Description

SPOOF: The Cheer-Up Game. Components: 7 wood batons (round, knob-headed sticks) and a 52-card deck (four each of thirteen designs).

The art on the cards is allegedly inspired by "the Incas, high up on the Andes of Peru". Place (n-1) batons (where n=number of players) in the center of the table, within reach of all the players, The complete deck is dealt out to the players. It doesn't matter if the cards don't distribute evenly. Each player chooses a card from their hand and passes it, face down, to the player on their left. Players then pick up the card that was passed to them and choose that card or another card in their hand to pass again to the left. Play is simultaneous and continues in this manner, players passing cards as fast as possible, until someone has a set of 4 cards of the same kind. That player places their cards quietly on the table and takes a baton from the table. All other players must then immediately grab a baton. The last player to do so cannot pick up a baton, as there is one fewer baton than number of players. The player without a baton scores an "S", "the beginning of his descent to the caste of a SPOOF." Rounds are played, with the person failing to secure a baton scoring a letter in the word "SPOOF". Each players' first failure receives an "S", for their second P", their third "O", and so on until one player completes the word "SPOOF", and "is declared to be a creature of that slow moving, dull-witted species."