I’m not going to get a 9! – Card Game

The game is played with a deck of 16 cards, labeled with a unique primary color (red, blue, green yellow) and a number from 0 to 3. The deck is shuffled and the cards are dealt to each player. I have built my version to involve only 4 players, but that doesn’t mean you can’t change it up. Regardless, it’s an equal spread of 0’s, 1’s, 2’s and 3’s.

The game starts with each player having four cards in their hand not revealed to their opponents. A hand’s “strength” is a factor of how well a player can utilize their hand to avoid losing the game. For example, a hand of [1, 1, 1, 2] is an alright hand, a hand of [0, 0, 1, 2] is a good hand, and a hand of [1, 2, 3, 3] is a bad hand. At a player’s turn, they must play a card from their hand by declaring its number and stating the sentence indicated on the card by adding “I’m going to…” The card’s value is added to the total value. If the total value exceeds 9, the player loses. The game continues in rounds until a certain round number has been reached.

Ultimately, once explained and everyone gets the concept. Rounds go by quickly. Some students got way to into it and asked if it was ok to change up some of the rules. They ended up doing games with a 12 total being the end goal/losing number.