First Impression: Pacardy

By W. Eric Martin
January 3, 2009

Publisher: Patch Products
Players: 2-6
Ages: 8+
Rules Language: English & Spanish
Links:

Times played: Once with three players
Version played: Production copy

Pacardy is what sinners play in Hell. Those damned souls – whether blasphemers, adulterers, murderers or what have you – must deal out the cursed cards again and again, certain that at some point the game will end and they can get back to being flogged or having their nostrils used as pencil sharpeners, but as you, dear reader, surely know, the true torment of Hell is not the punishment, but the false hope that you can someday escape it. Alas, there is no escape from Pacardy other than deception, a sin which might doom you to the flames, too.

Players start the game with $1.25 in plastic coins, and your goal is to have the most money when the game ends, however that unlikely event might come to pass. A deck of cards is shuffled and dealt out to players, with the cards bearing the numbers 2-6 and 8-12 in a bell curve distribution. The deck also contains cards labeled “Pacardy.”

On a turn, you roll two dice and, assuming you don’t roll a 7, either (a) discard a card from your hand that matches the sum of the dice, then take another turn or (b) fail to lay down a card, in which case each opponent may do so, with the dice then passing clockwise to the next player. If any player rolls a 7, all players must pay coins to a central pot – one penny for the first 7, two for the second, etc. – or discard a Pacardy card from their hand.

When one player runs out of cards, that player claims the pot, then a new round begins. The game ends only if a player runs out of coins – yet you can pass the coins back and forth.

And back and forth.

And back and forth.

No money ever leaves the game, no other ending condition exists. The penalty tops out at 7¢, so you don’t have escalating fees as with poker bids to increase tension and the risk of someone being booted sideways from the table. Instead the risk is that the game will last forever, and your mind will turn to mush as you sit at the table for hours on end, and you’ll forget to go to the bathroom because your neurons are firing ever more slowly, and death’s decay will start to claim you, even while you live.

By removing a substantial sum of money from the holdings of each player after the third round, I put two of us within range of the knife, and the third player, an eight-year-old girl, gladly drove it in, which expunged the boredom that had swelled in her during the game, replacing it with the sweet joy that comes from beating adults. “I like this game because I won,” she said. We also like it because you won, we silently answered, lest the devils overhear us and divvy out the coins once again.

Want to try Pacardy for yourself? Perhaps not after that less-than-glowing review, but if you do, head to BGN’s Games for the Animals page!

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