The Circle of Death drinking game is a flip-and-drink drinking game much like Kings or Ring of Fire. The game is pretty simple and just requires a standard 52 card deck and some people willing to do some drinking. Basically players just take turns flipping the cards and doing the action that’s required with that card.
What You’ll Need To Play
A full deck of cards, a few drinks, a can or bottle in the center of the table and at least 3 players.
Circle of Death Drinking Game Rules
First someone places an empty can in the center of the table. Then all the cards are shuffled and placed in a circle face down around the can.
Players sit around a table and take turns drawing cards in a clockwise order. Whenever a card is drawn it’s place on top of the can with at least 2 corners hanging off.
- 2 – drink twice
- 3 – drink 3 times
- 4 – drink 4 times
- 5 – drink 5 times
- 6 – give out 6 drinks, divided as you want
- 7 – give out 7 drinks, divided as you want
- 8 – give out 8 drinks, divided as you want
- 9 – Rhyme Time. One player picks a word and the next player must rhyme with that word. Then play goes clockwise until someone can’t think of a unique rhyming word and they have to drink.
- 10 – Make a rule. Whoever drew this gets to make a new game rule. Anyone caught breaking the rule needs to drink.
- Jack – Gesture Master. Whoever drew this comes up with a gesture and shows everyone. At any point in the game they can do this gesture and the last player to do it drinks. When someone else gets a Jack they become the new gesture master and get to reinvent the gesture.
- Queen – Question Master. Whoever drew this asks a player a question. That player must respond with a question of their own directed at another player. This keeps going until someone messes up, they have to drink.
- King – Categories. Whoever drew this comes up with a category like “Shoe brands” or “colors”. Play goes clockwise with players saying something within that category. If they mess up they drink and the game is done.
- Ace – Waterfall! Start a waterfall. Whoever drew this starts chugging their drink, then the next player clockwise starts chugging, and so on until everyone is. Nobody can stop drinking until the player before them stops.
Additional Rules
- If someone breaks the circle of cards by taking one out, leaving an empty space, they must take a drink.
- If someone knocks off any cards while placing their card on top of the can they must drink for each card knocked off.
- If a player knocks off every card from the can, they must neck a full beer.
- If anyone has to ask “what does this card do” they have to drink.
Similar Drinking Games
The circle of death drinking game is fairly light with the exception of the waterfall card. It’s a great way to just grab a deck of cards and get some drinking done. It’s probably best to either write down the rules or have them readily available somewhere so everyone can read them.