Shut the Box

 We decided to invent our own spin on the game using 2 egg cartons, dice, and rolled up balls of foil.  We like this game because you can play it by yourself and try to keep beating your score each time or play against opponents.  Remember, the lowest score wins!  To create this game, you need:

• 2 egg cartons: Cut them apart and tape a row of 6 together with a row of 4 to create 10 "cups" in all (see picture 1).

• 10 small items as your game tokens.  We used rolled up pieces of tin foil.

• A set of 6-sided dice.  If you don't have dice handy, you can find virtual dice rolls online.

• A score sheet to keep track of points.

The Rules of the Game:

• The goal is to get the least number of points by the end of your turn.  

• A player's turn lasts until they cannot create the total they rolled.

• To play, roll the dice.  In picture 2, we rolled a 4 and a 4 which makes 8 and dropped a tin foil ball into the 8 cup.  You can make any addition combination of 8 you like using 2 numbers as well. For example, we could have filled either 1 and 7, 2 and 6,  or 5 and 3 (if those cups were available).  You cannot fill a cup twice.

• In picture 3, our turn ended when we could not fill cups to make 7 because we only had a 9 and a 3 still open.  

• To determine your points, add the points of the unfilled cups.  We could not fill 9 and 3 so we ended our game with 12 points.

• Now it's the next player's turn and they need to try to beat our score by ending up with less than 12 points.