Royal Garden

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards
3. Setup
4. Playing a turn
5. Winning the game
6. A match
7. Differences from Okiya
8. Tips for beginners
9. Variants

Overview

Royal Garden is a short game of pure tactics for two. Sixteen cards – the Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks – lie face up in a 4 × 4 square, the garden. Taking turns, you take a card out of the garden and put one of your markers in its place. But you can't take just any card: it must share the rank or the suit of the card your opponent took just before. Be the first to get four markers in a line or in a 2 × 2 square – or leave your opponent with no card they are allowed to take.

• Players: exactly 2.
• You need: 32 cards from one standard deck: the 16 Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks, and the 2 to 9 of hearts and of spades as markers.

Royal Garden is our own adaptation for an ordinary deck, inspired by Okiya (Bruno Cathala, 2012). It has not been playtested yet.

The cards

• The garden: the 16 cards A K Q J of all four suits. Each one has a rank (Ace, King, Queen or Jack) and a suit (♠ ♥ ♦ ♣) – and no two are the same.
• The markers: one player takes the eight red markers (2–9♥), the other the eight black markers (2–9♠). Their numbers don't matter; only the colour shows whose marker it is.

Setup

1. Shuffle the 16 garden cards and lay them face up in a square of four rows of four.
2. Each player takes their eight markers.
3. Decide who starts. In later games, the loser of the previous game starts.

Playing a turn

On your turn:

1. Take a card out of the garden and lay it face up on a pile next to the garden. Always put it on top, so that only the last card taken is visible.
2. Put one of your markers face up in the empty place.

Which card may you take?

• First turn of the game: any card on the edge of the garden – not one of the four cards in the middle.
• Every later turn: a card that has the same rank or the same suit as the card on top of the pile – the card your opponent just took.

Example: Anna starts and takes the Q♣ from the top-right corner; she puts her 2♥ in its place. Ben must now take a Queen or a club: the Q♥, Q♠, Q♦, A♣, K♣ or J♣. He takes the A♣ and puts his 2♠ there. Now Anna must take an Ace or a club.

Winning the game

You win at once when, after your turn:

• four of your markers form a line – a row, a column or one of the two long diagonals, or
• four of your markers form a 2 × 2 square anywhere in the garden, or
• your opponent can't take a card, because no card in the garden shares the rank or the suit of the card you just took.

Draw. If the last card is taken out of the garden and nobody has won, the game is a draw.

Example: Late in the game, Ben takes the J♥. All other Jacks and all other hearts have already been taken out of the garden, so Anna has no card she may take. Ben wins.

A match

Choose one of these ways to play:

• Single game: one game decides.
• Best of five: the first to win three games wins the match.
• Points match: the winner of a game scores 1 point for each card still in the garden. The first to 10 points wins the match (for a longer match, play to 15 or 20).

A drawn game scores nothing for either player; play it again, and the player who did not start it begins.

Differences from Okiya

Royal Garden follows the rules of Okiya: sixteen garden tiles, each with one of four plants and one of four symbols, the first tile from the edge, the rule of the shared element, and the three ways to win. We use suits for the plants and ranks for the symbols, and cards from the rest of the deck instead of the original's tokens.

Tips for beginners

• Look at what you give away. The card you take decides where your opponent may go – take a card whose rank and suit leave them only bad choices.
• Count what is left. Each rank and each suit has only four cards. Once three Jacks are gone, taking the last one leaves only its suit.
• Think in squares, too. A 2 × 2 square is easier to hide than a line of four.
• Blocking wins as well. Late in the game, check whether one of your cards leaves nothing for your opponent.
• Defend in time. If your opponent has three in a line, make sure the card you take doesn't let them into the fourth place.

Variants

• Markers from anything: use coins or buttons in two colours instead of number cards.