Spooky Houses

Spooky Houses

You need: A deck of cards, 3+ people, and some space

This game sounds very convoluted when explained, but is really straightforward and a lot of fun to play. Many three player drinking cards are incredibly simple and mindless due to lack of people. This can be fun and a straightforward medium for drinking - but the aim of this particular drinking game is to create a really fun, high-speed, and involved game that is more interesting than merely flipping over a card or two.

You will collect cards throughout this game. Where drinking comes in: Regular cards (2-10) mean that you can dole out drinks and face cards (Jack-Ace) mean that you can be told to drink. I will elaborate later.

Deal the entire deck evenly among each player. To start the game, everyone simultaneously flips over one card. The highest card among the three (or more if there are more players) is the only one of importance for right now. The object is to shout out any word that begins with the first letter of the highest card. For example, if the highest card is an Ace, one could shout out 'Apple' or 'Eight' and 'Every'. It's like 'Tourettes' if you know that game, except you have to find the right card (the highest) among the three first.

As soon as someone calls out a word (a.k.a. wins the round), that person immediately scoops up the three cards. They then try to make a card house using those three cards they just picked up, '''before the person to their left deals out the next hand. '''It's a race, so neither should slack. However, most times one player will be flustered or forget so it adds to the entertainment. The player to the left of the round winner (the one racing to deal out the cards) takes one card from each pile in front of the three players. They flip over one from their own pile, and one from each of the other players' piles one at a time so that the race is a little more even and people have time to see which is the highest card. This is important because the next round begins immediately. The game should be very fast paced and very involved, so don't try to play with people who are only half-paying-attention. It should be a bit of a cluster fuck. It's okay don't worry, it makes it more fun.

After three rounds (once there is a third winner) play stops. Everyone kind of tallies up the cards they have after three rounds. Your hand = the 3 cards you collect each time you win (if you don't win, you won't have any cards in your hand so don't worry about it). Anyways, You set them aside, next to you, face up, in plain sight as your own deck/hand, which you will add to after every three rounds. For every face card in your hand, someone can tell you to drink once at any time. It's like cashing in a card for a drink. Someone can just say 'Luke' drink and remove/discard one of the face cards from in front of me. When I run out of face cards this stops. The fun of this is that it can happen at any time. You do not have to get rid of all cards after every three rounds. You can save up and make people drink a lot at once. The other part is that any card in front of you that is not a face card (2-10) means that you can tell someone else to drink. You get to dole them out - and it works in the same way. You cash them in, so I could say 'Jake' take two drinks, and discard the '3' and '5' in front of me. This discard pile can just be anywhere it doesn't matter as long as it's not confused with players' piles.

The point of building houses: If you win the round and complete your house before the person to your left deals out all three cards, you can pawn off your face cards on someone else. You can give them all to one person or disperse them between the two other players. This doesn't mean you have to make them drink right then and there, it just means the cards are added to the piles to be cashed in at any time. Since the winner of the third round does not have a chance to make a house (due to the break), they get to discard any face cards from that round if they so choose - so winning the third round each time has a kind of extra perk. Anyways, it's a lot of explaining but I just wanted to make sure it was clear. It's really fun, fast-paced and a little crazy, so get playing!