Party Bugs
Party Bugs Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Materials
- 78 cards: 6 colour sets of 13 cards each, with values from "1" to "13"
- 1 Tied card
- 1 disco ball
- 1 mirror card
Attention: The mirror card is only used for "Variant 2"; otherwise, it is removed from the game.
Set-up of the Game
Attention: The instructions below describe the rules for 3-6 players. Changes for the 2-player game are covered under "The Game for Two".
- Place the disco ball in the middle of the playing area.
- Each player chooses one of the 6 colour sets, taking all 13 cards with the backs of that colour. Colour sets that are not needed are put back into the box.
- Each player shuffles his 13 cards and puts them in front of him as a face-down draw pile. Then everybody draws the top card from his pile and lays it face up next to the disco ball. If a player draws the "13" (i.e., the "Party King"), he draws the next card from his pile and lays out this one instead. After that, he shuffles the Party King back into his pile.
- The area where the cards are lying around the disco ball is called the "dance floor" from now on.
- The player who has placed the card with the lowest value on the dance floor takes the Tied card and puts it in front of him. If two or more players have placed the lowest card, the youngest of these gets the Tied card. Important: This player keeps the Tied card throughout the entire game.
- After that, each player draws the top 3 cards from his pile and takes them into his hand.
Example of a set-up for 3 players: each player has a room for his display and his hand cards; the dance floor is in the middle.
Course of the Game
The game goes over 13 rounds overall. Except for the final round, the same rules apply for all rounds.
Course of a Round (1st to 12th round)
Each player chooses 1 of his 3 hand cards and plays it face down in front of him. When all players are ready, they reveal their card simultaneously.
Important: Pay attention to clearly separating the just-played cards from the cards on the dance floor until the end of a round.
Now each player has to take 1 card off the dance floor. The player who has played the card with the lowest value begins. He picks 1 card of his choice from the dance floor and places this card face up next to his pile in his personal display.
Important: The cards in a player's display need to be placed next to one another so that players can always see what values are lying there.
After that, the other players follow one after the other in ascending order of the card values they played. Consequently, the player who has played the highest card takes the last card off the dance floor.
If two or more players have played a card with the same value, the player sitting closer to the player with the Tied card in a clockwise direction is the next to have his turn.
Note: The player with the Tied card "is sitting closest to himself"; that means he is the first to take his turn if he is involved in the tie.
After all players have taken 1 card off the dance floor, there are no cards left there. Now, each player moves the card that he previously played onto the dance floor. This ends the round. Again, each player draws the top card from his pile so that he is back to 3 hand cards to choose from for the next round.
Attention: From the 10th round on, players don't draw a new card. Consequently, they then have fewer hand cards to choose from.
13th Round
After the 12th round, the players have no hand cards left. However, there are still cards on the dance floor; these cards will be distributed in the final round that is about to follow. The player to the right of the player with the Tied card begins. He has to choose 1 card of his choice from the dance floor and add it to his display, as usual. After that, the other players follow one after the other in anti-clockwise order. Consequently, the player with the Tied card takes the last card off the dance floor.
Special Cases
The "13": The Party King
The card with the value "13" - the Party King - has a special function. If somebody plays the Party King, he has to take all cards off the dance floor and put them in his display.
The other players don't get a card from the dance floor this round, no matter what value they have played. After that, the cards played - including the Party King - are moved onto the dance floor, as usual.
If two or more players have played their Party King in the same round, the player sitting closer to the player with the Tied card in a clockwise direction has to take all cards off the dance floor. That means the usual Tied rule applies.
Two Identical Costumes in the Display
As soon as a player has a second card with the same value - i.e., the same costume - in his display, he immediately discards both cards and puts them back into the box.
Attention: The cards with the same value are always discarded in pairs. That means: If a player has 3 or 5 cards with the same value in his display, 1 of these cards always remains there.
End of the Game
After the final round, each player adds up the values of the cards in his display. The player with the lowest total wins.
In case of a tie, the player sitting closer to the player with the Tied card in a clockwise direction wins. That means the usual Tied rule applies.
The Game for Two
For the two-player game, an additional third colour set for a dummy player is needed - let's call him Paul. During the set-up of the game, one of the players shuffles Paul's cards and places the top card on the dance floor, as usual. The remaining cards are put out ready as Paul's face-down draw pile. The following rules apply for Paul:
- The value of Paul's card laid next to the disco ball during the set-up will be ignored. Paul cannot get the Tied card, even if his card has the lowest value.
- He has no hand cards and doesn't play any cards either. Instead, he is always last in the order of play and gets only the last remaining card from the dance floor for his display. After that, the top card of his pile is revealed and, along with the cards played by the two "real" players, put directly on the dance floor. If the card is his Party King, it doesn't trigger a special case but is simply put on the dance floor like any other card. Important: In the 13th round, he is also last to take his turn.
- Cards with identical costumes in his display are discarded in pairs, as usual.
At the end of the game, Paul's card values are added up as well. Theoretically, he can win, but that will happen pretty rarely.
Variant 1
During the set-up of the game, players draw 4 cards instead of 3. Each player looks at his hand cards and selects 1 of them to put face down in his display. This card may not be the "13". The game proceeds only over 12 rounds; the final round is played according to the rules of the 13th round of the basic game. Each player may look at the face-down card in his display anytime. If somebody gets a second card with the same value as the face-down card, he may discard both cards, as usual. Other than that, the card is revealed only at the end of the game and is then added to the total value of that player's cards.
Variant 2
Play as many games as there are players. The values are added up. After each game, the player with the currently highest total receives the mirror card for the next game and puts it in his display. Before drawing the last card from his pile, he has to use the mirror card, if possible, by discarding it along with any other card from his display as a "pair"; if he has no card left in his display by then, he has to discard the mirror card unused. In the end, the player with the lowest total wins.