SNAFU: Card chaos with a twist

Pit, a loud and raucous game of real-time stock trading first published in 1903, is the inspiration for SNAFU, Zafty games' new party game launching on Kickstarter on September 5th.  Frank Alberts has combined the frantic trading concept with the wackiness of games like Curses and come up with a laugh-inducing fun fest that plays in just 60 seconds.

Each player is dealt two "wacky quirk" cards and chooses one of them - these are things like Talk like a Pirate, Keep your wrists together (you are handcuffed), etc.  These each have a one, two or three star rating to indicate how difficult they are, to help you choose.  Here's an example:
Each player also gets a hand of four cards, each with one of four symbols on it, and the symbols of like shape are all the same color (so all arrows are green, etc. See below for an image of the symbols.)  There are also wild cards in the deck that can be used as any color card.

A number of cards equal to the number of players plus one is turned up in the middle of the table.  The goal of the game is for the players, collaboratively, to create sets of four cards to go on each of these.  For instance, if four people are playing, there could be two green cards, a yellow card, a purple card and a wild card.  The players have 60 seconds to trade cards with the people on their right and left and put down sets of four cards on each of the five "goal cards."  The wild card can have a set of any color placed on it.  If you have two identical cards that you can't get a trade for, you can discard those two and draw two new cards from the deck.  When you've successfully put down a set, grab four more cards from the deck and keep trading.  Once one minute is up, you can opt to play again - the rules say that all players "win win" if they can win three times in a row.

SNAFU combines two pioneering game concepts to create something I have not seen before - a cooperative party game.  This is a light and quick game that lighthearted players - especially young players - will delight in.  (Kids playing with older family members will especially get a kick out of it - children love to see adults acting silly.)  My "young at heart" test group had a rough start with the game but got the hang of it and were genuinely thrilled when we won.  If you like crazy quick raucous fun with an absurd twist, you owe it to yourself to back SNAFU on Kickstarter.



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