In this article, you can read about the basic rules of the game Emoji Party and learn how to play. The object of the game is to be the last player with cards still left in your deck.
Setup
Sit in a circle and place the eggplant in the middle of the table. Shuffle the deck and deal all the cards out to all the players as evenly as possible. Each player stacks their cards into a facedown deck in front of themselves. Players are not allowed to look at the cards. The oldest player goes first. Then play proceeds clockwise.
On your turn, flip the top card of your deck face-up into a discard pile in front of you. As you discard, you must flip the card away from you so that the other players can see it first. All players must be able to see the top card of your discard pile at all times. When an action card is flipped, you must follow the directions on the card. Whenever the top smiley card in any two player’s discard piles match, players race to pick up the eggplant from the center of the table. The first player to pick up the eggplant adds cards according to the icon on the matching smiley cards.
Meanings of Icons
The single person icon means that you shuffle your own discard pile and put it on the bottom of your deck. If you have no cards in your discard, then you may take another player’s discard pile instead. The group of people icon means that you can take any player’s discard pile and shuffle it and add it to the bottom of your deck. The gold eggplant symbol means that you take every player’s discard pile, shuffle them together and add them to the bottom of your deck.
Eggplant
After adding cards to your deck, the player who grabbed the eggplant puts it back in the center of the table and takes the next turn by discarding the top card from their deck. If two or more players grab the eggplant at the same time, then whoever is holding the eggplant closer to the purple tip end wins the grab. When a player runs out of cards in their deck, they must place the cards in their discard pile if any in the center of the table underneath the eggplant. Cards underneath the eggplant get added to the next player who the eggplant from a pair of matching smiley cards.
If a player grabs the eggplant and there isn’t a pair of matching smiley cards visible, then, as a penalty, they must give every other player with a deck in front of them, two cards from their deck. Next, If the penalized player doesn’t have enough cards to distribute evenly for the penalty, then they must deal out the cards evenly in a clockwise direction. If you have zero cards in your deck, you may grab back in on a matching pair of smiley cards. If you have no cards and you grab the eggplant when there isn’t a match, then as a penalty, you may not grab in on the next match.
Winning
Once one player has all the cards in their deck they are the winner. The winner removes the poop emoji and gives it to the player of their choice, before dealing the next round. When playing with three and four players, remove all the smiley cards with the group of people symbol. Also, remove one of each of the following action cards smoke, and ashes, lips, and ghosts. When a player wins the eggplant, they always select any player’s discard pile to add to their deck.
Game Variations
Some additional rule variations you can play with are as follows:
Fiesta – Everyone discards the top card of their deck at the same time. Remove the smoke action cards before dealing.
Stampede – The player that wins the eggplant can place it anywhere in the room. Players must run and grab it when there is a match.
Faces – Make the face that’s on your smiley card as you play it.
On fire – If you win three eggplants in a row then you add everyone’s discard pile to your deck.
Elimination – For a faster game, players can’t grab back in after they’ve run out of cards.