List of games with concealed rules

These are games where the rules are intentionally concealed from new players, either because their discovery is part of the game itself, or because the game is a hoax and the rules do not exist. In fiction, the counterpart of the first category are games that supposedly do have a rule set, but that rule set is not disclosed.

Actual games

Discovery games

• Army Of Zero: A card game in which the cards also form a series of puzzles, leading to a particular answer. Would-be solvers are not told what they are trying to discover, and must derive their objective as well as unravel the puzzles.
• Bartok: A game similar to Mao and Uno, and new players are not told the rules. In addition, new rules may be introduced.
• Bobby's World (or My World): A game where players declare an item that is "in" their world, and those knowing the rule confirm or deny whether it is part of their world.
• Bugs: A game where the players must guess how many bugs are cupped in the leader's hands.
• Elephant's foot umbrella stand: A parlour game in which items are added to the end of a list. Only items which follow the rule are accept.
• Eleusis: A card game where the object of the game is to deduce, by studying which cards have been successfully played onto a layout, the rules by which subsequent placements may be made.
• The Green Glass Door: A word game that has a single rule that needs to be guessed by other players. Typically, players who know the rule will give a thematically matched pair of words, one of which "is" behind the green glass doors, and the other of which "is not."
• Jewels in the sand: A verbal version of Eleusis.
• Mao: A card game in which a new player must try to learn the rules by observations and it is taboo to spell out the rules.
• Moon in the Spoon: A game where a spoon is passed round and players must declare "I can see the moon in the spoon" Other players have to figure out if and when they can see the moon.
• One Up, One Down: a drinking game with improvised jargon.
• Penultima: a chess variant in which the moves of the pieces vary, and are initially kept secret from the players.
• Petals Around the Rose: Is played with five dice. The unknowing part shall guess the number to be derived from the throw. It is also taboo to write the rules. It is also known by other names.
• Scissors: A game where a pair of scissors is passed, with the passer declaring that they are being passed "open" or "closed", and the players must figure out the rule determining which is the correct declaration.
• Stanley Random Chess: A computer moderated chess game where 50% of the moves are made randomly from a list of all possible legal moves in the current position. Players are told that their original moves were illegal, under obscurely-named rules, and have been adjusted to the closest possible legal move. Players of SRC perpetuate the belief that the rules are all real, and that the game in fact predates standard chess.
• Zendo: A sculptural version of Eleusis (game).

Hoax games

• Progress Quest: A satire of MMORPGs, Progress Quest discussions will include gameplay tips, strategies, and hints, or give favorable reviews and boast of in-game accomplishments. However, the game is not interactive at all.
• Tig: In a commentary on the extended version of The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Elijah Wood, Billy Boyd, and Dominic Monaghan discuss an imaginary game called "tig". Apparently, Boyd and Monaghan were messing around, saying "tig" and "tag" randomly, when Wood walked up and asked them what they were doing - whereupon they quickly invented a whole set of fake rules, like "You can't tig on a tog, you can't tag on a tig." It seems Wood thought the game was genuine, and a few years later asked the others why they didn't play it anymore. It is unrelated to the children's chase game of tig.

Games with undisclosed rules

• Mornington Crescent: Originally a round in the Radio 4 comedy panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, Mornington Crescent involves naming stations on the London Underground, roads and streets until Mornington Crescent is "reached". The game parodies games such as contract bridge or chess.

Games in works of fiction

Games with undisclosed rules

• The Glass Bead Game: Hermann Hesse's eponymous novel includes this game. To properly play requires synthesizing all societal knowledge.
• Calvinball: In the Calvin and Hobbes comic, Calvinball is an improvised sport played by the two main characters, where the only rule is that rules can't be the same twice.
• Cripple Mr Onion: This game is referred to in various books in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. It is a card game whose rules are never directly specified, but are very complex.
• Double Fanucci: Featured in the computer game Zork Zero, Double Fanucci has mind-bogglingly complex "rules". Legal play can depend on things like the phase of the Moon and the ancestry of the players.
• Dragon Poker: A fictional card game by Robert Asprin in the MythAdventures series. The rules change depending on weather, seating position, time of day, and undisclosed other modifiers. However, a playable version has been created by fans, based on the rules and play that are presented in the books.
• Guyball: A sport played in the British sitcom Green Wing, Guyball is a complex game where each player wears a basket on top of a helmet, while other players attempt to throw balls into it.
• House Rules Parcheesi: The characters in DC Simpson's online comic Ozy and Millie play "House Rules Parcheesi", which always ends with the house strewn with tennis rackets, socks, couch cushions stacked in complicated positions, etc.
• Numberwang: A sketch, created for the radio series That Mitchell and Webb Sound and later included in the television version That Mitchell and Webb Look, where players call out numbers until the host declares, "That's Numberwang!"
• Xing Haishi Bu Xing: In the episode "Atlantic City" of How I Met Your Mother, Barney plays a game entirely in Chinese. Marshall, however, figures out how to play the game, giving Barney clues as to how to play. Barney wins by going all in, spinning a roulette wheel, and choosing the girl who is holding the Jelly Bean. He shows this victory by declaring "Ning Na".
• In Fairly OddParents, Timmy invents a game called 'Timmyball', in which Timmy makes up the rules and changes them as he pleases, and Timmy always wins - breaking the 'Timmy always wins' rule is not possible. This is very much like Calvinball, as made famous by Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson.
• Several invented games feature in Star Trek episodes. For instance, throughout The Next Generation, repeated references are made to Parrises Squares, a game which is never explained but is apparently quite dangerous.
• In Fallout 2 the player is able to play a game called 'Tragic: The Garnering' (a pun on Magic: The Gathering) that uses ridiculous rules that alter gameplay such as the day, and position to dealer.
• In Anne Tyler's The Accidental Tourist, the Leary children invented a card game called Vaccination--which as adults they still play--so incomprehensible that nobody else can play it, and which it is possible they are still making up as they go along: "In fact, more than one outsider had accused them of altering the rules to suit the circumstances."

