The Worst-Case Scenario Card Game: Rules for How to Play

Objective

The objective of The Worst-Case Scenario Card Game is to score the most points by correctly guessing how the other players would rank certain scenarios.

Setup

Each player chooses a color of chips and takes all five chips of their chosen color.
Choose a player to be the scorekeeper. They should write down each player’s names on one of the rows.
Shuffle the cards and place them facedown in the play area.
Whichever player has the worst survival skills starts the game as the “Victim”.

How to Play The Worst-Case Scenario Card Game

You will begin each of your turns as the Victim spinning the Victim Wheel. What you spin on the spinner determines how points will be scored in the round. Should the spinner land on a line, you will spin the spinner again. See the Scoring section below for details.

Spinning the spinner — The current Victim spun the spinner and landed on the Bad Is Good! space.

You will then take five of the face down cards and flip them over. You should create a row of cards.

Drawing the cards for the current round — For this round the Victim drew these five cards. They will have to determine how they would rank the five situations from bad to worst.

Place Chips

All of the players will look at the five cards and determine how they think the Victim will rank the different scenarios. Each player puts one of their chips face down next to each card. You should place the one chip next to the scenario that is the least bad. You should place the five chip next to the scenario that the is the worst. The Victim ranks the scenarios based on their own personal opinion. The other players rank the scenarios based on how they think the Victim would rank them.

Each players has placed their chips next to the cards — The Victim placed their chips next to each card ranking the situation they think is least bad to the scenario that they think is worst. The rest of the player then placed their own chips trying to match the Victim.

While chips are being placed, players can talk about the different scenarios. Each player should place their chips in a way that none of the players know what number they place on each card.

Once each player has placed down all five of their chips, the Victim starts with the card on the left. They will read off the card and then flip over each of the chips. Each chip that matches the number they placed on the card, stays on the number side. Return the non-matching chips to their X side. Repeat this process for all five cards.

Comparing the chips placed by each player — The players have gone through all five scenarios and revealed which chip they placed by each card. For “fly solo in a hot air balloon”; the blue, red and black player matched the victim. For the second scenario the blue, red, and black player matched. The blue, red, and green player matched the third scenario. The blue and green player matched the fourth scenario. Only the blue player matched the fifth scenario.

Scoring

After the chips are revealed for each of the five cards, the players will determine how many points they scored in the round.

Normally each player scores one point for each chip they played that matched the Victim’s chips. This could change depending on what the Victim spun on the Victim Wheel.

The Victim Wheel typically rewards players with bonus points if they their answers met certain requirements. Some of these include doubling or tripling your score, or scoring more points if you match specific chips.

Scoring points — To determine how many points each player scores, you begin by counting up how many chips they matched. The players score the corresponding points for the chips they matched: blue – 5 points, red – 3 points, green – 2 points, and black – 2 points. You then factor in the points earned from the section spun on the spinner. This round players score a bonus point if they match the Victim’s #1 chip. The blue, red, and black player matched this chip so they score one additional point. Finally the Victim score points equal to whatever player scored the most points. Since blue scored six points, the Victim also scores six points.

The one unique section on the spinner is the “Score Your Chips!” section. If you spin this section, scoring is done differently than a normal round. You will score points for each chip you match based on the number on the chip. For example if you match the three chip, you will score three points from it.

Scoring after spinning Score Your Chips — The Victim spun “Score Your Chips” on the spinner. This round players score points equal to the value of each chip they match. The blue player matched all five of their chips so they score 15 points. The red player matched the two, one, and three chips so they score six points. The green player scores eight points, and the black player scores three points. The Victim scores 15 points to match the player that scored the most points.

After all of the players have determined their score, they will write it on the scoresheet. The Victim then determines which player scored the most points. They will score points equal to the player that scored the most points.

Once all of the players have finished scoring, the round ends. Each player retrieves their chips for the next round. All cards used in the round are discarded. The next round then begins. The player to the left of the current Victim, becomes the Victim for the next round.

Winning the Game

Players will play a number of rounds depending on the number of players. If there are three, four, or six players; you will play 12 rounds. If there are five players, you will play ten rounds. You can play less or more rounds in order to make the game shorter/longer. Each player should be the Victim the same number of rounds.

After all of the rounds have been played, the players will tally up their scores. The player that scored the most points, wins the game. If there is a tie, you will play additional rounds until the tie is broken.

Winning Worst Case Scenario Card Game — At the end of the game the players have scored the points shown here. The top player scored the most points, so they have won the game.

The Worst-Case Scenario Card Game FAQ

If you have any questions about how to play the game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components

225 Cards
Spinner
30 Chips
Score Pad
Pencil
Instructions

Year: 2020 | Publisher: Moose Toys, Quirk Productions

Genres: Party

Ages: 10+ | Number of Players: 3-6 | Length of Game: 20-60 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate

For more board and card game rules/how to plays, check out our complete alphabetical list of card and board game rules posts.

Written By:

Eric Mortensen

Eric Mortensen is an owner and head writer on Geeky Hobbies since 2014. He is an avid board game player and collector with over 3,000 board and card games in his collection. Since 2014 he has written more than 1,100 board game how to play guides.