Designed by: Mark Major
Texas Showdown (also published as Strife) is a trick-taking game where the last thing you want is tricks.
The deck is made up of 60 numbered cards, and the suits comprised of a bunch of consecutive numbers. The lowest ranked suit (black) has the most numbers (0-10) and each suit above it in the ranking has fewer cards, with the top-ranked suit only consisting of a mere four. Note that the start of each suit above black is 11, 21, 31, 41, and so on, which means as the suits contain fewer and fewer cards, there are larger and larger gaps in the numbers (the highest card is 74, not 60!).
Standard trick-taking rules apply in that which ever suit is led, players must follow suit if they’re able to. However! If they can’t, they may play any card they like, and now any subsequent players can (and must, if possible) follow either suit played. Following this logic, the last player to lay a card may have multiple options to choose from, especially later in the round when cards are scarce.
The winner of the trick is not necessarily the player who played the highest card – it’s the player who played the highest card of the suit there are most of. Which means that getting rid of cards isn’t quite as easy as you’d like it to be!
Every trick you claim is a point against you, and as soon as any player reaches fifteen points the player with the fewest points is declared the winner.
Plenty. Keep those eyes peeled for the opportunity to dump a card on someone who is clearly not expecting to take the trick!
Minimal
The rules are light. With only one suit to follow, your decision-making isn't too onerous. As the rounds close out and cards run short, it's about judging when to play what: going in last place is often helpful at this point as you may have more choice as to what to play.
If you like trick-taking games, this is a neat twist.
3-6
Players
10+
Years
30-60
Mins
Sam says
Generally I enjoy trick-taking games and this doesn't buck that trend. You are sometimes less in control of your own destiny here than some other trick-takers (such as the excellent Voodoo Prince). But it's certainly not entirely out of your hands either, and I've enjoyed many plays of Texas Showdown.