Those famous last words are, as it turns out, an excellent basis for a card game. The Worst-Case Scenario Card Game, to be exact. This game is all about comparing hypothetical bad scenarios and trying to guess how your opponents will rate them from 1 (bad) to 5 (the worst). Since many of these scenarios can kill you, the player to go first is whoever has the worst survival skills.
The active player, entitled “The Victim,” starts their turn by spinning the Victim Wheel – this will affect scoring later. Next, they’ll draw 5 scenario cards from the deck and lay them out face-up in the middle of the play area. For instance, your five scenarios might be “only eat one food for the rest of your life,” “wake up to find tarantulas in your bed,” “snowmobile off a 100-foot drop,” “recurring nightmares for weeks,” and “exposed to high amounts of radiation.” At this point, everyone will grab their numbered chips – color-coded by player, with X’s on the backs – and The Victim will rank the disasters by which they deem the worst, while everyone else will rank the disasters by what they think The Victim deems the worse. This is very much a “how well do you know your friends?” type of game, and it would probably be morbidly fascinating to play with people you don’t know. Yet. Because all good friendships start with uncovering one’s deepest fears, right?
…Alright, maybe not. Regardless, each player places their chips X-side up next to the corresponding cards, ideally with The Victim’s chips on the far side from everyone else’s. Once everyone has placed their chips, The Victim will go through one card at a time, first revealing everyone else’s rankings, then their own. The goal is to match numbers with The Victim! For each successful match, a player gains one point… unless the Victim Wheel landed on Score Your Chips!, in which case each match is worth the number of the rank. Other Victim Wheel effects include Double Up! (all players double their points for the round) and Bad Is Good! (players who match The Victim’s #1 chip get a 1-point bonus). The Victim’s score for the round equals whichever other player scored the highest, including bonuses, and a score sheet is included in the box. In a 3, 4, or 6 player game, there are 12 rounds, while in a 5 player game there are 10, so everyone gets an equal amount of turns being The Victim. And whoever has the most points at the end wins!
