Card Games: Inflation Games

The games of this group use a mechanism similar to trick-taking games, in which each player plays a card in turn, often with the requirement to follow suit. But unlike normal trick-taking games, in inflation games players add cards to their hands during the game, either from a drawing stock of undealt cards or by picking up cards that have been played, and this causes the players' hands to become unequal in size.

Usually these are either shedding games, in which the objective is to get rid of cards, or accumulation games, in which the objective is to acquire cards.

In some of these games, the winner of each trick draws a card from the stock. In others, a player who is unable to follow suit must draw a card. In some, a player who is unable to follow suit must pick up the cards previously played to the trick, and this gives them a character similar to beating games.

The group is named after the European shedding game called Enflé or Schwellen, or in English Rolling Stone.

The Japanese game Page One is a shedding game in which a player who cannot follow suit must draw cards until able to do so, and the first player to run out of cards is the winner. The Indonesian game Cangkul has a similar principle, as does the game Burro played in Spain and Portugal.

Getaway, also known as Bhabhi, is played in the Punjab and Bangladesh. In this game when a player is unable to follow suit, the player of the highest card of the suit led must pick up the trick. The last person left holding cards is the loser.

In the game Générala from Cameroon, a player unable to follow suit picks up just one card from the trick. The last player left holding cards is eliminated and the survivors play further games until only a single player remains as the winner.