Before Play:

Introduction

Joeklr is a game with a custom deck for two to four players, though two is recommended. I must admit this game's similarity to Rummy, or Gin, but I don't have to embrace it. And for etiquette's sake: when talking about Joeklr or initiating a game, one will never say "wanna play joeklr?", or "yeah, so I was playing joeklr last night". When you play our game, you are getting into it, there's no 'playing' involved, that makes it sound like poker or blackjack. You will "jokel" when you play this. Therefore, when you're up for a match of joeklr, it would be appropriate to ask, "fancy a jokel, mate?". Now, let's get to the goods! No British people have endorsed any part of this game, nope, not even when drunk.

Building the deck

Take either a pinochle and poker deck, or three poker decks and remove all cards higher than 10 (J, Q, K, A), in other words, faces and aces. Come on, kiddles, make sure they all have the same back(See below). You should now have a deck with three jacks of diamonds, three aces of spades, etc. You'll also need two of the jokers, giving you a total of fifty cards. Note: We are busily(sleepily) working on a game to be played with the wasted cards left after creating a joeklr deck, but give us time.

During Play:

Rules

Drawing

At the start of each turn, a player may draw a mystery card, or 'myscard', from the deck; that player is not allowed to view said card until they add to the discard pile. Just put it off to the side for a minute. If you look at your myscard before discarding, you suffer 'the punishment'. Also, see 'man of mystery' below. Alternatively, a player may choose to draw from the discard pile, disabling them from taking from the deck for that turn. If you can use a card from the discard pile in a meld, but it is further that three cards deep, pick up that card and all on top of it, and announce "Hellish Opt". If you fail to announce a hellish opt, again you must suffer 'the punishment'. You must then play your meld using the card that was the lowest one from the stack you drew.

Opting

When choosing not to draw from the deck, you may opt to pick up one, two or three cards from the top of the discard pile. If you pick more than one, you must say aloud "I opt to draw (two, three) cards". If you fail to announce your choice, you suffer 'the punishment'.

Discard

After drawing and completing your turn, whether you've formed a meld or not, you discard one card. After discarding, you can pick your myscard. When ending the game, you must discard two cards, unlike that other game, where you must only discard one. At this time you may choose to exclaim, "Whomp!", this is fun, yet optional. So, to win Joeklr, you must discard your last two cards. You may not use your last cards in a meld, the only way to end the game is to discard your last two cards, end of story...and game.

The Punishment

The player to your immediate left, the punisher, draws any card from your hand, looks at it, and returns any card they least would need to you. This can be one of their cards, or the one they chose from you, if it does suck that much. The second time you get a punishment, they draw two cards, and so forth. If you have endured as many or more punishments than you have cards left, the punisher draws all, returns what they wish, and the punisher slaps you. This will surely teach you your lesson after a few games and a sore cheek.

Melds

A meld is the name for any sort of playable hand. The possible hands are as follows: A Joeklr, a classic clone or a flash(or any of it's upgraded versions). Once you've realized you have a meld, you will place it down on the table, dashboard, alter etc. Each meld is worth a set number of points. See below for explanations of these melds and their pointage.

Man of Mystery

The Man of Mystery is a strategy which adds a bit of risk but benefits as well. When one picks a myscard, she may choose to leave it faced down, giving her a slight disadvantage. She will discard like normal, but still not know what her card was. Next turn, she may look at the top card of the deck and choose whether she wants to pick that card or not. If not she may either pick up her faced-down myscard from the previous turn -or- pick from the discard pile. As long as one keeps a myscard faced down, they may use this strategy. One may only keep one card faced down in the 'man of mystery'-fashion at a time.

Possible Melds:

Classic Clone

In that other game one could play three aces of separate suits, nope, not in joeklr. In Joeklr, three-of-a-kind is called a classic clone, and consists of 3 of the exact same cards. An example would be three Queens of Diamonds.

Flash

A Flash is when you put down three or four cards of the same suit in a row, like a Jack/Queen/King of hearts or all four different clubs. You may also play onto someone else's meld. For example if Jim put down the Queen/King/Ace of spades, Drake may play a Jack of Spades, he will put it in front of himself though, not Jim. Seen below is a full Flash of Diamonds.

Royal

A Royal is like a Flash, but tastier. A Royal occurs when one plays two Flashes of the same suit. They don't have to match, as long as they both abide by the rules of a Flash and are both the same suit. Also, like a Flash, a Royal may be played on by another player. Two Flashes of separate suits results in no extra points. See point-system below.

Jokel

A Jokel is when one plays a special, one-of-a-kind meld, which only has two cards, you guessed it, the jokers. Yeah, this one's pretty simple. This is hard to come by compared to any other hands and is therefore worth a bit more points, see below about that.

Royal Flash

A Royal Flash is when someone plays three flashes of the same suit. Two players may work together to play a Royal Flash for the benefit of more points, as long as they abide by all other rules. A Full Royal Flash would be when every single card of any one suit is played in three 'full' Flashes.

After Play:

Counting Points

Easily the least fun part of Joeklr, unless you've won of course. This never needs to happen, if you're just playing casually, but c'mon, why the hell not. If you do choose to know what the melds are worth read on...

Note: Each face card is worth 2 points, each ace is worth 3.

A Classic Clone is worth exactly how much the cards involved are worth added together. For Example a Classic Clone of Diamond Aces would be worth 3 x 3 = 9 points. A Classic Clone may never be upgraded.

A Flash is likewise worth exactly as much as its fix-ins added to one another.

A Royal is where things start to change... Because it is harder to get a Royal, each card's pointage is upgraded, or one higher. For Example, a Queen would then be worth 3 points, and an Ace would then be worth 4 points.

A Jokel is worth 12 points, considering it's rarity. Like the Classic Clone, a Jokel may never be upgraded either.

A Royal Flash is double upgraded point-wise. Each Face card is then worth 4 points, and each Ace 5.

A Full Royal Flash is just like a Flash, but instead of making you add up all those numbers and getting confused with upgrades, I'll just tell you that it is worth a keen 51 points. If two players worked together to build one, they share the upgraded points, this goes for any upgraded meld shared between two players.

Outroduction

On behalf of everyone here at Sick of Dumb, yes both of us, I'd like to say that I'm truly ashamed of this game, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Have Fun. Play Nice. Drink Java. Die Happy.