Skyjo Rules

Overview

Be the player with the least amount of total points when you add up your cards at the end of each round. Rounds continue until a player reaches 100 plus points and the player with the lowest point total wins. Get rid of your highest numbers if you can!

Set Up

Make sure the cards are shuffled well. Every player is dealt 12 cards and places them face down in front of them, four cards across and three rows down. In the center  of the table within reach of all players, place the remaining cards face down, this is the draw pile. During game play there will also be a discard pile.

Game Play

To begin, every player randomly picks two cards out of their 12 to flip over.  The highest card total will be the start player. These stay face up. On each player’s turn, they choose one of 2 actions:

1.Draw from the discard pile.​ The player decides which card from their 12 they will exchange it with, If a face down card is chosen, it cannot be looked at before choosing. The card that is swapped is then put in a discard pile face up. 

2.Draw from the draw pile. ​If this action is chosen, they may look at the drawn card and choose to exchange with a card in their 12. No peeking is allowed at face down cards before swapping. If a face down card is chosen, the face down card is placed in the discard pile, and the drawn card is placed face up in it’s spot. If the player chooses not to keep the drawn card, they place it on a discard pile and then reveal one of the face down cards in front of them. The player’s turn ends and play continues in clockwise direction. 

Special Rule:  If the player reveals or has three of the same number in a vertical row, that player discards the entire row of three cards into the discard pile, lessening the total score of the player.  

Game ends when one player reveals all of their 12 cards. Each subsequent player has one more turn to complete as stated above.  

Points If the player who ends the round by revealing their last card does not have the least amount of points when others reveal all of their cards, that player doubles​ his points collected in that round.  

This rule only applies to positive points in the players hand and does not include negative points and zeroes.  

Each player adds up points on all 12 cards, both face up and face down. At the end of each round the points of each player are added to their previous score. 

Winning of the Game 

The game ends as soon as one of the players hit 100 points or more and the player with the lowest score is declared the winner.