Ride the Bus is a great drinking game that can easily be played with a group of friends and a deck of cards. The game is played in several rounds. Each round consists of trying to guess the card that will be pulled and drinking if you get it wrong.
Ride the Bus Phase 1: Dealing the Cards
For the first round, the dealer asks the first player to guess if the card will be red or black. If the player gets it right, they take the card and don’t have to drink. If they get it wrong, they take the card and have to drink. The dealer continues around the circle asking the rest of the players to guess if their card will be red or black.
In the second round, the players have to guess if the next card will be higher or lower than their first card. The third round is guessing if the card will be inside or outside the first two cards. Finally, in the fourth round, the players have to guess the suit of the card.
Any time a player is wrong, they have to take a drink.
Ride the Bus Phase 2: Building the Pyramid
At this point, the game transitions to the second phase. The dealer creates a pyramid of cards face-down that has a base of 5 cards wide. The bottom row is worth one drink, the second row worth 2 drinks, and continues up to the top row being worth 5 drinks.
The dealer starts by flipping the bottom left card of the pyramid. Any player that has a matching card in their hand lays it on top of the flipped card and can assign a drink to any other player for each card they played.
For example, if they had two matching cards that they played, they can give two drinks to one person. Or, they can assign two people each one drink.
The dealer continues flipping all the cards and working up the pyramid. Each row that moves up with worth more drinks. The top card of the pyramid is worth 5 drinks.
Players can choose to not play their cards on a lower row with the hopes that they can play higher up the pyramid. However, the player with the most cards remaining in their hand at the end has to ride the bus. It can be a risk to hold onto your cards too long!
Ride the Bus Phase 3: Riding the Bus
Once all of the pyramid cards have been flipped, move to phase 3 of Ride the Bus. The player that has the most cards remaining in their hand has to ride the bus. If multiple people have the same number of cards, the person with the highest card has to play.
The dealer lays out 10 cards in a row face down and flips the first card. The player then has to decide if the second card will be higher or lower than the first card. If they are correct, flip the next card and guess if it is higher or lower than the previous. Continue down the row until all cards have been flipped.
Any time the player guesses wrong, they have to take a shot. Another ways is to choose to play so that incorrectly guessing a number card is 1 drink while face cards are 2 drinks and an ace is 3 drinks.
You have now completed all three phases of Ride the Bus! You can shuffle, switch dealers, and play again.
What You Need
Number of Players: 4 or more
- A deck of cards
- Alcohol – either beer or shots, if you’re brave
Ride the Bus Drinking Game Rules
To play Ride the Bus, there are three separate phases that you’ll need to complete. The goal in all phases is to correctly guess the next card that will be dealt.
Ride the Bus Phase 1 Rules
- Choose a dealer and they will ask the first player to their left “black or red?”. The player must decide if the card being dealt to them will be black or red. If they are wrong, they must drink.
- The dealer continues around the circle until all players have a card in front of them.
- The dealer then moves to the second round, which is to ask if the card is “higher or lower?”. The player must guess if the next card will be higher or lower than the card that is in front of them.
- In the third round, the dealer asks if the third card will be “inside or outside” of the two cards that were previously dealt. For example, if the player has a 2 and Jack, they would probably want to guess that the next card will fall within that range by saying “inside”.
- For the fourth round, the dealer asks the players to guess the suit.
- In all rounds, if they are wrong, the player must drink.
- Aces are high.
Ride the Bus Phase 2 Rules
- The dealer creates a pyramid of cards on the table that are face down. The base of the pyramid should be five cards wide and go up five levels with one less each row.
- In the pyramid, the bottom row is worth 1 drink, the second row is worth 2 drinks, etc. The top row is worth 5 drinks.
- The dealer flips the bottom left corner of the pyramid. Each player that has a matching card can decide to play it. For each matching card, they can then assign a drink to any other player.
- The dealer continues to flip each of the cards in the pyramid one-by-one. As you work up the rows, you’ll be able to assign more drinks with every matching card.
- Players can choose to not play a matching card with the hope to play at a higher row. Be careful, however, since the player with the most cards at the end loses.
- When all of the pyramid cards have been flipped, the player with the most cards remaining in their hand loses. If multiple people have the same number of cards, whoever has the highest value of cards loses.
- The loser moves onto the next phase, which is riding the bus.
Phase 3 Rules: Ride the Bus
- In this final phase, the dealer lays our 10 cards face down in a row. The loser of the previous round must now “ride the bus”.
- The dealer flips over the first card and asks the player “higher or lower?”. The player must decide if the next card will be higher or lower than the previous. If they are incorrect, they must drink.
- If they are correct, the dealer moves to the next card. The player continues down the line of cards trying to guess if the next card will be higher or lower than the previous.
- Drink any time the player guesses incorrectly.
- Once all cards have been flipped, the game is over.
Variations for Ride the Bus
In the final round for riding the bus, there are a few variations that you can play. To make things a little harder for the player, you can choose to force them to start over at the beginning of the bus if they get one incorrect. This turns it into a memory game and will usually make them drink more.
For example, say the player incorrectly guesses the fourth card while riding the bus. They must drink and then all the cards are flipped back over again. They have to start over at the beginning and correctly get all 10 cards before they can finish.
Another variation is to alter the punishment when someone does not correctly guess they card. The standard is to take 1 drink. however, you could choose to play by drinking more if the card being flipped is a face card. Number cards are worth 1 drink, face cards are 2 drinks, and aces are 3 drinks.
