RICOCHET

Hey there, let me introduce you to a captivating card game called Ricochet. It was created by Bram Tebbutt in 2020 and is a fantastic fusion of Tri-Peaks solitaire and the classic video game Breakout. In Ricochet, the goal is to demolish walls of cards by strategically arranging them in an ascending and descending sequence on the waste pile.

THE CARDS & THE DEAL

Ricochet employs a standard 52-card deck. The game board consists of four walls and a room. To set up, first, shuffle the deck and deal out the four walls of cards, forming three layers. In the first layer, each wall has two cards facing down. The second layer overlaps the first one with three cards, and finally, the third layer has face-up cards. Each wall’s top layer consists of four cards, and the corners are shared among the walls. The remaining cards make up the stock, which should be placed face down in the center of the room.

THE GAME

Let’s start playing by turning over the top card from the stockpile to begin the waste pile. The top card in the waste pile will be used to break down the walls.

Cards that are face-up are called open cards. Only open cards can be destroyed. Any card that is face-down is called a closed card. As we destroy cards from the walls, we will uncover closed cards. Once a closed card is completely uncovered, we will turn it over to reveal an open card.

When I play this card game, I can remove any open card that is one rank higher or one rank lower than the top waste card. It’s like a puzzle! For example, if the top waste card is a 4, I can remove a 3 or a 5 from the wall. The card I remove goes on top of the waste, and I keep going.

But there’s a rule – I can’t remove two cards in a row from the same wall. I have to bounce from one wall to another. It adds an extra challenge! The corner cards are part of both the walls they touch. So after I remove a corner card, I can only play cards from the opposite two walls. It keeps things interesting!

If there aren’t any cards to choose from, just flip the top card of the stock over and put it on the waste pile. Keep playing. The game will be over when all the walls are destroyed or when there are no more cards left in the stock.

HOW TO WIN

If you manage to destroy all four walls, congratulations! You win the game.