Kakerlaken Poker: Small Card Games that packed in lots of fun! part 2

Kakerlaken poker is one card game that cotinues to bug me why so few people outside of Europe had known  about it.

Kakerlaken poker is quintessentially a bluffing game or deduction game. It takes the best from poker, putting on the poker face whilst quetly duelling with your opponents challenging them to accept your "truth" claims about a card at the same time threatening them with the possibilities of being hit by the insects and thus declared "the loser" of the game. In the spirit of fun, there is no winner in this game but only one loser... everyone else cheers.

The game contains 8 beautifully drawn rat, spider, bat, cockroach, stink bug, fly, toad and scorpions. There are 8 cards of each creatures. They are shuffled and distributed to all players.

On a player's turn, he or she can palm off a card by putting the card face down and slide it to a player of his/her choice (the opponent) by stating a claim for example " this is a spider." The opponent can accept the card by saying "true" or "false", if it turns out that the opponent judges correctly, the player who wants to palm off the card would have to take the card and place it in his/her "hit" collection.  A player will start a new round whenever one takes a card. When a player has "four of a kind" of creature in his hit collection, a display area in front the player, this player has lost- the game is over. Ok... nothing new so far.

Hang on, here is the twist: Another option for the opponent is to refuse to take a stance on the card by passing the card to another player who has not seen the card before. Before that, the opponent can take a peek at the card before stating a claim - which could be the same or different from the previous claims. The hilarity of the inconsistencies of the claims is the charming element of the game. Add to it is the fear of being eliminated when one has collected a fair share of the same creature thus becoming a target of the other players' palming off exercise.

Each palm off is a truth and dare exercise, a dueling in disguise. There is no opportunity to be uninvolved in this game. You have to read others whilst others are reading you. another condition of losing is when a player has no card in his/her hand to start a round. A player who misjudges frequently will have to start a round by palming off cards, thus draining his/her hand size - a sure way of losing the game. So this is not your usual palming off your cards games.

 Every time I pull out this game, the atmosphere in the room is transformed. You hear laughter. Suddenly the game vanishes from the players' mind, the bluffing and truth and dare exercise take over. The focus is now on the players, you are looking at the other players, their every move. Now this is what a great party game is about - the players. The game merely facilitate the interactions. Need a ice breakers - you've got it.

Kakerlaken poker royal is the new edition of kakerlaken poker with more options of gameplay. You can get a copy at Advent Games

Meeple: This is a winner!
U: Pass... this is a loser.
Meeple's friend: Pass... we are the winner.
Meeple, U & Meeple's friend: True!