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How to Play Apex Drift

Flip your way across the diamond — don't meet a royal

Overview

Apex Drift is a shared board for 2–5 players. Face-down cards are laid out in a diamond, split into 5 or 7 columns. On your turn, race from one edge of the diamond to the other, flipping one card per column — reveal a King, Queen, or Jack and your run ends there. Make it all the way across clean and you cash in.

Players
2–5 players, 1–3 decks shuffled together depending on the table size
Board
A diamond of 5 columns (1,2,3,2,1) or 7 columns (1,2,3,4,3,2,1), chosen when the lobby is created
The Danger Cards
Any King, Queen, or Jack ends your run immediately

Taking a Turn

  1. Click a card at either end of the diamond to start — whichever side you pick becomes your direction, and you'll work column by column toward the opposite end.
  2. At each column, flip any card in it — top, bottom, or buried in the middle, your choice.
  3. Keep going one column at a time. Flip a King, Queen, or Jack and your run ends right there.
  4. Make it through every column without hitting one, and you've completed a clean run.
  5. Whatever you flipped this turn is discarded and replaced with fresh face-down cards for the next player — anything you didn't touch stays exactly as it was.

Modes

Drinking Mode

Bust on a royal and you drink one sip for every card you flipped that turn, royal included. Make it across clean and you get to split that many drinks among the other players however you like. Every assignment needs a click-through: the receiving player has to acknowledge it, then confirm once they've actually had it.

Points Mode

Score one point for every non-royal card you flip that turn — whether you bust partway or make it all the way across. Highest score when the deck runs dry wins.

Optional: Joker Mode

Adds Jokers into the shuffle. A Joker is always safe to flip — it counts toward your total like any other card, and it doubles whatever you end the turn with. Flip two in one run and it doubles twice.

The Board Shrinks Over Time

As the shared deck runs low, there won't always be enough cards left to keep refilling the full diamond. When that happens, the board narrows to the next smaller diamond it can still fill — down through 9 cards, then 4, then flattens out to 3, 2, and finally a single card — so it's always the largest shape the remaining cards can support. The round ends once there's nothing left to deal.

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