Sherbie vs. The Silverfish

In the battle against vermin, you’re either with Sherbie, or against her. Amass an army of silverfish and send them to torment Sherbie, or grab a paper towel and some bug spray and attempt to defeat the insectile menace. In the end, only one side can triumph.

Object

Be the player with the most silverfish in either your Sherbie stress pile or your squish pile.

You Need

A deck of Sherbie vs. The Silverfish cards.

Setup

Shuffle the cards into a deck. Put the deck face-down where all players can reach it. Pick a player to go first.

Play

On your turn, draw from the deck until you have 5 cards in your hand, then play a card or send your bug pile after Sherbie.
Silverfish – Each silverfish card has 1 to 5 silverfish on it. When you play a sliverfish card, put it face-down in your bug pile.
Squeesh! – You can play a Squeesh on an opponent’s pile of silverfish to squish ‘em before that opponent zaps Sherbie with ‘em. If you play a Squeesh card, take an opponent’s bug pile and put it face-up in your squish pile.
Spray – A Spray card is ike a Squeesh card, but it only kills one card in each opponent’s bug pile. When you play a Spray card, take one randomly-selected card from each opponent’s bug pile. Put these cards face-up in your squish pile.
Bug Bomb – If you play a Bug Bomb card, put it face- up in the middle of the table. If there are three Bug Bomb cards face-up, the game ends.
Bugs! – To unleash your silverfish on Sherbie, discard a randomly-selected card and move the silverfish cards from your bug pile to your Sherbie stress pile, face-up.

Winning

The game ends at the instant the draw deck runs out of cards OR if there are three Bug Bomb cards face-up.
If you have the most bugs (tally the bugs on the cards) in your squish pile, you get the Sherbie victory.
If you have the most bugs in your Sherbie stress pile, you get the Silverfish victory.
Compare the tallies of the player with the Sherbie victory and the Silverfish victory. The player with the highest tally is the overall game winner.

Variants

Complex (but fairer) Point Tallying –
Tally the silverfish in your Sherbie stress and squish piles. If you have more Sherbie stress silverfish, you’re a silverfish player. Otherwise, you’re a Sherbie player. The Silverfish player with the most silverfish gets points equal to the number of Silversfish players. The Sherbie player with the most silverfish gets points equal to the number of Sherbie players. Tally all Sherbie stress silverfish. Tally all Squeesh silverfish. If the Sherbie stress tally is greater, each Silverfish player gets points equal to the number of Sherbie players. Otherwise, the Sherbie players get points equal to the number of Silverfish players. Play until one player has 10 or more points. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

The End Is Nigh... –
Play with the draw pile face-up instead of face-down. When a Bug Bomb appears on the top of the pile, it goes directly into play. This does not count against the number of cards the current player can play in a turn.

Origin and Credits

I thought of this game in a burst of creativity and emailed it to myself on January 19, 2004 3:27:19 PM CST. I worked on it a little and ran a playtest of it shortly thereafter. The game languished in game purgatory until February 2006, when I realized that the Game of the Month that I was going to post is one that I don’t want to post at this time. So… Here it is!

Any resemblance between characters or events depicted in this game and actual events and people is completely intentional.