Khromix

Sagacity and speed are the watchwords in this game that's puzzling in more than one way! In KHROMIX, players collect cards to score points, and the player with the most points wins — but how they collect cards is somewhat tricky. At the start of play, shuffle the deck and deal the cards out evenly among the players; most cards have a color word on them (e.g., "red"), but the word is printed in a non-matching color, say blue. On a turn, a player reveals the top card from his deck and (in most cases) says either "Color!" or "Word!", asking for opponents to yell out either the color of the text or the word printed on the card. If the first opponent to answer yells out correctly, she keeps this card (and any cards already on the table) and places it in her score pile; if the first player is wrong, the current card stays in the center of the table and the wrong player places one previously scored card in the center, too. Some cards have special functions, such as allowing the player who wins the card to peek at the top card of an opponent's deck. Other cards are multipliers and they double the points scored for cards claimed previously; to track this, you must keep cards in order as you claim them. Still other cards are "Mystery" cards, and the player who reveals a Mystery card should immediately ask any question at all, the more bizarre the better. The first opponent who offers any kind of coherent answer wins that card and any others on the table. As soon as a player runs out of her stack of cards, the game ends and everyone tallies their points (mostly positive but sometimes negative), summing points from bottom to top and remembering to multiply cards accordingly. Whoever ends up with the highest score wins!