Game-it-Yourself! -- Antimatter

Antimatter

Designer: Silvano Sorrentino
Publisher: GiocAreA Online
Type: Card
Languages: English, Italian
Status: Free
Available from: http://www.davincigames.it/giocarea_eng/13/dagiocare.htm

Game materials: Two standard Poker decks with different back (say, red and blue), without J’s, Q’s, K’s and Jokers, for a total of 80 cards.

The card in play will be distinguished by three important features:

the value, from zero to the value of the card (10’s are considered as 0’s, as we are about to see);

the nature, which can be of red matter (if the card is of Heart or Diamond suit) or black antimatter (if it is of Spade or Club suit);

the colour of the back, important for the final scoring

At the beginning of each turn, the current player reveals some cards from the face down deck and puts them at the centre of the play area, clearly visible to both players. He will keep revealing cards until there are three cards with the same colour of the back. So, in each turn three to five cards will go to the auction. Then, players take turns in offering for getting (or avoiding) the cards at the auction.

After this offering phase is done, players compare cards in hand to see if any match by rank -- matching cards that are the same color suit are kept for positive points, while matching cards of different colored suits are kept for negative points (they 'explode'). After this is done, the players can demand an 'inspection' to make sure all cards have been matched up.

After the last step of the last auction, players discard all cards in their hands, and points are tallied: each player gains one point for each positive (face up) card he has collected. Then, look at the back of your negative (face down) cards collected so far and choose one colour to discard: each card of the other card will be worth a negative point. The winner is the player with the highest score. In case of a tie, player who suffered less explosions (that is, the player with less face-down cards) wins.

This game appeared in issue #13 of GiocAreA Online.