Card Keeper

The idea

Most shedding games ask you to empty your hand first. Card Keeper inverts it: running out is how you lose. Play a card and you are one closer to the door.

So the cards everyone else dreads become the ones you want. Capture takes cards from an opponent. Draw +3 fills your own hand. A Shield stops someone emptying you. And if you are down to your last few cards, the deck quietly hands you more. The game keeps you alive right up until it doesn't.

How a turn goes

• PlayMatch the colour or the value of the top card, as you would expect.
• Or burnCan't play, or don't want to? Put a card face down on the burn pile. It is out of the game until the deck runs dry.
• SurviveLose your last card and you are out. The last player still holding cards wins.

That is the shape of it. Read the full rules: setup, every card, and what we are still arguing about.