Papayoo is played in several rounds with a custom deck of colourful cards in five suits: the four usual suits (Spades, Clubs, Hearts and Diamonds) with cards from 1 to 10, and a fifth suit named the "Payoo" which goes from 1 to 20.
Rules of play:
The aim of the game is to score as little points as possible, with the Payoos being the primary source of points, each worth their number value in points at the end of the round. Avoiding getting these (especially the high-number ones) is one of the game's top priorities... the other being avoiding the Papayoo, one randomly-selected 7 of from the other suits, which is worth a whopping 40 points. Therefore, 250 points are to be distributed at the end of each round.
At the start of the round, players pass a number of cards from their hands to their neighbour on the left (the number of cards depends on the player count). After that, is the Papayoo decided by a die roll and the round begins.The dealer opens the first trick, and the following tricks are started by the winner of the previous trick.
The players must follow on the opening suit unless they don't have any, and they are not required to play a higher-numbered card. There are no trump suits, so when a player doesn't have the colour that is asked for, they can discard any other card, which is a great way to get rid of Payoos or high-number cards that are susceptible to gain tricks later. After the last trick, players count the points granted by the Payoos and the Papayoo they gathered during the game, and another round might begin with the new dealer being the player next to the previous one.
After a varying number of rounds (either a set number, one round per player, ...) the game ends and the player with the lowest score wins.
This game contains examples of:
- Cycle of Hurting: Woe betide a player who wins a trick and only has one suit in hand, especially in the late game, because if they happen to be the only one with these in hand, they are guaranteed to win every single trick left in the game. Also possible with a player who has only the highest cards left in several suits as there are no trumps in this game.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: Sometimes, you'll willingly win tricks with several low-point Payoos so you can get rid of a high-level card, even if you could technically avoid the trick. After all, better take 9 points on that trick to avoid gaining 54 on the next!
- Luck-Based Mission: A hand that is full of high-level suit cards and Payoo is basically a death sentence, especially if the hand is devoid of any low-level card to allow the player to dodge tricks.
- Luck Manipulation Mechanic: Before each round, you will pass a set amount of cards to your neighbour (the number varies based on player count), so even if you are dealt a positively dreadful hand, you can mitigate the luck of the draw a little bit. However don't forget that you will also receive cards frm your other neighbors. On the other end of the spectrum, if one is dealt a fantastic hand, he'll be forced to forfeit some of their cards and to receive other, usually very bad cards from their neighbour.
- Misère Game: The entire game revolved around avoiding to win tricks at all costs, as they are all likely to net you Payoo cards, especially at higher player counts.
- Whammy: Downplayed compared to the Queen of Spades in a game of Hearts: while the Papayoo still is a very bad thing to get since it is worth 40 points, it is not as significant on the grand scheme of things as unlike the Queen of Spades, which is worth half of each round's points, the Papayoo represents less than a sixth of the 250 points available each round.
