New Card Game

[Last Hussar]

Hi.

This popped into my head this morning. Would you care to playtest?


Feast and Famine

A "push your luck game", played with a standard poker deck of cards.

 

Objective

The players are aiming to score the most points after a set number of 'Circuits'.

 

The game is played with a normal deck of cards, including the Jokers. Court cards all count 10, Aces count 1. 

 

A Round is the game turn from the point the new dealer receives the deck from the player on their right, to the time they pass it to the player on their left.

A Circuit is when each player has been the Dealer once.

A game should be a pre-agreed number of circuits.

Suggestion – 2 or 3 players – Three circuits.

4 players – Two circuits.

5 or 6 players – One circuit.

Players may agree on any number of circuits, though, as long as everybody is aware before the game starts.

 

To start.

Shuffle the deck. Then deal each player one card. Joker is higher than King, King higher than Queen, etcetera, with Ace as the lowest.  The highest player deals first.

In case of a tie, deal cards to those players again, until any ties are broken.

 

Each round is played the same way.

The deck is shuffled, and placed face down in front of the Dealer.

 

First – Starting with the player on their left they deal one card to each player. The players put this face up in front of them.

If any player has a Joker, they put it to one side, and receive another card. The Joker(s) are then shuffled back into the pack.

Then – Starting with the player to their left, and going round in turn, the dealer offers a card to the player.

The player has two choices – Take or Refuse.

If a player Refuses, they are Frozen, and take no further part in this round, but does score what they have already at the end of the round.

It they Take, the dealer deals the top card of the deck face up. 

If it is a Number or Court card, the player receives it into their hand. The Dealer then offers the top card to the next player, and so on, skipping any player who is frozen.

If it is a Joker, the dealing part of the dealing part of the Round ends immediately.  All players who are NOT Frozen – that is still in the Round – are Knocked Out.

 

The dealer includes himself in this – stating whether he will Take or Refuse the top card, then turning it over if needed, before moving back to the player on their left.

 

Also, if all players are Frozen (before the Joker appears), the dealing part of the round ends.

 

After the dealing part of the round ends, the Round score is calculated, and added to the running total.

All Frozen players add up the value of cards in their hand, remembering Court cards are worth 10. They add this to their running total.

All Knocked Out players score ZERO for the round.

Once all scores for the round are added to the running total for each player, the cards are gathered up, and passed to the player on the current Dealer's left. They become the Dealer, who shuffles the cards, then starts a new Round as above.

 

When all players have been the Dealer, the Circuit is finished. If more than one Circuit is being played, move on to the next Circuit by using the above 'Start' method to choose a new First Player.

Once all Circuits have been played, the player with the highest running score is the winner. 

 

If there is a tie for first place, play ONE more round with JUST the tied leaders and a Ghost.

Choose one of the other players to be the Ghost, as per the rules above, they are the Dealer. Play as normal, with the Ghost as Dealer. The Ghost ALWAYS Takes, they cannot go Frozen. Treat the Ghost as a normal player, i.e. for the first pass they throw away the Joker, etc. 

The Round ends as normal.

If all tie-break players Froze; The player with the highest score on that Round wins the game. If they have tied again, then they are declared 'Joint Winners'.

If some Froze and some were Knocked Out; Work out which of the Frozen player won, as per above – the Knocked Out players have scored Zero for the tie-breaker.

If ALL players are Knocked Out; Their total score is reduced to ZERO, and the next highest player score wins. If there are two or more on this score, it is a Joint Win.