Sneeze (2005)

Your friend swats at her pet cat, saying “Shoo!” The house cat jumps off the old table, sending dust clouds everywhere. As the cat leaps into your lap, your nose starts to itch! Your friend laughs at you mischievously.

The object of Sneeze is to match Sneeze cards to your opponents’ allergies and make them sneeze.

If you sneeze too much, you’re out!

Players each start with one Sneeze card as an Allergy. On your turn you place a sneeze card into either the upwind pool (which will make people sneeze immediately) or the downwind pool (which is safe until the wind changes).

If all of your allergy cards are matched by cards in the upwind pool then you sneeze, that pool clears, you draw another allergy card and both you and the player who made you sneeze draw an ‘And Now’ (event) card. These can be played on your turn instead of flipping an allergy card to effect the course of the game (e.g. you hold your breath to avoid sneezing, or play a ‘mean trick’ to double the effect of one of the cards than an opponent is allergic to).

When a player with four allergies sneezes they are out–at that point the game switches to ‘sudden death’ with any player who sneezes being eliminated.

This is clearly a kids game, but with a few twists of strategy to keep everybody interested, especially around management of ‘And Now’ cards, and preparing for the switch into the sudden death end game.