Hoax games

• Chinaman's Whist: Featured in the Hancock's Half Hour episode, The Tycoon, the fictional card game is invented by Sid James to fleece Hancock and his rival, Aristotle Thermopylae, of their great wealth. Additional rules are revealed by Sid after each round to give him the winning hand.
• Clique: The online satirical gaming magazine Critical Miss featured rules for a card game called Clique, a parody of collectible card games that used printed cards and spurious spoken rules to confuse onlookers.
• Double Cranko, Triple Cranko: The episode of M*A*S*H "Your Hit Parade" (1978) featured Hawkeye Pierce and B. J. Hunnicutt playing an incomprehensible game called "Double Cranko", and alluded to the presumably more complex "Triple Cranko".
• Creebage: In one episode of the television series The Monkees, the character of Micky Dolenz invents a card game on the fly with incomprehensible rules known as Creebage, to distract an old-style gangster holding him captive. While the gangster is distracted, Micky escapes, with the gangster holding up some cards and shouting, "But, I have a creebage!"
• Cups: An episode of Friends featured a card game called Cups, which one character (Chandler) had devised as a method of giving money to another character (Joey) without Joey realizing it. Thus, Chandler made up rules on the fly so that he would always lose. (Unfortunately, Joey then played the game with another character, and lost all the money he had won.)
• Fizzbin: In the 1968 Star Trek episode "A Piece of the Action", Captain Kirk spontaneously invents a card game called fizzbin after being captured, in order to distract the henchmen guarding him.
• Go Johnny Go Go Go Go: The British sitcom The League of Gentlemen features a card game indirectly inspired by Mornington Crescent called Go Johnny Go Go Go Go which has rules which appear to be entirely fictional (or deliberately overcomplex and obfuscated) for the purposes of defrauding naive players.
• I Win!: In Big Daddy, Nazo (Rob Schneider) attempts to play cards with Julian (Cole and Dylan Sprouse). Whatever card combination Julian has, he declares, "I win!" A frustrated Nazo asks Julian what the name of the card game they're playing is. Says Julian, "I win!"
• Jiggly ball: In episode My Jiggly Ball of Scrubs, Janitor tricks the main character J.D. into accepting that he knows how to play the nonexistent game jiggly ball. Janitor then challenged J.D. to a game in which many hospital staff members pelted him with tennis balls. J.D. then realized there was no actual game called jiggly ball but his pride prevented him from conceding to Janitor earlier.
• Pai Tai: In The Bob Newhart Show, a group is playing poker, and Howard never wins a hand. When it's his turn to deal and call the game, he says they're going to play Pai Tai - Chinese poker. When he deals, everyone has a different number of cards, but that's the way it's supposed to be. No kings are allowed in Pai Tai, if you have any, they must be thrown away. If this leaves you with no cards, you can't fold, you have to sit there until you lose. There are no raises and no bluffing, everyone bets, then reveals their cards, and whatever cards Howard was holding turned out to be a "Pai Tai" and won. Jerry then deals and picks Klotski, Polish poker, for which every player needs a banana.
• Spat: This card game could be seen as a precursor to Mornington Crescent. It was played in the episode of The Goodies entitled 'Holidays' (from the LWT series). Tim and Graeme knew all sorts of "secret rules" while Bill had never played before and consequently lost every round.
• TEGWAR: The book Bang the Drum Slowly by Mark Harris includes a game called TEGWAR, The Exciting Game Without Any Rules. Played by professional baseball players as a way to dupe unsuspecting fans out of their money, the game features rules that are made up on the spot. Each time a non-initiate thinks he's understood how to play, he's told of a new wrinkle in the rules that he somehow didn't catch. (The game also appears in the 1973 film of the same name.)
• In the Young Ones Rik, Mike and Vyvyan play a card game where Rik consistently loses as "people with an R in their name are only allowed one card".

See also

• List of fictional games
• List of games with mutable rules

External links

• Petals Around the Rose
• Calvinball - Television Tropes & Idioms