The rules
Hey there!
Hey there, you sneaky little bastard! Love being an a**hole to your friends but would still rather keep them? Well, then we are delighted to introduce you to Sneaky Snakes, a card game in which you CAN’T see most of your cards! Too lame? Lamé? Llama? Whatever, man, as long as you can piss everyone off without any consequences! So let’s start with a question: Who’s got the biggest snake??
What's your goal?
So, how to get the biggest snake? It’s easy! Your goal is to win! (Thanks captain Obvious, right?) Some of the cards are here to help you with that and some of them are just.. sneaky.
There are two ways to win:
- Get more cards than any other player by the end of the game. If you do so- you’ll have the biggest snake and you’ll win!
2. The other way is to collect all the Snake Jones cards and have them facing you in the course of the game. Don’t get it? Read on, you’ll find more info in the Let’s check the cards section.
So, the game ends the moment the last card is drawn from the draw pile or when somebody wins by collecting all the Snake Jones cards.
Get ready!
1. Setting up the deck
Separate the cards according to the number of players, keep only the cards that have a lower or equal number in the lower right corner of the card compared to the number of players. (Example: In a two- player game, keep the cards with 2+ in the corner. For three or four players, keep the 2+ and 3/4+ cards. For five or more players, keep all cards.)
24 cards are used for two players, 40 for three to four and all cards (52) are used for five or more players.
2. Dealing the cards
First, shuffle the deck and deal two cards face down to each player. Everybody should pick their cards up and hold them so that they can see them. Then deal one more card to each player, again face down. CAREFUL NOW! When the players pick this card up, it should be facing away from them. In other words, you’re not supposed to see the third card’s front side (just the back one). Hold it so that other players can see it, as shown in the illustration:
- When everybody picks their cards up the right way, you can see some of the cards that other players have.
- Put the rest of the deck face down in the middle of the table-that’s now your draw pile.
- The shortest person starts first.
- If you want a more challenging game, start with one more card which you can’t see (in total 2 facing you and the other 2 facing away from you).
Let's start!
1. Draw
Start your turn by drawing a card from the draw pile. CAREFUL AGAIN! Every time you draw a card, place it in your hand facing away from you, so that other players can see it and you can’t.
You can NEVER see the front side of the cards you draw, unless a card’s action allows you to do so. Now, choose one of the following actions.
2. Actions
PLAY ACTION
Play one of your cards by placing it face up on top of the discard pile. Read the description on it – it will tell you what to do! You can be adventurous and play a card even if you don’t see it – but some of them won’t have any effect that way.
POINT ACTION
Point at a card in any other player’s hand, even if you can’t see it! The other player then has to decide whether HE/SHE’s going to play that card or let YOU play it. This turn could be either bad or good for you (or the other player), it depends on your persuasiveness and the other player’s (dis)trust. It’s up to you whether you want to gamble a little! (We recommend that you do so-it’s a lot of fun!)
After you play one of the possible actions, your tum is over and the game continues clockwise around the table.
3. Ending the game
If nobody won via Snake Jones cards, once the last card is drawn from the draw pile, the game is over and the players show off their snakes. Whoever’s got the biggest snake wins! That means that everybody has to count the cards in their hands and the player with the most cards wins. If two (or more) players end up with the same number of cards in their hands – they split the win or start a snake battle to decide who wins.
SNAKE BATTLE
If at the end of the game two or more players end up with the same number of cards in their hands, they have the option to engage in a snake battle to decide who wins. They discard cards that they collected during the game and set up new draw pile by selecting 4 random cards. from the discard pile PER PERSON participating in the snake battle.
Example: If there are two players, the draw pile will contain 8 cards. In case of 3 players, the draw pile will contain 12 cards, etc.
Then, each player draws one card and holds it so that it’s facing away from him/her. The tallest person starts first. Other than that, the regular rules apply.
Extra rules
If during a move you don’t want to perform the actions PLAY or POINT, as a replacement for the action (after drawing a card) you can discard any two cards from your hand and draw one you see. After drawing the new card you see, your turn is over and it’s the next player’s turn.
SKIP
If during your move you do not see the face of any of your teammates’ cards, after drawing a card, you can skip the action for that move.
- “See” in the description of a card means that the card should be facing you.
- If you receive a gift, steal or take any cards (via some card action) from other players/from the discard pile or draw pile, they face towards you and you can see them.
- If you swap your cards with another player, he/she keeps and sees your cards as he/she saw them before the handover. You also hold and see the received cards of the other player as you saw them in hands of the other player, before the swap was done.
- If you run out of cards at any time, wait until it’s your turn again. You’ll draw one then. Remember, any card you draw should be facing away from you so that other players can see it and you can’t!
- If for any reason you look at a card after drawing it, congratulations – you just broke the previous rule. As a punishment, you’ll have to put this card back in the middle of the draw pile. and resume your turn.
On the cheat sheets, in the lower right corner, you will find the number of individual cards for a specific number of players.
Example: 2/3/4 means that in a game for 2 players there are 2 of those cards, in a game for 3-4 there are 3 and for 5+ players there are 4 of the same cards.
