I played Egyptian Rat Screw with the wife recently and came up with a slightly modified version.

Would be excellent with two or more very competitive people.

I call it Slaption.

Aim

  • 2-5 people, maybe add a pack of cards for 6+?
  • If one person ends up with all the cards, they win!
  • If you have no cards left, you can still rejoin the game by slapping.

Prep

Split the entire pack among players, dealer chooses their pile last.

Basic rules

  • Starting from the left of the dealer, the player takes one card from their deck and lays it face down (in one smooth motion, no PEEKING)
  • If the card is a number card, play continues to the left
  • If the card is a face or ace, the player must continue laying down cards. If they manage to lay down another face or ace, play continues to the left. If they only lay down number cards, the previous player get to pick up the discard pile
  • The number of chances they get to lay down a face card are: 1 for J, 2 for Q, 3 for K, 4 for A.

The slap rule

As well as these basic rules, there will be one or more ‘slap rules’ in play. These are conditions under which a player may interrupt play and win the discard pile by performing a slaption (slap-action).

The beginning slap rule is that you may slap when the last two discarded cards were a pair (eg. 5 clubs and 5 hearts).

The beginning slaption can be whatever you want, we went with “you must slap your forehead”.

If a slap-rule condition is met, you first do the slaption (eg. hit your forehead) then slap the discard pile. The first slapper wins. If multiple hands slap at the same time, the bottom-most wins. If two people are at the same level in the pile, the one with more hand-area on the discard pile wins.

If you slap at the wrong time, or use the wrong slaption, you give each player one of your cards.

Changing the slaption

Any time a player runs out of cards completely, they may

  • add a slap rule (a new condition when you may slap)
  • OR remove a slap rule
  • OR change the slaption

Example rules might be: a sequence of 4 cards, a king and a queen discarded next to each other, any ace, etc.

Example slaptions might be slap your forehead, slap your leg, shout a word, rap the table, take a drink, etc. — it must be something that everyone is capable of doing quickly.

Example of play

  • Player 1 lays down a 5
  • Player 2 lays down a Q, they have 2 chances to lay down another face card or ace. They lay down 5, 3
  • Player 1 picks up the discard pile!
  • Player 1 lays down a J (one chance to lay down a face or ace), then a Q, so play continues
  • Player 2 lays down a Q
  • Player 3 screams “ELEPHANT” and slaps the table, spilling their beer, but winning the discard pile
  • Player 3 lays down a 4, etc.