Welcome back to the Small Shelf Games series; a series of posts about games that can be played with generic game components that are small, easy to store, and don't need you to break the bank to play.
Today, we're looking at No Mercy, also known as Hit!; a delightfully simple push-your-luck card game with only a couple of rules, but with all the electrifying tension of a full blackjack table of people egging you on to just keep drawing one more card.
No Mercy
- Players: 2-5
- Recommended: 4
- Complexity: Low
- Type: Push Your Luck
- Required:
- Three identical decks of 52 Standard Playing Cards.
Game Setup
- Take 11 Ace, Two, Three, Four, and Five cards from each deck and put them into a separate pile. The pile should have 55 cards so far.
- Take 7 Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, and Ten cards from each deck and put them into the pile. The pile should now have 90 cards.
- Discard the remaining cards from the decks.
This central pile of 90 cards is now the deck for the game. Suits don't matter, only the rank of the cards.
Round Setup
- Shuffle the deck, and put it in the center of the table. This is the Draw Pile.
- Decide which player will go first.
Tip: Not sure who should go first? Try the player with the largest hat!
Gameplay
Each player acts in turn until the round ends. On each player's turn:
- Collect all the face-up cards in your tableau (the area in front of you) and put them face-down into your Loot Pile. (For your first turn, you won't have any face-up cards.)
- Decide whether to Draw or Stop.
- If you Draw, turn the top card over, and place it face-up in your tableau. Check the Draw section below. You can Draw as many times as you like, until you either decide to Stop or you Bust.
- If you Stop, your turn ends; it's now the next player's turn.
Draw
So, you've just revealed a card from the Draw Pile; first or tenth, what happens next is the same:
- If the card matches a card already in your tableau, you've Bust; put all
the cards in your tableau into the Discard Pile. Those cards are out of the
game, and your turn is over.
- Important: This only applies if you have three or more cards in your tableau when you draw a matching card. If you have two or fewer cards, you can add it to your tableau, and choose to Draw or Stop as normal.
- If the card doesn't match any cards in your tableau, add it to a new column in your tableau.
- Optionally, you can choose to take any face-up cards that match the rank of the card you just drew from all other players' tableaus and add them to your own tableau.
- You can now choose to Draw or Stop again, as above.
Tableau Layout
When placing cards in your tableau, you should arrange them in columns, with duplicate ranks you've stolen from other players kept in the same column. Slightly offset each card in the column so that everyone can see how many cards are in each column.
This is to ensure that everyone can easily see the contents of everyone else's tableaus when considering whether to steal cards or push their luck.
Ending the Round
The instant the last card is drawn from the Draw Pile, the round ends. If the last card drawn causes a Bust, the player who drew it loses their current tableau as normal, otherwise everyone collects their tableau cards into their Loot Piles.
Everyone now adds up the values of the cards in their Loot Piles; the player with the highest total wins the round.
And that's it! You can play for one round, track round wins, play to a set target score over multiple rounds, or whatever you like. The tension of having to keep your tableau out for anyone to steal from, and seeing everyone else with juicy cards you could steal, makes for a great game with only a few simple rules.
Glossary
- Draw Pile: The face-down pile of cards in the center of the table where cards are drawn into the Tableau from. Once this is empty, the round ends.
- Tableau: The area where face-up cards that a player collects by Stopping are placed. Cards can be stolen from the Tableau by other players when they draw a card of the same rank. When it's your turn, all the cards in your Tableau are placed face-down in your Loot Pile.
- Loot Pile: The face-down pile of cards each player has in front of them. Cards in the Loot Pile count as your score at the end of the round, and cannot be stolen from.
- Draw: The action of turning over the top card of the Draw Pile and placing it in your Tableau. If the card matches a card already in your Tableau, you Bust.
- Bust: Revealing a card of a rank that's already in your Tableau when you Draw. You lose all the cards in your Tableau to the Discard Pile, and your turn ends.
- Discard Pile: The face-down pile of cards from players' Tableaus that have been Busted. Cards in the Discard Pile are out of the game, and don't count towards anyone's score.