Side by Side

Full rules

1. Overview
2. The cards and the six threats
3. Setup
4. A mission
5. Setbacks
6. Worked example
7. Two players
8. Difficulty
9. What we changed
10. Tips for beginners
11. Variants

Overview

Side by Side is a cooperative card game: all players form one team and win or lose together. You are a band of friends who have to get through a long war side by side. Every card is a hardship you must face. In a series of missions you play your cards into the middle of the table, into No Man's Land – but as soon as three cards there show the same threat, the mission fails. After every mission the team's morale drops and new cards come in. You win when the draw pile is empty and nobody has a card left in hand. You lose when your morale runs out, or when one of you has suffered too many setbacks.

• Players: 2–5; best with 3 or 4.
• You need: one standard 52-card deck plus one joker, and coins, buttons or other tokens – 16 with two players, up to 23 with five.

Side by Side is our own adaptation for an ordinary deck, inspired by The Grizzled (Les Poilus, Fabien Riffaud and Juan Rodríguez, 2015). It is a new game written for this site and has not been playtested yet; the sizes of the piles come from a rough computer simulation (see "Difficulty"). What we changed is listed near the end.

The cards and the six threats

Each card is a threat card, a setback or the joker.

So there are six threats: ♠, ♥, ♦, ♣, low and high. A threat card shows one or two of them.

Example: The 9♠ shows two threats, spades and high. The 5♥ shows only hearts. The 2♦ shows diamonds and low.

Setup

1. Shuffle all 53 cards. Count 24 cards face down onto a pile: this is the draw pile, the war you must get through. The other 29 cards form a second face-down pile, the morale reserve. (Two players: 20 and 33 – see "Two players".)
2. Each player takes 3 coins for support (see "Support").
3. Each player chooses a lucky charm: one of the six threats, a different one for each player. Say it out loud and put a coin heads up in front of you to show that your charm is ready.
4. Put speech coins in the middle: 5 with two or three players, 4 with four, 3 with five.
5. The youngest player is the first mission leader. Play goes clockwise.

A mission

1. Dealing

The mission leader decides how hard the mission is: how many cards each player is dealt – at least 1, and at least 3 in the first mission. The leader deals them one at a time from the draw pile, starting with themselves. If the draw pile runs out, stop dealing; some players may get fewer cards. Cards you still hold from earlier missions stay in your hand.

2. Turns

Starting with the leader and going clockwise, each player who is still in the mission takes one action:

• Play a card. A threat card goes face up into No Man's Land, the middle of the table. A setback goes face up in front of you and takes effect at once. The joker is a quiet day: remove it and one card of your choice in No Man's Land from the game.
• Use your lucky charm. Remove one card from No Man's Land that shows your charm's threat from the game, and turn your charm coin tails up. You can't use it again until you get it back through support.
• Make a speech. If you have a speech coin, name a threat. Every other player who is still in the mission may remove one card from their hand that shows this threat from the game – a Queen of that suit too (see "Setbacks"). Then the coin goes back to the box.
• Withdraw. You leave this mission: from now on you take no more actions. Lay the cards you still hold face down in front of you; you keep them for the next mission. Your setbacks don't count until the mission is over. A withdrawn player just waits – and gives support at the end.

Traps. When you play a Jack from your hand, turn up the top card of the draw pile and play it at once: a threat card goes into No Man's Land, a setback goes in front of you, a joker is removed with its effect. If that card is a Jack too, nothing more happens. If the draw pile is empty, the trap does nothing.

What you may say. You may talk freely – about the rules, about how things look, about who should withdraw – but you may never reveal the cards in your hand, not even hints like "I have two spades" or "don't play anything high". "I'm in trouble" is fine.

3. End of the mission

• Failure: as soon as three of the same threat are in No Man's Land – counting the fears of players still in the mission (see "Setbacks") – the mission fails at once. Everyone still in it withdraws, keeping their cards. Shuffle the cards from No Man's Land back into the draw pile: you will have to face them again.
• Success: when all players have withdrawn without three of a kind, the mission succeeds. The cards in No Man's Land are removed from the game.

Checking is easy: for each card you play, look along its threats. Two spades and two highs in No Man's Land are fine; a third of either ends the mission.

4. Support

Everyone who had withdrawn before the mission ended – after a success, that is everybody – gives support. On "three", all of them point at the same time at their left or right neighbour, and each hands that neighbour one of their support coins. A player with no support coins left points at nobody. Received coins are put aside; they can't be passed on.

If one player received more support than anyone else, the team helps them. They may either remove 2 of their setbacks from the game, or turn their lucky charm heads up again. After a failed mission they may only remove 1 setback. If two or more players are tied for the most, nothing happens.

