Skyjo Junior
Skyjo Junior Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Goal
The goal of the game Skyjo Junior is to get as many points as possible by creating vertical columns of three identical cards (triples).
Game Preparation
At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt 12 cards face-down from the well-shuffled deck. A card is placed face-up in the middle of the table and forms the discard pile. The remaining cards are placed face-down next to it as a draw pile. Each player places their 12 cards face-down in front of them in a 4x3 grid with four vertical and three horizontal rows.
Game Start and Gameplay
The youngest player starts.
First, a card is drawn - either the face-up card from the discard pile or the face-down card from the draw pile. The player may choose whether he wants to exchange the drawn card for one of his cards or not.
- If so, he exchanges one of his face-down or face-up cards from the grid with the drawn card and places it face-up for the exchanged card. The exchanged card comes face-up on the discard pile.
- If no, he puts the card on the discard pile and must reveal one of his face-down cards instead.
This ends the turn and it is the next player's turn in clockwise order.
Game End
The game ends as soon as a player has revealed all his cards. Then, each subsequent player will have one more move. Afterward, each player reveals all their face-down cards in their grid. Finally, points are counted of all vertical columns with three identical cards (triplets). Each created triplet is worth as much as the number on the respective collected playing card indicates. A 1's triplet is worth 1 point, a 2's triplet is worth 2 points, a 3's is worth 3 points, and so on. Whoever collects the most points wins. If several players have the same high score, they share the victory.
Example
It is Laura's turn and she has revealed her last face-down card. She now leads by 11 points and has a good chance to win the game. The following players Paul and Maria each have one last move to do and then the game ends. Afterwards, each player reveals all face-down cards in their grid.
Now the points of all vertical triplets are counted. Paul's and Laura's points remain unchanged. By uncovering, Maria got an additional triplet with a value of 5 points completed and thus wins the game with the high score of 13 points.