Punch-a-Friend

- Punch-A-Friend -

Flick, Slap, and Punch your friends into submission

(no, not really, it’s just what the cards are called)

Punch-a-Friend is another game that can be played with a standard poker deck.

It's the lightest game I've made so far and is a basic shared-deck, set collection, “take-that” kinda card game.

I want it to be accessible to the same age range as Crazy 8s, Old Maid, Go Fish!, etc... I haven't had too many chances to play test this game but so far I think it's shaping up to be a pretty fun "all ages" game.

The basic premise is that you are a group of nobles getting into a slap fight (white glove in the face style).

There are two ways to win: Either collect 1 set of all 3 suits, thus proving you can defend against any attack, OR eliminate the other players by placing 3 hit cards on them.

The 3 suits are Flick, Slap, and Punch (Hearts, Diamonds, Spades).

While they are progressively more violent actions there is no difference between the suits.

Even the values on the cards (2-10, J-A) only serve as markers to define which Hit and suit cards match together.

The 4th suit is - Hit (Clubs).

Any Hit card can be paired with any same-number suited card and played on another player to "hit" them.

Hits are placed on other players by playing a same-number Hit + suited card pair during your turn.

Example:

5 of Hits + 5 of Slaps OR Jack of Hits + Jack of Punches, etc...

Players can defend from Hit cards paired with specific suits by playing a three card run of that suit (rummy style).

Example:

Say Jimmy plays the 5, 6 & 7 of Slaps (Diamonds). Now nobody can play any Slap (Diamond) + Hit (Club) pairs on him for the rest of the game. He can now only be “hit” by the other two suits.

Once Jimmy gets runs in the other two suits (Flick & Punch) he wins!

But if he gets “hit” three times (even with 3 hits of the same suit) before he can get all of his pairs out, he'll lose.

We've also been using a "healing" rule where any player (on their turn) can discard any one of the runs they’ve played to remove a Hit pair from themselves, thus “gaining” a life point back. So far that seems to be playing o.k. even if the abstraction for healing is a little loose.

Full rules with pictures coming in early March (hopefully).

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you give this little game a try, I’d love to hear your feedback!