The best party card game in the world is one I learned in college from Nancy Kuhn, called Colorado Crazy Eights. It NEVER fails to get people hyper and excited and is easy to learn and hilarious to play. It’s based on Crazy Eights, which is a fairly simple card game, but it progresses to insanity and speed card-flinging rapidly. The table must be completely cleared of EVERYTHING, especially drinks, as the risks for knocking things over increases as the game progresses. After one round, people are hunched forward, as close to the center of the table as they can get, eyes wide and fingers twitching. By the second round, half the group is standing, leaning forward on every play and easing back on the balls of their feet as play halts while someone draws, giggling like mad fiends. I LOVE Game Nights 😀
If you want to give it a try the next time you have a party, here are the rules for
COLORADO CRAZY EIGHTS
For 6+ players.
The object of the game: to be first to get rid of all the cards in your hand.
Shuffle two full decks of cards together, removing jokers.
Deal out 8 cards to each player, place remaining cards in a face down pile in the center of the table.
Play starts to the left of the dealer by turning up the first card in the deck.
Play on a card can be with the same SUIT, the same VALUE, or an 8 (wild card). If the player plays an 8, he/she announces the new suit of their choice for the next player.
If a player cannot play, he/she must draw cards into their hand until they turn up one they can play.
If a player draws until the deck is gone, the card in play is left on the table while the rest of the discard pile is re-shuffled.
Because there are TWO of each card there are additional rules to keep in mind:
If a player has both of the SAME card (both 4 of diamonds, for example) they can be played together as ONE card.
If a card is played and someone further down the table has the DUPLICATE (i.e. the EXACT SAME CARD), it can be played out of turn provided it is played before the person whose turn it is. Play then resumes after the person who played the duplicate and those in between lose their turns.
It helps to have someone sober on hand who is good at keeping track of whose turn it is. 🙂
Once you have played a round, you should begin adding the following rules, one per round. These are completely arbitrary. Feel free to use the ones you think are the most fun, or make up your own. It’s hard to keep track after 3 rules, and trust me, you won’t need more than that:
1) When the Ace of Spades is played, all players must pass their ENTIRE HAND OF CARDS to the left. Remember, that if BOTH Aces of Spades are played, the hands must be passed twice.
2) When the Queen of Hearts is played, play reverses direction.
3) When the Jack of Clubs is played, the next player loses their turn. If both Jacks of Clubs are played, 2 players in a row lose their turns.
4) When the King of Diamonds is played, the next player and the person opposite them must exchange hands (or places, if you want :).
When we left the party at 11:30 p.m., there was a sheen of sparkly ice to be scraped off the car windows. Clear and cold all the way to Lund, where we ran into the snowstorm that had apparently been in progress for some time. Flyinge lies in a precipitation pocket. If it’s snowing or raining anywhere, it’s doing it there. Down the hill from Lund, the sifted confectioner’s sugar of snow began coating the road and everything else, and the teeming flurries of snow whirled and shifted in the streetlight’s glow. Snow was sifting down through the stiff stalks of the long roadside grasses. Driving, the elongated, wheeling sphere of snow disorients and tempts the eye no matter which direction the car is going. The snow coats everything thoroughly and silently, the layers on the road pockmarked with the pawprints of dogs and the embossed ribbons of tire tracks. Walking from the car, our feet crunch and slide in the quiet.
Another superfluous sunny day in winter, the low sun lighting up the fields, glowing on the white crystal carpet of our backyard. Anders and Martin are at Scouts, and Karin and I are homebodies today. Plants need watering, bookshelves need dusting, dust bunnies need vacuuming. I’m nearly through a speed re-read of Watership Down. It’s every bit as good as the first, second, third, nth time I read it. And now it’s lunchtime, adieu!