The name of this new card game makes no sense and the mechanics are based purely on chance, but that just adds to the fun.
The card game is called “Switch Person Switch”. There is no switching involved in any way. The meaning of the name is lost on my and my asking for elaboration was greeted with the sort of weird “why don’t you understand already?” dismissiveness that would make a teenager proud. My child is five, so I think I can chalk that up as a “win” in the parenting column.
So how you play? That’s easy. All you need is a standard pack of playing cards.
There is no limit to the number of players you have, but practically any more than three is probably going to make winning difficult.
The aim of the game
The aim of the game is to collect all four suits of one card. So all four of the hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs of one of the cards ace through nine, jack, queen or king.
Setup
Discard the jokers from the pack, shuffle the cards and spread them out, face down, on a table or, really any surface you happen to have available. We are using this set of very small cards that I think came out of a Christmas cracker.
Determining the player who goes first is simply – it is the oldest player.
The first turns
Taking turns, each player selects from the face-down cards and flips it.
For the first turn, that card is taken and set in front of the player, face up.
The next player then makes their turn, selecting one from the face-down cards and flipping it.
If the value on the card is not held by the first player, then it is placed face up in from of the second player.
The first player then takes their second turn.
Subsequent turns
Turns alternate like this throughout the game.
If a player turns over a card the value of which is already held by the other player, that card is excluded from the game. It cannot be used to make a set of four for either player.
Turns then continue until one player is the first to collect all four suits of one value.
Ending the card game
The first player to collect four suits of one value wins the game. From here, there are two alternate endings that can be taken up:
First, the moment a player collects all four suits of a value, the game ends.
Second, the game can continue until all cards are overturned with the player filling the most sets of four declared the winner.