Three quick steps.
- Grab a pen and paper to keep score.
- Create a single deck with all cards.
- Pick anyone to be the first Dealer.
The game works with quick rounds that you play over and over.
You can keep playing rounds as long as you like, but a recommended target is 100 points: if someone reaches that, they win.
Every round has three simple phases: dealing, playing and scoring.
Repeat the following cycle until all players have 8 cards.
- Give all players a single card.
- Now players may bid.
- If they choose to do so, they must state a number: their guess for how many “challenges” they will win.
- Write their bid on the paper and how many cards they had when they made it: “BID / CARDS”
Once you’ve bid, you can’t change your mind.
If the final card has been given, and you still haven’t bid, then you must do so now.
In this phase, you’ll keep playing those small “challenges” (which is the thing on which you bid in the previous phase).
Repeat the following cycle until all players are out of cards.
- The Dealer starts a new challenge: either together or in-turn.
- If together, everyone simultaneously plays a facedown card. Once done, they’re revealed at the same time.
- Whoever played the highest number of the type that the Dealer played, wins the challenge.
- If in-turn, players go clockwise playing their card one after another. You may only play a card that fits on top of the card of the previous player.
- The Dealer, who starts each challenge, can play anything they want.
- To fit “on top of” a card, it must be of a higher type (e.g. roof is higher than wall) or higher number.
- This continues until someone can’t or doesn’t want to play a card.
- Whoever played the final card, wins this challenge.
If you won the challenge, place the cards before you as a separate facedown pile. This helps easily track how many challenges you’ve won.
You become the next Dealer.
If you’re out of cards, you simply get no turns anymore. (When it’s your turn, the challenge doesn’t “end” because you had no card—it just skips over you.) If you ever end up Dealer in this state, the role moves to the closest player with cards to your left.
Once all challenges have been played, all players calculate their score!
- A player receives 100 points for matching their bid perfectly. (That is, they won exactly as many challenges as they said they would.)
- A player receives 50 points if they’re off by one.
- Any worse outcomes yield 0 points.
- This point value is divided by how many cards they had when they made the bid.
- This number (rounded) is your score!
For exmaple, someone bid 4 and won 3 tricks. They’re off by one, so worth 50 points. They made their bid when they had 5 cards, so their score for this round is 50 / 5 = 10 points.
