John Silver

About this board game

John Silver is a card game for 2–4 players, with a playing time of around 30 minutes, in which players compete for valuable cards and points.

At the heart of the game is an intriguing question: play a card, then wonder who will take the trick. When a row of four cards is complete, the two tricks are distributed among the winners according to the cards in that row.

The highest card grabs the second-highest card, while the lowest card grabs the second-lowest card. This creates a distinctive card-ranking system in which both ends of the completed row matter, making every played card potentially important.

The value of a trick is not determined by the number of cards it contains. Instead, the cards show different symbols that affect the score:

• Coins provide good points.
• Broken treasure maps provide negative points.
• Apples offer points to the player sitting to your left.

Because cards can contain both rewards and penalties, taking a trick is not automatically beneficial. Players must consider the symbols on the cards as well as their relative values, while apples introduce an additional effect that reaches beyond the player who plays or wins the card.

John Silver combines the familiar tension of trick-taking with an unusual method of distributing completed rows. The result is a compact contest of card values, scoring symbols, and carefully timed decisions, where an apparently successful trick may bring either valuable coins or unwanted broken maps.