That's Not a Hat
Based on the game by Kasper Lapp
A fast and competitive memory game.
Setup
For a 4-6 player game, you only need four suits of ZSA Cards. If you have 6-8 players, use the complete deck of ZSA Cards (all eight suits).
Clubs0–K, A
Spades0–K, A
Hearts0–K, A
Diamonds0–K, A
Caps0–K, A
Switches0–K, A
Stars0–K, A
Planets0–K, A
Create two piles of cards on the table:
- One pile with just the J, Q, K, A cards, shuffled, face up. These are the direction cards.
- One pile with all of the other cards, shuffled, face up. These are the gift cards
Gameplay
The goal of the game is to have the fewest discarded cards. The game ends when one player discards 3 cards.
Deal 1 gift card to each player, face up. The players show each other their gift cards, and give them names according to the pictures on the cards. The names should be simple and clear, and agreed on by everyone. Nothing overly clever— just what you see in the picture. Single words: Cloud, Shoe, Brain, etc.
North
3
West
6
Draw
East
0
You
6
All players start with a card face up and agree on a simple name for the cards. Once names are agreed upon, these cards are flipped face down.
The players now all turn their card face down on the table in front of them.
The starting player gets the top gift card from the draw pile. They look at it, show it to everyone else around the table, and place it face-down below their initial gift card. The gift cards do not overlap on the table— it is just a two-card tableau, one resting above the other.
The first direction card is flipped face up. The players look at the card’s suit to determine the direction of gift-giving around the table. A base suit (Hearts♥, Diamonds♦, Clubs♣, Spades♠) means right, and an extended suit means Left. If you’re only playing with the base suits, Red means right (and thus, of course, blue means left).
North
West
Draw39Q15
East
Youcurrent
5
You take a new gift card from the pile, let everyone see it, then place it face down below your first gift card. The direction card is then flipped. Since this is a 4-player game and the direction card is a Club♣ (blue), you gift to the player on your left.
It is time to start giving gifts! The starting player passes their oldest card (this will always be the upper card because new cards are placed below your previous card) to the player next to them (according to the direction indicated by the direction cards) while saying something like “Here’s a Brain for you!”
North
West
Draw39Q15
East
Youcurrent
You pass your oldest card to the player on your left. That player may either accept the gift or doubt it.
The receiving player can now do one of two things:
Accept the gift:
- If the receiving player thinks the card is indeed a Brain, they accept it and place it vertically above their initial gift card. It will be obvious if the gift giver is lying or mistaken for the first few gift passes. The choice to accept or reject gets more complicated with more gifts moving around.
- Then a new turn starts, with the last receiving player as the gift giver: a new direction card is flipped over. The new gift giver takes their lower card (the card they have had the longest) and gifts it to the player next to them (according to the direction), face down, while saying what it is. “Here you go— a Cloud for you!” Once a card is turned face down, it is never flipped back up unless the receiver doubts the gift.
Doubt the gift:
- If the receiving player thinks the card is not a Brain (or whatever it was said to be), they say, “That’s not a Brain!” (or whatever it is) and flip the card over to show everyone what it is.
- If the receiving player was correct (it wasn’t a Brain!) the player who gave them that card as a gift takes the card and puts it face-down next to them, discarding it.
- If the gift receiver was wrong (they said it wasn’t a Brain, but really, it was), they are the one to discard the card in their own pile next to them. Whether the gift receiver was correct or incorrect, they then draw a new gift card, show it to everyone and turn it face down, placing it above their other card. A new direction card is flipped, and play resumes with the gift receiver passing their bottom card according to the new direction card.
Gameplay continues in this fashion around the table. When you run out of direction cards, re-shuffle all direction cards and place the stack face-down to keep using it.
Winning
The game ends when any player discards 3 cards. The player with the fewest discarded cards wins. Since games should be quick, you can also opt to play multiple rounds, keeping score of the number of discarded cards for each player at the end of a round. The winner is then the player with the fewest cumulative discarded cards at the end of the number of rounds you decided on.
