Introducing Deadfall, a new bluffing card game using a Pairs deck designed by James Ernest and Nora Miller in 2015, with illustrations by fantasy artist Bill McGuire.

“Last summer at a small local convention, I sat down with my daughter Nora (age 13) to invent a new game, killing time before a game design lecture.” says Ernest, President of Cheapass Games. “We started with a Pairs deck and a goal to make a bluffing game. Fairly quickly we had the bare bones of a two-player version of Deadfall. The following day, we ran a demo for five players, and we figured out how to scale the game up to that size. The group liked the game, so we put it on the development list!”

Deadfall is a bluffing game comparable to liar’s dice, played for coins (not included). The game uses the same deck as Pairs, which has just the numbers 1 through 10, with 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, and so on. Players start by paying an ante of 1 coin, and receive a hand of six cards. Each player plays one card simultaneously, and the lowest card goes first. (Ties are broken with a second card.)

Each turn, a player may either play a card, or call another player. Playing a card is a claim that the card is “alive,” which means that someone still holds another card of that rank. This claim is fairly safe for common cards like 9’s and 10’s, and more risky for rare cards like 3’s and 4’s.

“Calling” means choosing one of the cards played by another player on this round. When a player calls, they are claiming that the called card is “dead,” which means no one still holds a card of that rank. Calling ends the hand, and all players show their cards to determine whether the caller was right.

If the caller is correct, they win, and the called player loses. If the caller is incorrect, the called player wins, and the calling player loses. The winner collects the pot, plus a penalty from the loser equal to the rank of the called card. So, for example, if a 6 was called, then the winner takes the pot, plus 6 coins from the loser.

Players must balance the risk of calling a card with the potential reward. A higher card is less likely to be dead, but a correct call could lead to a higher payoff.

Despite its simplicity, Deadfall is a thinker’s card game, with many opportunities for deduction and bluffing. Players must consider the pure mathematics of guessing whether a card is still alive (keeping in mind roughly half the deck is not in play), as well as the logic of why players might play their cards in a particular order. To excel at the game, players must not only bluff well, but also see through their opponents’ lies.

Variant rules include additional rewards and penalties, new ways to play cards, and extra actions, like passing a card to the left before the first round of play.

James Ernest is a prolific game designer, best known as the president and lead designer of Cheapass Games. His many award-winning games include Kill Doctor Lucky, Button Men, BRAWL, and Pirates of the Spanish Main. This is his daughter Nora’s first design credit.

Bill McGuire, whose work can also be seen in the video game Bloodsport Rally and the book Monster Goggles, lends his signature gritty cartoon style to Deadfall. The deck includes a delightfully grumpy dragon, silver knight, diving eagle, stealthy hunter, raging boar, sinister revenant, giant green scarab, eerie wisp, rampaging goblin, and valiant hero.

Deadfall supports 2-6 players and each round takes about five minutes.

Pairs is the “New Classic Pub Game” released by Cheapass Games in 2014. It is a simple deck of cards containing the numbers 1 through 10, with 1x1, 2x2, 3x3, and so on. That’s 55 cards all together, with no jokers or specials. Cheapass Games have released more than a dozen different Pairs decks, each with different art and variant rules.