Spooneye! The Card Game

Jesse Ehnert, besides being my best friend and perpetual gaming buddy since I was 11, was the first person to play Spooneye! against somebody besides me, losing thirty bucks to his college roommate in the process. While spending an arduous month with me hanging out on a tropical island, he also helped me refine and improve the rules of Spooneye immeasurably, co-wrote the basic rules sheet, co-wrote the history of the game, and was the instigator of all of the really goofy faux-pirate terminology enclosed within. He is also the designer of the Spooneye! web site.

Jens "Weirdbeard" Carstensen, besides being the only drummer adept enough to allow me to retain the pretense that I have an iota of musical talent, also invented several of the variants and has just generally been an invaluable help in the evolution of this game. Just one example: The first time I showed the game to him, he pointed out that, when you played a 9, it was pretty dull to just get to take one of your opponent's cards and put it in your booty pile, and suggested taking the card and putting it on your side instead. He also does a really good impression of Alf.

Mishka Shubaly, besides being my ex-quasi-stepbrother and just an all around swell fella, is responsible for organizing the very first Spooneye! tournament (I made it to the finals, then lost to his drummer Ricky. Then we kept playing until everyone was too drunk to shuffle.) He is also the utterer of the most convincing "Arrr!" I've heard as yet.

Special thanks to Beej's Pirate Image Website for the excellent pirate woodcuts, to the Egyptian Ratscrew Website for the card images which were laboriously drawn from scratch, and to Jason's Scripts for the CGI scripts.

Thanks also go to: My family, Sad Sammy Sacks, Mike Morell, Joe Soriano, Brice White, Tris McCall, Jeff Stern, Jason Powers, the Egyptian Ratscrew Website, Scott Harris, John Bergdahl, and anybody who bothered to read this all the way through. And special thanks go to Janet Haven, who played the very first game with me and could have told me it sucked when it did, but didn't and now I'm here.