Up or Down?

In Up or Down? you build columns of ascending and descending cards, trying to line up as many cards of the same color as possible.

To prepare for the game, the deck is shuffled, each player is dealt a hand of three cards, six cards are revealed and placed in a ring from bottom to top, then the deck is split in half and these piles are placed in the center of the ring, one face up and the other face down. The deck contains cards numbered 1-126, although the deck is adjusted based on the number of players.

On your turn, you place a card from your hand between the surrounding numbers in the ring, for example, 37 between 34 and 52, then take one of the cards surrounding the newly placed card and add it to your display, starting a new row or adding to an existing one. (If the card is lower than the lowest number or higher than the highest number, you place it between the lowest and highest cards, then add one of those cards to the display.)

You can have up to three rows on the display. When you place a second card in a row, you must decide whether the cards in that row will be arranged in ascending or descending order, and stack the cards accordingly. If you cannot or do not want to place a card in a row, following the set ascending or descending order, take all the cards from a row of your choice, turn them facedown into a personal discard pile, and then start a new row with the current card.

To end your turn, you must draw a card from one of the two piles inside the ring. Once all the cards in the game have been played, the rows are scored. For each row, multiply the number of cards in that row by the number of cards of the most common color in that row. For each card in the discard pile, score 1 point. The player with the most points wins.