Soda Jerk

In Soda Jerk, you'll be dealt a hand of delicious soda ingredient cards, including strawberry, blueberry, banana, kiwi, and orange. On your turn, either:

• Play a card face down in front of one of the taps (which are also labeled strawberry, blueberry, banana, kiwi, and orange)
• Flip over a face down card

Play continues until a player starts their turn with three cards left in hand, all players flip over cards consecutively, or all cards on the table are face-up. At this point, determine the final value of all taps: reveal any remaining face-down cards and add up all matching flavor cards while subtracting all non-matching cards. A tap can be worth negative points! Finally, tally up your score. Each card left in your hand is worth points equal to the final value at the matching tap. So, if you ended with two strawberry cards and the tap value of strawberry was 8, you get 16 points. Try to get the most points while making your opponents go negative!

• Hidden Information & Bluffing: Because cards are placed face-down, there's hidden information: players don't know how some taps will end up until flips happen. This allows bluffing, second-guessing, and strategic guessing.
• Dynamic Tap Values: The value of each tap can go up or down depending on how many matching vs non-matching cards are played. Taps can even end up with negative values, which adds tension and rewards risk-management.
• Strategic Depth in a Compact Game: Despite being fairly quick (15 min) and simple to teach, Soda Jerk offers meaningful decisions about which taps to influence, when to flip, and how much risk one is willing to take. This makes it satisfying for both casual and more strategist players.
• Multiple Endgame Triggers / Short Rounds: The game ends when certain conditions occur: a player begins a turn with only three cards, all cards on the table are face-up, or players begin the flipping phase. These triggers keep the game from dragging on. Typical play time is about 15 minutes.
• Tension & Player Interaction: Because you affect shared resources (the taps) and other players are watching how you’re influencing them, there is tension. Bluffing adds interaction. You can subtly sabotage others or steer taps to your advantage.

Contents:

• 5 Tap Cards
• 45 Flavor Cards
• 4 Player Aids
• 1 Scorepad
• 2 Switcheroo Cards