games

cabbages (3-7 players)

When life gives you lemons, be thankful you weren't dealt cabbages. This fun, trick based game is an evolution of the traditional game "Hearts". Where tricks are played and won, but the aim of the game is to keep your score as LOW as you can. Winner is the person with the lowest score after an agreed number of rounds. Here's how it works:

set-up & deal

• Remove just enough cards from the deck so that all players can all be dealt an equal number of cards. These could be any agreed or nominated cards, but will generally be cards from the inactive suits. If you are playing with 3-4 players, it may pay to remove enough cards from the deck to make for for more manageable hands.
• Players then arrange their hands. It's a good idea to order your hand into suits, and from lowest to highest in each suit.
• Each player then passes any three cards from their deck, face down to the person on their left. You cannot view the cards you recieve, until you have discarded three cards yourself. This is an opportunity to get rid of cards that you think might be a liability, or to reduce your ability to play a given suit (by creating a "void").

game play

• To start, the player to left of the dealer leads the first trick by playing any suited card from their hand. 
• Players take turns clockwise around the table playing any card from their hand in keeping with the leading suit. If you have the leading suit, you must play it or a wild card. If you don't have the lead suit, you can play any card at all.
• After everyone has played a card, that trick is complete, and the person who played highest card of the leading suit, wins the trick and any points it contains.
• That player must then lead the next trick, and play continues in this way until all the cards have been tabled.
• Each player's score is then tallied and recorded, and the person to the left of the dealer shuffles and deals the next round.

special card functions and scoring

• A "New Rule" card can be played at any time (whether you have a card of the leading suit in your hand or not) and the person who plays it can change the lead suit. All subsequent turns must play a card of the newly nominated suit and the highest of this new suit wins the trick and any points it contains. If you lead with a "New Rule" card, you choose the suit that must be followed on by subsequent players. If no cards of that suit or any Jokers are tabled, the New Rule card wins the trick and any points it contains. 
• An "ON" card can only be played if the person playing it cannot follow suit, and it adds 2, 4, or 6 points to the trick (represented by the 2, 4, or 6 characters on the cards). If a player leads with an ON card, other players can play any card or suit they please and the ON card will win the trick over all other cards except for one of the three Jokers, or a higher value ON card.
• A Joker can be played at any time (whether a player has a card of the leading suit in their hand or not) but it will always win any trick that it is part of. If two or more Jokers are played in a single trick, the last tabled Joker wins the trick and any points it contains.
• Cabbages and the Jack of Rainbows, are point scoring cards. Cabbage Pips (numbered cards) are worth 1 point per card, Face cards are worth 2 points each. The Jack of Rainbows is worth 13 points!

tips

• Avoid the holding the lead, espescially toward the end of the game. It can become increasingly difficult to lose the lead later in the game, but there are higher chances that other players will not be able to follow suit, and will use the opportunity to unload their scoring cards
• Try to create a "void" in your hand, so that you can get rid of cards that may be a liability to you, without consequence.

 

 

 Super-snap (2-7 players)

Super-snap (or Snappity-snap-snap, if you prefer) is a fast paced game of attention and pattern matching, and is a real family favourite. It's just like the snap that you're already familiar, but with a deck of Wildcards and a few twists that, you guessed it, make it MUCH more fun. Read on.

Set-up and deal

Deal out all of the cards, to all of the players. It doesn't matter if anybody gets one more card due to the number of cards not dividing equally among the players.

Play 

Each player, holding their stack of cards face down so that they cannot see what is in their hand, takes a turn (clockwise of the dealer) to quickly turn their card outwards and place face up, building a stack of face up cards in the centre of the playing circle. When any two matching cards appear consecutively, the first player to slap the pile and say "snap!" wins the pile, tidies it, turns it face down and adds it to the bottom of their hand. Just like regular Snap, right? However...

If a player "snaps" an incorrect combination, the following player quickly divides the stack into roughly equal piles, which are then given to each of the other players, and then leads the first card of the following round. But wait! there's more...

As well as matching cards being "snapable", a player can ALSO snap the following combinations

• A run of 3 consecutive cards (3,4,6 or 10,J,Q for example)
• A run of 3 of the same suit
• An odd run or an even run of NUMBERS (eg; 3,5,7 or 4,6,8)
• A 2 and a NO with 2 skeletons, a 4 and NO with 4 characters, and 6 with a NO with 6 skeletons
• A NO and a New Rule (in that order)
• A run of all 5 suits
• Any two cards with a one-eyed (or eye-patched) character
• A pair on either side of a Joker like the joker is invisible (eg; 5, Joker, 5) 
• Any other mutually agreed combination of cards...

If a player runs out of cards, they have until the next "snap" to try and win cards to get back into the game. They may however still recieve a share of any mistakenly snapped piles, at any time.

Winner is the player with all of the cards, or the holder of the most cards after an agreed time limit.

Get snappity-snap-snap-snapping, and have fun!