4-Square

4-Square

Designer: David E. Whitcher
Publisher: PyroMyth Games
Type: Card
Status: Free
Available from: http://www.pyromythgames.com/offerings/freegames/4square/4square.htm

Unlike the playground game of the same name this is not a game of eliminating. It requires only a standard deck of playing cards without jokers.

Shuffled the deck and deal them into 4 piles in a 2x2 grid face down. Once all the cards have been dealt turn the piles over. On each players turn they take one of two actions. 1) Take a card from one of the piles (except for the last card in the pile.) 2) Match a set by suit (rank doesn't matter.) Matched cards are set in that players scoring pile face down for the end of the game.

Once only the bottom 4 cards are the only remaining cards in the stacks each player may match one set if they like before final scoring including the player who took the last card.

The players score is the total cards taken minus the number of cards in the suit they took the least of.