Just found a junk deck in my drawer.
It's missing a few cards, but it's got extras as well. :U
It has only one Ace (Hearts), is missing a King of Hearts and has no fives to speak of.
In their place, it has seven Jacks (the extras are Hearts, Spades and Diamonds), five sevens (an extra club), six twos (extra club and diamond) and three jokers (one black, two red).
...we should invent a card game using just these.
Pic almost unrelated.
Replies:
http://i48.tinypic.com/swfodw.jpg
I found a King of Hearts for your deck
I figured out some rules by adapting some from Skat and chucking in a bit of Cribbage. Note these are for a four-player game. For three players, omit one red joker.
Dealer is chosen through some arbitrary method, then 13 cards are dealt to each player. The spare card is turned over for trump. If this is a joker, then dealer scores two points and selects trump himself.
Dealers' left leads first card, other players have to follow suit; id they can't, they can either play a trump or shed any other card. Once every player has played a card, highest card of the suit led or highest trump wins the trick and leads the next trick. The winner of the last trick gets the spare card added to their won cards.
The card ranking and scoring is as follows:
Ranking: 10, King, Queen, Jack, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2 of trump suit, led suit and off suit.
Scoring, 10 = 10, Joker = 5, King = 4, Queen = 3, Jack = 2, 9 = 1, all else = nil.
Jokers: These can be played in the same manner as "l'excuse" in French Tarot with a slight difference. If you can't match suit but hold a joker of the:
Ace of Hearts: This card is a bit of a double-edge: you can count it as a highest trump, or a low off-suit card. If you use it to win a trick, the points you earn are halved for the round. But letting someone else win it grants them double points.
Jack of Clubs: If Clubs is the trump suit, then the card ranking is changed to: Jack, 10, King, Queen, 9, 8, 7, 6, 4, 3, 2. If not, card ranking is as normal.
Whoever either has the most points after a set number of hands or reaches a certain point value is the winner and has the unique privilege of rubbing it in everyone elses' faces.
Now all I need is a name.
Also, who volunteers to playtest this?