We are all thieves who have just completed a big mission. With all kinds of valuable items in our pockets, we run home … until we all run into the same alley and bump into each other! All our valuable items fly everywhere! Nobody knows anymore what is what and who is who!
Everyone naturally prefers to find their teammate and go home with their (most valuable) items. But there is one problem: if you start talking, you risk being recognized by your voice. So the only way to pass along the right signals (and items) is by means of your cards.
Who manages, in this chaos, to find their teammate and score the most points?
Simple Version
Gameplay
You play in rounds. They proceed as follows.
Everyone draws cards from the pile until they have 7 in total. They look at these cards and arrange them in the desired order.
Then the stack of cards is passed to the next person. (The code on the cards determines where it goes.)
- The order of passing is always clockwise from the starting player.
- If someone receives a stack while they already have a stack, they must give this stack to the first free person (without a stack) to their left.
This person looks at the new stack and has a choice:
- Either the person swaps the cards (by splitting the stack in two and switching them)
- Or the person changes something about the cards (you may take one card from the stack into your possession, and/or put one card from your possession back into the stack)
This choice may be carried out under the table/out of sight. (So that nobody knows for sure what you did, and whether you did anything at all.)
This process continues until someone raises their hand and says: “stop!”
OPTION: The code determines when a round stops? There is a certain “stop combination”? Meh, then it might also never stop, for example.
The cards you now have in your hand become your possessions. You score all point cards (and any combos). All non-scoring cards go into your personal pile.
Then the next round begins.
Goal
The game continues until all point cards have been distributed (and revealed). The player with the most points wins.
Scoring
All cards of a certain “suit” that you have scored during the game (and only those cards) count.
Everyone gets their own suit to collect. If you have a card from that suit, it counts for as many points as indicated on the card. (A “star 8” is worth 8 points at the end.)
If you have a card from the suit of one of your teammates, that card is worth 1 point.
If you have a card from the suit of one of your opponents, that card is worth -1 point.
If you have a card from a suit that no one is collecting, that card is always worth 1 point.
Note: with low player counts, it can happen that some suits are not collected by anyone.
Advanced Version
The idea above strongly resembles something like Sushi Go and 7 Wonders. Very simple, not really innovative, probably not very interesting.
So then I tried to give “mixed signals” real meaning:
- You may not change the order of the cards in your hand (except according to the specific rules of the game)
- All other players see your cards, you may not communicate otherwise.
- In this way you must, with only your cards (and nothing else), signal to your teammate that they are on your team + which point card should be taken.
That roughly comes down to the rules below. It is a mess. I really should have written this down better at the time.
Setup
You start with a stack of cards in your hand. You pass it to the player on the left (or right, doesn’t matter).
The order of the cards matters!
This player adds one of their own cards to the stack at the end. Then they take the stack of cards into their hands under the table (or simply out of sight of others).
Then the player may, under the table, do one of the following:
- Take a card from the stack. (This may be their own card again.)
- Shuffle the cards by making two “hands” (part A in the left hand, part B in the right hand) and swapping these parts (in terms of order).
It is of course most fun if these cards have some meaning. So you are really passing along a message, and the receiver no longer knows what is true about that message (and what is not).
For example: Everyone knows part of the puzzle, and must pass on this message using cards.
The other fun part is of course if cards have certain combos. One card is only worth something next to another. Card B becomes worth twice as much if it is surrounded by two copies of card A. Et cetera.
It might be even more fun if the cards are a code that you have to read. So the cards tell you where to pass to, or which (extra/special) action you may or must take.
IDEA: Maybe in teams? So that you are not only sabotaging things, but also trying to make things go right?
That CAHOOTS idea: you belong to multiple teams, depending on which things (“suits”) you collect.
Otherwise this can be expanded to “changing teams”
Part of the message (“the code”) can of course be which team you belong to. (AKA: which things you need to collect.)
SUMMARY: With your code you must figure out who your teammates are, and in what, and thus help each other. You must also try to score as many points as possible with combos.
NOTE: What is the purpose of the cards you steal from stacks? Do they determine what you can broadcast as codes in the next round?
NOTE: A stack you receive, you may decide to “confiscate”. This gives you the cards in it. But of course there must be a big cost attached to this, otherwise everyone would immediately start taking stacks. BUT WHAT??
NOTE: Now everything actually happens behind the scenes (everyone is looking at cards in their own hand). There must also be some things happening in front of the scenes, publicly.
In any case, “won” cards are placed face-up publicly.
Maybe some codes instruct actions? Such as: slide one of your cards (publicly) to a fellow player.
YESSS: That could work, if I keep all symbols simple. So only working with arrows (left/right/up/down), symbols (plus/minus/times/divided by?), numbers and “suits”
NOTE: I also need to prevent people from agreeing on codes in advance and just playing them out. (Maybe if they have played the game more often.)
- Of course you do not always have ideal cards in your hand.
- Other people mess up your code, maybe even send it to someone else
Wait, I think this might actually work xD
NOTE: What if, when one person decides to take a hand, everyone has to do so with their current hand? (And that round therefore ends immediately.) Then people start doubting “this is not quite what I want … but something worse might come and then someone else will say stop! So I might as well do it now … or not …”
To prevent people from immediately taking things, stacks must at least have had the chance to reach all players. (So, if you play with 5 players, stacks must be passed 4 (or 5?) times before you may definitively take them.)
NOTE: But … now players can receive multiple stacks at the same time, while other players might receive nothing.
Solution 1: If a person already has a stack, and they receive another, they pass it to the first “free” person to their left. (Then things must be passed in order.)
Solution 2: The person merges the stacks into one long code. People without stacks may do something else to fill their turn?
Solution 3: Everyone without a stack steals one from people with multiple stacks.
NOTE: You also have “annoyance cards”? (But only in certain situations) So that you are not necessarily helping your teammate (because you cannot with your current cards, for example), but are just annoying the other players.
It seems useful anyway to have cards that block others. For example, if a “-” symbol is in front of a treasure card, then you may not take that stack. (Or, if you do take the stack, you must discard that treasure.)
NOTE: Maybe you have “merge cards” that mean something different depending on the cards around them.
A “plus” can connect two point cards (for more points)
But it can also connect parts of a message, or change who a certain stack must be passed to, etc.
SORT OF IDEA: You may always take one card from the code. You place this card (face-down) on a separate pile in front of you.
You may also put a card back into the code, but you do not have to.
In this way you can build a pile in front of you for the next round. When the current round is over, everyone draws as many cards from the draw pile as needed to return to X cards.
Then this pile is used for the next round.