How To Play Hide The Slug

Introduction

Hide The Slug is a fun bluffing card game for 3 players or more. It works well with small or large groups of mixed ages.

The Hide The Slug card deck contains 52 cards: 16 slug cards and 36 fruit cards. It’s important to know that there are 4 cards of each type of fruit.

Rules

The aim is to get rid of all of your cards. However there are a few rules that make things tricky:

• Cards are placed face down onto a pile in the middle of the table.

• Players must place at least one card each turn, but they can play as many cards as they want to.

• When cards are placed down, the player must say what it is they are playing.

For example, the first player could place two cards face down in the middle of the table and say “two apples”. That player can actually play whatever they like – they could have put down an apple and an orange, or an apple and a slug, or two slugs, or even three slugs.

Here are the three golden rules:

• You can say you are playing different cards to what you are actually playing.

• You are only allowed to say you are playing fruit – you are not allowed to say you are playing slugs.

• You are only allowed to say you are playing one type of fruit at a time.

After each turn, any of the other players can challenge what has been played. If they think the player has placed down different cards to what they said, they can say “sluggy cheat”, and just the cards that were played are turned over to reveal what was really played.

If the cards are different to what was said, the challenge was correct and the person that played the cards must take all of the cards in the pile.

If the cards are the same to what was said, the challenge was incorrect and the person who challenged must take all of the cards in the pile.

How To Play

1. Shuffle the cards and deal them all out between the players.

2. You need to decide who goes first – perhaps it should be the loser of the last game, or the youngest player.

3. Players take it in turns to place as many cards as they wish on a pile in the middle of the table, saying to the other players how many of which fruit it is they are playing.

4. Any player may challenge what has been played.

5. Correct challenges mean the player who tried to play different cards has to take all of the cards in the pile.

6. An incorrect challenge means the challenger has to take all of the cards in the pile.

7. The first player to play all of their cards wins.

Strategy Tips

The aim of the game is to get rid of all of your cards first – you have to be quite sneaky to do this before anyone else.

• Pay attention to what people are playing – there are 4 of each fruit, so you may be able to spot when someone is trying to be sneaky.

• It’s fun to coax people into challenging you by repeatedly saying you are playing the same thing – playing “two apples” once shouldn’t raise any eyebrows – you could probably play something different and get away with it. Playing “two apples” again on your next turn might cause suspicion, so if you really do play two apples this time, if you are challenged, they will have to take all the cards. Playing “two apples” a third time should trigger a challenge because everyone knows there are only four apples in the pack. But they might know you are trying to trap them.

Extra Tips

When playing with a small number of players, you may feel you have too many cards when the game starts – if this is the case, we recommend taking out the cards for two of the types of fruit and four slug cards – 12 cards in total. This will make the number of cards in the pack more manageable without changing the way the game plays.

To make the game harder, remove two of the types of fruit and leave all the slugs in!

When someone has won, the other players can either keep playing or stop at that point. When you stop, the remaining players should count how many slugs they have – the one with the most slugs is the loser. Whatever happens, you need to stop when there are just two players left.

Replacement Cards

We now offer a free replacement cards service for lost or damaged cards – so you can keep playing for longer. Please click here to request your replacement cards.