Snap Legacy

“Cabbage!”

Two or more players

This is a game for a deck of playing cards that you don’t mind writing on, and a permanent marker pen to write with. (It’s also okay if one or two cards are missing.)

Start the game by taking twelve cards and dealing them out among the players. (It’s okay if some get more cards than others.) Each player writes any word they like in big letters across each of their cards. Give the ink time to dry, then shuffle the deck back together.

Divide the deck equally between players. Players should hold their hand of cards as a face-down chunk of cards so that they can’t see the next card. Take turns to deal the top card onto your own pile in front of you.

If there are ever two cards of the same rank* (eg. two sevens) on the top of the stacks around the table, or two cards with the same word written on them, that’s a snap. What you call out depends on what you can see:

If the cards match ranks and neither has a word written on it, just shout “snap!” as normal

If the cards match ranks and one of the cards has a word (but the other one doesn’t), you must shout that word instead of snap.

If the cards match words (and even if the ranks are different), shout that word

If the cards match ranks and have different words on them, you must shout the word on the card that was already on the table. (If you shout the word on the card which was just played, it doesn’t count.)

When you call a match correctly, pick up the two piles those cards were on. Write a word onto each of the top cards that doesn’t already have one. (If neither has a word, you can write a different word on each card, or the same word twice.)Then shuffle the two piles of cards into the cards that you’re holding.

If you shout the wrong word, your snap doesn’t count and you don’t get to shout again this turn. Someone else can still shout the correct word to take the cards.

When a player can’t play a card because their hand is empty, they pick their stack up, give it a bit of a shuffle, and it becomes their hand. If they can’t do that because they have no stack in front of them, they must retire from the game. The last player remaining wins.

You can keep using the same deck again and again, even after it’s full of words.

* If you are playing with two players and want more snaps, you can try calling a snap on matching suits as well.

Snap Legacy was devised by Kevan Davis. This is an extract from Everything Is A Game by Viviane Schwarz & Kevan Davis, Published by Trapeze. Copyright remains with the authors.