Trifecta: Card Game Rules (War, Egyptian Ratscrew, 1-2-3-4)
A card game for 2 or more players. It is on its way to becoming an online game.
I made Trifecta up myself. We play it for an hour easily, and the first few times you play, it exhausts your brain: three games at once, each with its own rules, switching every turn.
Trifecta chains three quick card games, one play at a time: War, then Egyptian Ratscrew, then 1, 2, 3, 4, and round again. Trifecta Plus adds a memory game to the cycle. It was first played in a cat café in Avignon.
This repository holds the rules. The online version is in progress and will be linked here and on veered.org when it is ready.
A playable build exists and is being finished; these are the rules it follows.
Please test before relying on it
This is shared as-is, with no warranty. It works on my own computers, but your system, settings and software versions may differ, so please try it in a safe setting first. If something doesn't work, you can ask Claude (or another AI coding assistant) to look into it, and I'd appreciate hearing what you found and how you fixed it. You are also welcome to just let me know at support@veered.org, and I'll look into it.
The deck
Use whatever cards are lying around: pieces of broken decks, odd jokers, cards from different sets. The only requirement is at least 53 cards in total. Missing cards and duplicates are fine, and part of the fun.
Deal all the cards out as evenly as you can. Keep your cards face down in a pile in front of you.
How a cycle works
Play one turn of each game, then move straight on to the next:
- one battle of War
- one card of Egyptian Ratscrew
- one call of 1, 2, 3, 4
- (Trifecta Plus only) one turn of I'm going on a trip
Then start again with War. Cards left in the middle stay there and go to whoever wins the next pile. A game that was interrupted picks up where it left off when it comes round again: a Ratscrew challenge still stands, and the 1, 2, 3, 4 count keeps its place.
The winner of a round starts the next one. (In War everyone plays at once, so it has no starting player.)
The three games
War
Everyone turns over their top card at the same time. The highest card takes the pile. If the top cards tie, it's war: each tied player puts three cards face down and one face up, and the highest of those takes everything.
Egyptian Ratscrew 
Play one card face up onto the pile. Slap the pile when you see a double: two cards of the same rank in a row. The first hand down takes the pile.
When someone plays a face card or an ace, the next player must answer with a face card or ace within a set number of tries: jack 1, queen 2, king 3, ace 4. If they fail, the player who laid the challenge takes the pile.
1, 2, 3, 4
Players take turns playing a card while calling the count out loud: "one", "two", "three", "four", then "one" again. If the card matches the number being called, slap the pile. The first hand down takes it. The count keeps going round the table until somebody wins the pile.
Four cards give an order of their own as they land:
- A 7 turns the count round. 1, 2, 3, 4 becomes 4, 3, 2, 1, until another 7 turns it back again.
- An 8 stops the calling. Play carries on in silence, cards only, until another 8 starts the calling again.
- A 3 is called "TWee." Whoever plays it says "TWee" — never "three".
- A king is called "THIRteen," with the weight on the first syllable: THIRteen, not thirTEEN.
Miss one of those four and you lose the pile.
Trifecta Plus: I'm going on a trip
After each War, Ratscrew and 1, 2, 3, 4, one player takes a turn saying "I'm going on a trip and bringing with me...". They repeat the whole list so far, in order, and add one new item. The list keeps growing for the whole game.
Get the list wrong and you give three cards to every other player.
Jokers
A joker is never a slap and wins nothing. Turning over a joker skips straight to the next game. The next game then continues on the pile with the next player as if that was normal. A player who makes a mistake here loses the pile.
Penalties
| Mistake | Penalty |
|---|---|
| Minor error (playing out of turn, fumbling a card, and similar) | Bury two: put the top two cards of your pile face down under the centre pile. |
| Slapping when you shouldn't | Lose the pile to the next player. |
| A mistake in 1, 2, 3, 4 (calling the wrong number, calling out of turn, or missing "TWee", "THIRteen", the reversal on a 7 or the silence after an 8) | Lose the pile to the next player. |
Winning
If you run out of cards, you're out. The player who ends up holding every card wins the Trifecta. If you have to stop early, the player holding the most cards wins.
Variations
- Trifecta or Trifecta Plus: play the three games alone, or add "I'm going on a trip".
- Jokers in or out: leave the jokers in to skip games at random, or take them out.
- House slaps: add your own Ratscrew slap rules (a run of four, or cards that add up to ten) if everyone agrees before you start.
License
The rules text is licensed CC BY 4.0: share and adapt it freely, with credit to "Trifecta by Veered.org".