The Captain's Parrot

The Captain's Parrot is a (less than) 5 minute competitive card drafting game that tests players quick processing skills. It was designed for one of the Button Shy 18 card design challenges. In the game, players are deck-hands on a pirate ship, loading chests full of loot under the watchful eye of the Captain's Parrot. Each round, players will choose a card from their hand to keep, passing the rest to the player on their left. The cards have both a varying number of coloured gems, as well as a unique end-game scoring requirement (such as having the most rubies, or having an even number of pearls). However, one of the players will have the Parrot card, and has to immediately start counting down from 10. When they reach 0, any player who has not made a choice is spotted by the parrot, and must flip one of their cards upside down as a penalty, 'dropping' the treasure chest in their panic. It is a very quick, somewhat frantic game as players are making snap calculations, assessing their cards and trying to make the most of their scoring opportunities.