RULES#

SETUP#

As I said earlier, all you need is a single deck of 54 cards, jokers included. But you're going to need to do a bit of setup, first.

1. Split the deck into two halves, black and red.
   • Suits are ignored in this game, so don't worry about them.
2. Shuffle both halves separately, and give one to either player.
3. Both players draw 3 cards from the top of their deck. These are your hands.
4. Place the decks off to the side, where there is enough room for adjacent discard piles.

It's that simple to set up. Of course, it wouldn't be a game without rules of some form.

TURN PROGRESSION#

Knife Fight is played in a series of rounds, during which players;

1. Play cards and compare their effects
   • The person with the lower numerical card beats the other player.
     • The Joker and face cards have special abilities. We'll talk about them in the next section.
     • Aces are worth 1 in this game, and have the lowest value.
2. Apply damage cards to their corresponding damage piles.
   • The player with the lowest card wins the round. This card is then added to the opponent's damage pile.
     • If both cards are the same and are numeric cards, the damage is applied to both players.
3. Draw cards until they have three cards in their hands
   • IMPORTANT: Always remember to replenish your hand BEFORE you bleed. It can be easy to forget.
4. "Bleed" by discarding cards from their decks based on the sum of their individual damage piles
   • Both players find the sum of the cards in their damage piles, divide that value by 3, then round up. The resulting integer is the number of cards that the players remove from their deck.

This cycle repeats until one or both of the players no longer have cards in their deck. That point is when a player bleeds to death.

If anything up to this point seems confusing, it's okay, we'll have a detailed game example later on.

FACE CARDS#

Sometimes you have to play dirty in a knife fight; anything to get ahead. Of course, that won't always work out for you. In this game, the face cards play a role as manuevers.

Parry (Jack)#

The simplest way to avoid getting hit is to stop the opponent's strike. When the Jack card is played, the opponent's play is nullified. Both cards are discarded.

Field Dressing (Queen)#

When you're bleeding heavily, it seems like a good idea to attempt to stop the it. Of course, you're in a knife fight, so you're probably going to just get cut again anyways. When you play a Queen, you swap the opponent's card for any card in your damage pile. The Queen and the swapped card are then discarded.

Feint (King)#

If you don't know what a feint is, a feint is a false attack, meant to trick your opponent into reacting, so that you can attack them. When you play a King, both players flip their cards at the same time like usual, but right after, you play another card of your choice from your hand.

Reflect (Joker)#

Adrenaline is powerful stuff, and often allows you to do things you wouldn't normally be able to accomplish. In combat, it can be life saving, but you can't rely on it. When you play your one Joker, overpower your opponent and reflect their attack back at them. Of course, they might not play an attack, so you need to be careful and not waste your card.