A Card Game for Humans Who Enjoy Suffering —Krizbella’s Rotten Rant Review of Up or Down?

by Krizbella the Grim Supreme Princess of Disappointment and Destroyer of Delicate Human Feelings

A Game About Numbers, Suffering, and My Rapidly Declining Will to Live

Welcome to my Krizbella the Grim Up or Down review, you soft-skinned, wide-eyed creatures of misplaced optimism. Today I am forced—forced—to discuss Up or Down? (2024), a game where humans boldly claim that organizing numbers in ascending or descending order counts as entertainment.

Picture this for a moment.
Imagine taking math and somehow making it worse.
Imagine taking hope and throwing it down a staircase, step by painful step.
Now imagine me playing this game with Jugbite the Unwashed.

Yes.
That is the emotional altitude we are working with.

Columns of Chaos: Why Numbers Hate Me Personally

Here is the so-called “clever” idea behind Up or Down?. You take a single card from your hand—just one, because humans clearly think goblins panic when holding more—and slide it into the central ring of cards. From there, you snatch one of the neighboring cards and add it to your personal display.

Those cards form columns.
The columns go up or down.
The title has never worked harder.

Once you choose a direction, you are committed. Permanently. Emotionally. Spiritually. Much like my lifelong commitment to Jugbite, whose counting skills peak at seven and collapse shortly after.

Naturally, the deck immediately betrays you. The ring mocks you openly. The cards you draw are always—always—the exact numbers you do not need.

You will beg.
You will whine.
You may even pray.

None of it helps. I summoned a minor demon to assist with my columns, and even it backed away in visible disgust.

The Curse of Color Matching

The game whispers sweet lies.
“Build longer columns,” it says.
“Match colors,” it insists.

I respond with a single, elegant question: How?

How am I supposed to match colors when the deck behaves like a drunk fortune-teller juggling wet laundry in a storm? Every time I assemble a proud column—a noble tower of numeric ambition—a stupid yellow 43 arrives when I desperately needed a blue 22.

The result is always the same. Collapse. Ruin. Jugbite laughing until I threaten him.

At that moment, I am given a choice. A cruel, personal choice.

• Keep a barely functional column and accept mediocrity
• Or discard the entire thing and restart like a public failure in front of my goblin ancestors

As Krizbella the Grim, Supreme Princess of Disappointment, I do not enjoy humiliation.

This game, however, adores it.

Human Interaction? Don’t Make Me Laugh

Humans describe Up or Down? as a competitive game. That is adorable.

In reality, you barely look at each other. Everyone stares at their own miserable columns, silently negotiating with fate. It feels less like competition and more like group solitaire with witnesses.

The only meaningful interaction occurred when Jugbite dropped his cards on the floor and blamed the table.
Twice.

I reminded him that the rules say nothing about card-throwing rituals. He claimed he was “expressing strategy.” I informed him he was expressing idiocy. The humans somehow agreed with both of us, which explains a lot.

The Ring of Doom

Ah yes. The ring.

That cheerful little circle where I place my card, fully expecting the universe to finally recognize my intelligence. Instead, it becomes a carousel of crushed dreams where I pretend to have control while knowing—deep in my goblin soul—that I do not.

Every need is answered incorrectly.
Need a low number? Here’s a high one.
Need blue? Enjoy orange.
Need mercy? Absolutely not.

The ring is evil.
I respect that quality.
I still resent it deeply.

My Rotten Verdict

Is Up or Down? clever?
Yes. In the same way a trapdoor is clever right before it opens beneath you.

Is it fun?
Only if watching your hopes spontaneously combust brings you joy.

Does it make me scream?
Yes. Repeatedly. With echo.

And yet—and yet—I begrudgingly admit it is a fast, tight, smart little filler game that works well for small human gatherings.

Do I like it?
No.

Will I play it again?
Unfortunately, yes.

Final Score from Krizbella the Grim

2.5 out of 5 Goblin Sneers
(+1 bonus sneer if Jugbite is not invited)

Now leave me alone with my broken columns and shattered dignity.

Sneer.
—Krizbella the Grim, Supreme Princess of Disappointment