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.