FTW Staff Picks - The Nasty 7

If you’re into drinking games, chances are you’ve played King’s Cup before. It’s a smorgasbord of mini-games designed to get you drinking a whole lot, in a short amount of time. One of the mini-game variants for drawing a 7 has players counting to 7, but anytime they reach 7 the player instead says “SWITCH” and the count reverses to 1 and back to 7 until a player messes up. The Nasty 7 takes that concept and elaborates on it further to create a hilarious and raucous card game.

In The Nasty 7, players will take turns playing Racketeer cards, paying close attention to the count in hopes to be the player to successfully play all their cards before everyone else. To begin the game, each player is dealt an equal amount of cards from the deck. Players hold their stack of cards face-down as a deck. On the active player’s turn they flip the top card of their deck to the middle of the table. Depending on which card is drawn, the player will shout, mumble or remain silent in regards to the current count of Racketeers. A single Racketeer card means the player shouts the current count. A twin Racketeer card means the player shouts the next two numbers in the count, and the player to their left skips their turn. A mobile phone Racketeer or twin Racketeer instead mumbles an undecipherable noise. And a gun card means the player must remain completely silent. If at any point, a player thinks one of the other players has made a mistake they may make an accusation. If the accused is proven wrong, they pickup the pile of cards in the middle of the table. If the accuser is proven wrong, they pick it up instead. Play continues until one player has no cards remaining in their deck - that player is declared the winner of the game!

When it comes to strategy, The Nasty 7 is all about keeping an intense focus while taking your turn as quickly as possible. The faster the game goes, the more likely players are to get tripped up. The downside to this is you will likely begin to lose the count yourself if you are going too fast. The game may seem really easy at first, but as that pile begins to grow the tension of accusing players starts to build. It’s like a fast-paced version of Coup. And if you think the game is getting too easy you can add in a rule for the mobile phone Racketeer cards, such as each time one is played the player must shout out an animal.

Over the holidays, I was able to play a lot of games both new and old. But among all groups of family and friends, the game that stood out among them was The Nasty 7. It’s a game that anyone can play and understand the concept very quickly. But it’s also a game that is difficult to be perfect at. Mix in a little alcohol and you’ve got a recipe for a really fun party game. It’s quickly grown to become one of my favourite games of recent memory!