto the space that matches its rank. A 7 goes on the 7 space, whatever its suit.
3. Your card is now on top of that stack, so you control the space.
4. Draw back up to your hand size. Your opponent goes next.

You can play onto a space your opponent controls. Your card covers theirs and the space becomes yours. If you have nothing you can play, you may pass.

Lockouts

A space holds at most 4 cards. Whoever plays the 4th card locks the space and owns it for the rest of the game. A locked space scores 3 points where a merely controlled space scores 1, so much of the game is about who gets to play that last card.

The three zones

• Tempo zone (A-2-3). Control all three spaces and you play 2 cards a turn. Lose any one of them and you drop back to 1. Lock all three for a 10-point bonus.
• Point zone (4-10). Control three spaces in a row, such as 4-5-6, for a bonus. You can score two separate runs. A controlled run is worth 5 points and a second one 10. Fully locked runs are worth 10 and 20.
• Wild zone (J-Q-K). Control all three and you score 10 points and hold 6 cards in hand. From that moment, every Jack, Queen and King is wild for both players and can be played on any space from Ace to 10.

How the game ends

The game ends shortly after the deck runs out, or at once if every space is locked. Add up your spaces and zone bonuses, then subtract a point for each card you discarded and each card left in your hand. High score wins. On a tie, the player who controls the Wild zone wins, then the player with more locked spaces.