Mmm, Bugs. You can’t eat just one.

Did you ever wonder what the gravediggers in Parts Unknown do in their spare time? Of course not! But we suspect that they play this game from dawn to dusk.

Renfield is trick-taking gambling game, where the goal is to eat the fewest bugs (i.e., score the fewest points), as long as you eat at least one. One interesting upshot of the “at least one” rule is that shooting the moon (that is, winning by taking all the points) is built into the core rules. If you take all the bugs, then nobody else got any, so they don’t qualify to win.

The Renfield deck has three suits numbered 0 through 17, for a total of 54 cards. The game has a pretty decent flow and was once called “too good to be a Cheapass game” by someone who should have known better. This version includes many variants on the core game, just as you might expect in a well-aged card game.

PRINT & PLAY FILES

Art by Michael O’Connor.

Renfield supports 4-7 players and takes roughly half an hour to play. Download the entire print-and-play via a handy .zip, or access individual components below:

In addition, you will need money.

In case you’d like a prettier and/or more durable version of the Renfield deck, you can find color versions as a print-and-play and a deck at Drive Thru Cards.

Make your print-and-play the pride of your shelf. Check James Ernest’s how-to video on crafting playing cards! You can also print out Cheapass Games-themed money.