Ni fu ni fa
Ni fu ni fa Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 1 FU (pink)
- 1 FA (yellow)
- 34 cards (17 pink and 17 blue)
Goal of the Game
Pass the FU and the FA from hand to hand. The FA moves to the left and the FU moves to the right. At the end of the game, every player must have held both the FU and the FA, and both the FU and the FA must end up in the hands of the first player. The whole difficulty lies in not getting the questions and answers wrong, which these rules describe.
Setup
For now, do not use the cards. Sit or stand in a circle. The craziest person among you takes the FU and the FA, and begins.
Play
In this game, the first player (call her Lara Masse) begins by handing the FU to the player on her right (Jean Peuplu). Let us assume there are 6 players.
- Lara says to Jean: "This is a FU."
- Jean replies: "A what?"
- Lara adds: "A FU." (and she gives the FU to Jean).
Easy, right? Now Jean hands the FU to the player on his right (Sasha Touille):
- Jean says: "This is a FU."
- Sasha: "A what?"
- Jean asks Lara again: "A what?"
- Lara answers again: "A FU."
- Jean therefore answers Sasha: "A FU." (and he gives the FU to Sasha).
Continue this way until the first player (here, Lara) receives the FU back from her left-hand neighbour. The closer you get to the end, the more "A what?" questions there will be.
And what do you do with the FA? Excellent question! As soon as Lara has given the FU to Jean, she turns to her left-hand neighbour (Axel Hère) and hands him the FA, saying the same thing as for the FU. Axel then hands the FA to his left-hand neighbour, and so on, until the FA returns to Lara. The mechanism is the same: "This is a FA." "A what?" "A FA." Then she gives the FA over.
End of the Game
The FU and the FA pass from one person to the next until both return to the first player (here, Lara). If you manage this, you win the game!
If one of you makes a mistake, the game ends immediately. The person who made the mistake starts the next game (and the others, of course, have the right to laugh at them... gently).
Turn Sequence Diagram
The printed rulebook illustrates the example in Play above with eight numbered diagram stages (the players shown are Lara, Jean, Sasha, Nathan and Axel). The text layer of this copy does not preserve the stage layout reliably, so the diagram is not reproduced. The written example in Play is the authoritative description of the sequence.
Challenge Cards
You can add cards once you have mastered the rules above. Before starting the game, sort the cards by colour (pink and blue) and form two separate piles. The first player draws 1 card from one of the two piles and reads it aloud. Everyone must respect the condition described.
- Pink cards affect your behaviour.
- Blue cards affect the way you speak.
Example: you draw a blue card and read: "Replace all vowels with the sound 'OU' (except for the FU and the FA)."
The exchanges then sound like this (the example is written in French phonetics, so the lines are reproduced as printed):
- Lara: "Çouçou out oun FA." Axel: "Oun quou?" Lara: "Oun FA." (and she gives the FA to Axel).
- Axel: "Çouçou out oun FA." Nathan: "Oun quou?" Axel: "Oun quou?" Lara: "Oun FA."
- Axel: "Oun FA." (and he gives the FA to Nathan).
The example is printed as an exchange between Lara, Axel and Nathan; the lines are grouped above in the order they appear in the printed example.
Translator's note: the printed example is a French-language joke. Each vowel is replaced by the sound "ou", so the lines above are the printed French forms and the rule's meaning is the one stated in the card.
Variants
Balaise Variant
Before starting the game, the first player draws 1 card of each colour (blue and pink) and reads them aloud. Everyone must respect the conditions of these 2 cards.
Note: if the conditions of these cards cannot be combined, replace one of them with another card of the same colour.
Expert Variant
Before starting the game, each player draws 1 card of the colour of their choice. It is not mandatory to read your cards aloud before the start of the game. Each of you must respect the condition described on your card.
Chaotic Variant
Before starting the game, each player draws 1 card of each colour. It is not mandatory to read your cards aloud before the start of the game. Each of you must respect the conditions of both of your cards.
Good luck!