Card-Based Drinking Games for College Parties

If you’re throwing a party, or just having a get-together in your dorm, you're going to want to count on a drinking game or two. Drinking games really get the party going and are a great way to meet new people and then get into awkward situations with them. For some inspiration take a look at some of our favourite card-based drinking games:

Pyramid

This one sounds confusing to set up but it’s really quite simple (just maybe not after a few drinks!) All you will need is a standard deck of playing cards, some mates, and the drink of your choice. Lay the cards out on a table in a 6-5-4-3-2-1 pyramid formation. Each player is dealt a small number of shuffled cards (8-10), and the game begins. It’s a quick-fire game, as the person nominated to turn over the cards from the highest row of the pyramid (6^th tier) does so and waits a few seconds to see if any of the players have this card in their hand. If one or more people have this card, they discard onto this card, nominating someone in the group to drink. Where it gets tricky is the further down the tiers you get, the more sculls of your drink you can be nominated to have. For example, the tier with six cards each correspond to one scull each, the fifth tier corresponds to two and so forth until the final tier. It sounds straight-forward enough to play, but without a doubt someone will always forget to look at their cards in time and miss their opportunity to nominate! Try and focus on this one.

High or Low/ Black or Red

High/Low, Black/Red is both easy and almost much impossible to “win” in " great if you’re looking for laughs and fun with drinking as opposed to a game with a clear winner. Again, all you will need is a deck of cards, a couple of friends and a drink each. One person is nominated to be the dealer: it is their job to hold the shuffled deck of cards, and to turn them over for each person playing the game. It is as easy as this: the player and the dealer sit facing one another, perhaps around a table, and the player is dealt a card. The player must then guess (depending on which version of the game you are playing) whether the next card will be higher or lower than the card dealt to them, or black or red. If wrong, the player takes one drink. If they were right, the player continues guessing cards. If the player correctly guesses three cards, they may choose to pass their turn or continue. When a player guesses incorrectly they must drink for each card the dealer is showing. The strategy in this game is to try your luck to build as big a deck of cards as possible, and pass it to the next player. But the second you’re wrong, there will be a ton of drinks waiting for you! Have fun, and know when to pass.

Bullshit

Who doesn’t love good drinking games where they get to swear profusely? I can’t think of too many of my friends who don’t love Bullshit for that exact reason! For this game, you’ll need a group of maybe 4-6 people; a couple more would work but probably no less than four, this one is better in a bigger group! Again, all you will needs is a deck of cards, and your friends " easy! Sit in a circle, and have the cards dealt out evenly to all players. If there are a couple of cards left, just discard them. Starting with Aces, the first player lays " face down " the number of aces she/he has. Even if you have no aces, you could put down two cards claiming to have them. If one of the other players thinks they’re lying, they yell “Bullshit!” " When the player accused must show whether it was the truth, or whether it was bullshit. If they are found to be lying, they must drink an amount in proportion to the number of cards they put forward and lied about. If in fact, they were telling the truth, the player who accused them of “Bullshit” must now take the drinks themselves. (If you have to drink because of either being caught Bullshitting, or wrongly accusing, in addition to drinking you must also pick up the cards that have already been played and add them to your hand.  The game continues until someone is out of cards. Work on your pokerface before playing this one!

Circle of death

When you’re looking for card drinking games it’s hard to go past the age-old Circle of Death. It requires very little other than a deck of playing cards, a group of friends willing to have a good time, and as sober a brain as possible when playing a drinking game (it’s this bit that makes the most fun however!) We all know once you get past the third or fourth drink things start to get a little hazy: a drinking game like Circle of Death plays upon that weakness, with cards representing things like the “Question Master”, whose aim it is to have people answer their questions and make them drink; or no swearing, no pointing, no addressing people by their names rules. As I’m sure you can imagine it gets pretty tricky. While there are popularly used renditions of the rules available online, it could be fun to make your own. As long as each card in the deck gets its own rule, you’ll be playing for hours on end " as Circle of Death is such an interactive drinking game!

For more clever drinking game ideas look at http://listverse.com/2007/10/20/top-10-drinking-games/, or http://www.spencersonline.com/product/tt-drinking-games/

What are some of your favourites? Let us know!