A card game for 3 (or 4) players, © by Bill de Veas, 2020-03-04
Players compete for points gained through strategically collecting cards from each of the four suits.
Thematically, each player is a pop-culture "hitmaker" aiming to reign over pop culture, whether through market saturation, viral one-hit wonders, or poaching your rivals' rising stars.
This game uses a standard French-suited card deck (52 cards, no Jokers).
Note: Rules for the 3-player game follow. (For 4 players, see the 4-Player Variant section.)
Deal each player 7 cards. Set the remaining cards in the middle as the stock pile. Make room next to it for a discard pile, but do not turn over a card to start it off.
Also prepare a space in the playing area for laying out 7 cards in a row. (Overlap is fine, so long as the cards' ranks and suits are visible.) This space will hold the Cavalcade of Stars.
Play proceeds clockwise starting with the player to the left of the dealer.
Rank values: Aces are worth 1, Jacks 11, Queens 12, and Kings 13.
A single game consists of three phases: 7 rounds of Production, followed by a round of Talent Scouting, and finally Scoring.
At the start of each round, the first player turns over a card from the top of the draw pile. This represents a Rising Star. Place it face up in the Cavalcade area. (The number of cards in the Cavalcade also conveniently serves to keep track of which round it is.)
Each player takes 1 turn per round, during which they may draw the top card from either the stock or the discard pile into their hand, then discard one card.
Players do this to "build their catalog" — gathering scouts and influence for the Talent Show and scoring phases. (See the Scoring section for more about how to score points.)
At the end of 7 rounds, there will be 7 cards in the Cavalcade of Stars, and it will be time for the Talent Show.
The last player in turn order serves as the Emcee.
Set aside the discard pile and any remaining stock from the play area.
During the Talent Show, players attempt to capture cards into their hand with the card of the same rank in a different suit, according to a cyclical hierarchy: Clubs beat only Diamonds, which beat only Hearts, which beat only Spades, which beat only Clubs, and so on.
These cards of same rank represent you, as a hitmaker, drawing on your own resources (calling in favors and sending swag) to "scout" the Rising Star in the hope of convincing them to contract with you.
Careful! If you dare to scout a Rising Star, you risk one of your fellow hitmakers poaching the Star, and taking your favors with them!
To start the show, the Emcee presents one of the Rising Stars, calling its rank and suit and that of the appropriate scout card.
If no player scouts the Rising Star, the Emcee turns the card over and proceeds to present the next card.
If a player does scout the Rising Star, they play their card face-up on the Star card. The Emcee then calls for the card of the next suit in the cycle. Another player who has that card can play it on top of both cards to poach the Rising Star; and so on.
When no player scouts the Rising Star any further, the Rising Star's presentation ends, and the player who won the contract collects the Rising Star card plus all cards played on it.
For example: the presentation for 10♦ starts with the Emcee calling for the 10♣. Player 2 puts their 10♣ on top of the 10♦ to scout it. The Emcee then calls for the 10♠, which Player 1 reveals and plays on the 10♣. The Emcee calls for the 10♥, which no player reveals, so the presentation ends and the three cards go to Player 1.
After all Rising Star cards have been collected or discarded, the game moves into the scoring phase.
Each player separates their hand into suits.
For each of the four suits, award 3 points for cultural influence based on these criteria:
Individual players may gain additional points by these special cases:
The player's score is the sum of points attained for all suits in their hand.
Play to a predetermined number of points, such as 21.
For four players, deal 6 cards to each player, and do 5 production rounds. After the fifth round, draw a sixth card into the Cavalcade. (If four or more cards remain in the stock, players may do a 6th production round.) Then, do a 6-card Talent Show.
(Author's note: I'm not entirely satisfied with adapting this game to 4-player. I think that the asymmetry of 3 players vying for 4 suits is more dynamic than 4 vying for 4.)
This variant will require higher memory skills.
Deal all Rising Star cards into the Cavalcade at the start of the game, face up. (For 4 players, either deal 5 cards and run 6 production rounds, or deal 6 cards and run 5 production rounds.)
At the end of each production round, turn one Rising Star card face-down and place it on any other face-down card in the row.
In the Talent Show, the Emcee can simply turn over the face-down pile and take from the top until the pile is exhausted.
2021-04-08: Scoring: Changed "Broad Appeal" from "lowest rank" to "largest difference"; switched the order of "Broad Appeal" and "Critical Prestige".