Robert D Bingham

Cuttlefish

A game of (mostly) luck.

2-3 players

Shuffle the deck.
Lay out a base sentence of cards in the following order: blue, green, yellow, red and purple.
Deal 5 cards face down to each player. Players must keep their cards hidden.
Choose one player to go first. Gameplay will move clockwise around the table.
They must choose a card from their hand and place it on top of the card of the same colour in the sentence, reading the whole sentence.
They then say the colour of any one of the colours in their hand.
If the next player has a card of that colour in their hand, they can play it. Otherwise they must draw a new card from the deck. If that card is the right colour they can play it, otherwise they must say “I can’t go” and the game moves round to the next player, who must play a card of the previously specified colour.
When a player only has one card left, they must not say what colour it is. Instead, they call “cuttlefish!” and the next player can play a card of any colour from their hand.
The first person to play all their cards wins.

A game of choice.

3-8 players

This game ends when you run out of time, so decide how long you're going to play before you start.

Shuffle the deck.
Lay out a base sentence of cards in the following order: blue, green, yellow, red and purple.
Deal 5 cards face down to each player. Players must keep their cards hidden.
Choose one player to be the first Picky Panda. They can put their cards down for this round.
The other players each choose a card from their hand that they think the Picky Panda will like, and place it face down in a pile on the table.
Shuffle the cards and give them to the Picky Panda.
The Picky Panda turns the cards over one by one, reading the entire sentence with that card’s adjustment.
Once all the variations have been read, the Picky Panda chooses their favourite card, and places it on top of the card of the same colour in the sentence.
The owner of that card then reveals themselves by saying “that’s mine!”, and they are the winner of that round. They receive all the discarded cards to keep as points. They do not add these cards to their hand, but leave them in a pile on the table in front of them.
Players with 4 cards draw a new one from the deck. All players must have 5 cards.
The winner of that round becomes the Picky Panda for the next round (repeat from 5).
When the time is up, the discarded cards are tallied up, and the player who has collected the most discarded cards is the winner.

Remove the purple cards for struggling players.

Remove all but the yellow and red cards from the deck for a quick, easy game.

3-8 players

Shuffle the deck.
Lay out a base sentence of cards in the following order: blue, green, yellow, red and purple.
Deal 5 cards to each player (3 cards for 7 or more players).
Each player chooses one card from their hand, and throws the rest faceup on a discard pile. They then take turns reading the sentence, saying their own card in place of the card of the same colour in the sentence.
Each player votes for their favourite card. They cannot choose their own.
The most popular card is added to the sentence and the player who played that card receives all the discarded and rejected cards as points. In the case of a tie, players need to discuss and come to an agreement about which card is the best.
Repeat until there are not enough cards to play a round. The player with the most points wins.