How to Play

Overview

Tom's Time Bluff is a card game for 2–6 players. The deck contains four sets of clock cards (alarm clock, radio alarm, smartwatch, grandfather clock — hours 1 through 12 each), four Jokers, three Time Vortex cards, four Partner cards, and one Cuckoo Clock. Your goal is to be the first player to empty your hand by playing clock cards in chronological order. Sometimes you'll play honestly — and sometimes you'll have to bluff.

Watch the gameplay video

A four-minute teach-along covering setup, turns, and special cards.

Setup

Shuffle the deck. Deal 6 cards to each player. Turn the top three cards of the draw pile face-up to start three open piles in the middle of the table. The remaining cards form the draw pile.

On your turn

1 Play one face-down card onto any pile — it must be exactly one hour later than the top card. (After 12 comes 1.) If you don't have it, bluff it.
2 Play one face-up card on top of the same pile. It can show any hour you like.
3 Draw back up to 6 cards at the end of your turn — unless the draw pile is empty. Forget to draw, and you pay a 2-card penalty next turn.
! You can bluff any time — even when you have the matching card. Play proceeds clockwise.

Challenges & bluffs

Suspect a bluff? Any other player can call the face-down card before the next player's turn begins. Flip it over: if the bluffer lied, they take the entire pile into their hand. If they told the truth, the challenger takes it. Choose your battles — being wrong is expensive.

Special cards

Wild Cards (3 in deck)

Wild Cards play as any hour, face-down or face-up. Stacking ban: Wild Cards can't be played on another Wild Card or on a Time Vortex — if a challenge reveals such a stack, the player picks up the whole pile (failed bluff). Each Wild Card left in hand at round-end = 5 penalty points.

Time Vortex (3 in deck)

Play face-down as a Wild Card, or face-up to trigger it. When activated, every player passes their hand to a neighbour — the Vortex player chooses clockwise or counter-clockwise. The Vortex is then removed from the game and a card is flipped from the draw pile to replace it. If the Vortex is played as your final face-up card, the swap resolves first — the player who ends up with no cards wins. 10 penalty points each if it's still in your hand.

Cuckoo Clock (1 in deck)

The Cuckoo doesn't belong anywhere — it shows no time and must always be bluffed away. You cannot win the round with the Cuckoo still in your hand. Four ways to get rid of it: (1) bluff it away unchallenged, (2) let a Time Vortex swap it elsewhere, (3) play it under the "Jungle" partner card (un-challengeable), (4) use "Beam" to teleport it to another player.

Partner cards (4 in deck) — optional

Always played in combination with their matching clock card: partner card goes on the face-down card first, then the clock card on top. They cannot be played alone. Each one has a unique effect: