Designed by: Uncredited
The players are stuck aboard a rapidly-descending plane, where the pilot has jumped out leaving them one parachute short. What’s more, even if you save yourself, you still need enough money to pay off the casino – can you do it when you Hit the Silk?
Players have a hand of 4 cards from the deck, and on your turn you can play as many of them as you like, or dump a card to take a new one from the deck. The cards might be cash – you collectively need a certain amount when the game ends – or items that do certain, mostly nasty, things: poisoning other players, stealing from them or threatening them with a weapon, even handcuffing yourself to them to stop them jumping. If you’re done with your actions, you simply pass.
The catch? Every time you play or change a card, the plane loses altitude, tracked on the altimeter. So everyone has a certain amount of time before the plane crashes.
However in this hellish situation, there’a also a temporary democracy: when the plane hits particular altitudes, the players all vote on whether to jump out (the hitting the silk of the title). If you have a parachute, and aren’t handcuffed to someone who doesn’t, you might vote to jump (but bear in mind you also need enough cash to pay off the casino! If you don’t have a parachute, voting for is obviously foolish. Either way, any players left on the plane after it’s too late to jump have one last chance to save themselves: they can land the plane itself. This is where Hit the Silk changes from a card game to a dice game: players roll dice and move a plane marker down through the board attempting to make it to the runway without overshooting (into a mountain) or dipping ‘below’ ground level, either of which eventuality means game death. If they land – hurray! You survived. But… do you have enough cash to pay off your casino debt? If not – you still lose!
A fair amount. Players are snatching cards from each other and inflicting damage. Although there's a co-operative goal of having enough cash, there'll never be enough parachutes and the action cards encourage a kind of moderate-to-high nastiness.
Low
Low - it's really about having a parachute and some cash at the right time.
It depends how you feel about the slightly arbitrary cruelty of the cards, but certainly the game's challenge always remains deliciously opaque.
3-6
Players
8+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
I've mixed feelings about Hit the Silk: although I don't mind a feisty game or even a bleak, machiavellian theme, the arbitrary nature of the cardplay just feels a bit so what: there's not a lot of strategising or tactical play here. On the other hand, I like the time-running-out of the altimeter and the crux points of the votes being not just a risk for the potential strandees on the plane, but also the escaping parachutists, should they not have enough cash (you're not allowed to reveal how much you have in your hand). Plus we should add the game can be played with a fully-co-operative variant, and also has a 'travel' cards-only option where you don't need the altimeter or landing boards. Fun enough, but only if you like your fun like a series of face-slaps.