Then check: if any player has 4 or more setbacks, you lose.

5. Morale drop

If the draw pile is empty and nobody holds a card, you win – the war is over. Otherwise the war goes on and morale drops: count all cards left in all hands and move that many cards – at least 3 – from the morale reserve onto the draw pile, face down. If the morale reserve runs out – you move its last card, or it doesn't have enough – you lose.

The leader role passes to the left. The old leader takes a speech coin from the middle, if any are left. Then the next mission begins.

Setbacks

A setback lies face up in front of the player who played it and stays there until support removes it. The setbacks of a withdrawn player have no effect for the rest of that mission.

A setback must be played like any other card before you can win, because you must end with an empty hand. A player with no cards in hand may always withdraw, even if Stubborn.

Worked example

Three players: Anna (the leader), Ben and Carla, clockwise. Ben has the K♦ (Restless) from the last mission. Anna deals 2 cards each, and Ben one more. With cards left over from before, they hold:

• Anna: 9♠ 2♣ 8♣
• Ben: 5♥ J♠ Q♥ 10♣
• Carla: 10♦ 7♠

1. Anna plays the 9♠ (spades 1, high 1).
2. Ben plays the 5♥ (hearts 1).
3. Carla plays the 10♦ (diamonds 1, high 2). Now nobody may play anything high.
4. Anna can't play the 8♣ – it would be the third high. She plays the 2♣ (clubs 1, low 1).
5. Ben plays the J♠ (spades 2) – a trap! He turns up the top card of the draw pile: 3♥ (hearts 2, low 2).
6. Carla's 7♠ would be the third spade. She withdraws.
7. Anna makes a speech: "High!" Ben removes his 10♣ from the game. Carla has withdrawn, so she doesn't benefit.
8. Ben's Q♥ would be a fear of hearts – the third heart. He withdraws.
9. Anna withdraws too. Success! The six cards in No Man's Land are removed from the game.

Support: on "three", Anna points at Ben, Ben at Carla and Carla at Ben. Ben has the most support (2) and removes his K♦. Morale drop: Anna, Ben and Carla still hold one card each – 3 cards, so 3 cards move from the reserve onto the draw pile. The team has got rid of 7 cards and a setback for 3 morale cards. Ben is the new leader; Anna takes a new speech coin.

Two players

An imaginary third friend sits between you. He has 3 support coins, never gets cards and is never leader. After every mission – even a failed one – he gives support: toss one of his coins; heads, he supports the player on his left, tails, the one on his right. You two each point at the other player or at him. If he gets the most support, nothing happens. With two players, used speech coins go back to the middle instead of the box, and the draw pile starts 4 cards smaller at every level.

Difficulty

The budget. Every mission costs at least 3 cards of morale. On Normal, the reserve of 29 cards therefore lasts for at most 9 morale drops – 10 missions in all, fewer whenever cards stay in your hands. In those missions you must clear the 24 cards of the draw pile plus every card the morale drops add. A mission in which three players get rid of 2 cards each clears 6 cards and costs 3: you are 3 cards closer to peace. A mission in which 5 cards are left in hands costs 5 – and may gain you nothing. No Man's Land holds at most two of each of the six threats, so a mission can take about six to eight threat cards at most; setbacks, speeches, the joker and lucky charms clear more.

A rough computer simulation with simple-minded players, who never saw each other's cards, won more than 90% of games on Rookie, 50–80% on Normal (three players did best, five worst) and 25–45% on Veteran. Real players should do better, but it hasn't been playtested: if you win easily, move up a level; if the war always wins, move down.

What we changed

Compared with the model game named in the overview: the six threats are the four suits plus low and high; a card shows at most two threats; the traps are the four Jacks; the setbacks, the joker's effect and the lucky charms are our own and fewer; support only goes to a neighbour and is shown by pointing at the end of the mission instead of with face-down tiles; and the sizes of the piles are adjusted to a 53-card deck.

Tips for beginners

• Watch the doubles. Once a threat is there twice, every card showing it is blocked – look along both threats of each card before you play it.
• Play two-threat cards early. A card with two threats is easiest to play into an empty No Man's Land.
• Deal gently. As leader, deal few cards when hands are still full. Cards left in hands cost morale.
• Withdraw in time, but not too early: every card you keep comes back as morale lost.
• Agree on support. If everyone points at the same person, the team really helps them; a tie helps nobody.

Variants

All optional – agree before you start.

• Letters from home (easier): shuffle the second joker in too, and add one card to the morale reserve.
• Open support (easier): point as soon as you withdraw, so the others can see where the support is going.
• Shell shock (harder): you lose at 3 setbacks instead of 4.