Clown Standoff Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Preparation
• Argument phase
• Standoff phase
• Additional rules for 2 players

Preparation

1. Shuffle the 24 Clown cards (values 1-6) and deal 4 to each player. This is their Hand. Return any remaining Clown cards to the box.
2. Shuffle all Pie cards (1x Hit and 5x Dodge) and place them in a face down pile on the table. This is the Pie deck.

The game plays in 2 phases: Argument phase and Standoff phase.

Argument phase

Repeat the following steps for four Rounds (Tricks) until all Clown cards have been used:

1. Each player secretly chooses one Clown card in his hand and places it face down in front of him.
2. All players reveal their Clown cards simultaneously and compare their values.
3. If two or more players revealed Clown cards with the same value, they cancel each other. If all Clown cards are canceled, the Trick is canceled as well.
4. The player who revealed the Clown card with the highest value (among those not canceled), wins and collects all the Clown cards of the Trick. When a Clown "1" and a Clown "6" are revealed in the same Trick, Clown "1"'s value counts as a 7.
5. The player who collected the Clown cards places them face up in front of him.

Standoff phase

This Phase is played in clockwise order.

The players count the Clown cards they collected during the Argument phase. The player with the most cards plays first. In case of a tie the players tied compare their cards and the one who has the card with the highest value gets to go first.

The player whose turn it is, takes the Pie deck in his hands face down and does one of the following:

1. Reveals the top Pie card from the deck.
2. Discards one Clown card, shuffles all 6 Pie cards, forms a new deck and then reveals the top Pie card from the deck.
3. Discards Clown cards equal to the number of remaining players and passes the Pie deck to the next player.

If the player reveals a "Dodge" card, he stays in game and passes the remaining Pie deck to the next player who plays his turn.

If the player reveals a "Hit" card, he loses and is out of the game! Once a player is out of the game, all 6 Pie cards are shuffled and the new Pie deck passes to the player with the most Clown cards remaining. In case of a tie, the Pie deck goes to the player (among those tied) holding the card with the highest value. A new round begins.

The Standoff phase is repeated until all but one players are out of the game. The last remaining player is the winner.

Additional rules for 2 players

During Preparation, deal 4 Clown cards to a 3rd, dummy player.

During Argument phase, after players reveal their Clown cards, reveal a random card from the dummy player's hand. If the dummy player wins the Trick, return his cards to the box.

During Standoff phase, the dummy player does not participate.