Dumb Ways To Die

Gameplay

Dumb Ways To Die Card Game is played with 2 to 5 players, and the goal is to not let any of your “Beans,” as the characters are called, die. Each player stars with three Animated Bean Death Cards alive-side up in front of them. If all three of your beans die, you lose!

Players start with five cards from the regular deck, and the rest of the deck is placed in the center of the playing area. If any of your five cards have a red (bloody!) border, switch them out from the main deck. On your turn, you roll a die to determine how many actions you must perform to complete your turn. An action is either drawing a card or playing a card.

There are two types of cards that can be played: accident cards, and all other cards. If you play a non-accident card, simply place it in front of you and you (and potentially other players) must follow the directions on the card. If you want to play an accident card, place it in front of the player you would like to inflict the accident upon. You can only play an accident card on another player once per turn.

The recipient of the accident card then has the opportunity to avoid the accident. There are three types of accidents, Nature, Home, and Ride. Each of these categories avoids one of the other categories:

• Nature avoids Ride
• Home avoids Nature
• Ride avoids Home

So, if a player wants to avoid an accident card inflicted upon them, they must play one of their own accident cards that counters the one inflicted on them. Alternatively, Relax cards can counter any of the accident cards. If a player cannot counter an accident card, they must flip over one of their Bean Death Cards to the dead side.

If you draw a card with a red border, it might say “You Died!” place this card face up in front of you. You have the opportunity to counter it to save your beans with an accident card or a relax card. The other red bordered card is the Psycho Attack card. If you draw the Psycho Attack card, place it in front of you and all players must roll the die and attempt to roll a 1. If you do, you’re safe. If you don’t, one of your beans dies.

After your turn is up, move all played cards to the discard pile.

History

Before Dumb Ways To Die was a card game, or an app, or a song, it was an Australian public campaign made to promote railway safety in Australia. The advertising agency McCann Melbourne created the campaign. It was released in November 2012, directed by Patrick Baron, animated by Julian Frost, and produced by Cinnamon Darvall. The song featured in the video was written by John Mescall, with music by Ollie McGill from the Cat Empire. It was performed by Emily Lubitz. The video shows characters known as “Beans” dying as a result of their own stupidity. The final three beans all die as a result of unsafe behavior at train stations or railways, which are deemed “the dumbest ways to die.”

After the song came the video games. In May 2013, Metro released a Dumb Ways To Die app. It invites players to avoid the dangerous activities engaged in by the different characters (the same ones from the campaign). Within the app, players can also pledge to “not do dumb stuff around trains.” There were 6 more variations of the mobile game that followed.

After the video games came the card game. The game was designed by Erica Bouyouris, Game Designer at Spin Master and co-host of Ludology podcast, and Kyle Hussa-Lietz, Principal of Design at Spin Master Games, and published by Spin Master Ltd.

Variations

Currently, there are no other variations of Dumb Ways To Die Card Game.

Reception & Awards

Within two weeks of publication, the video resulted in 85 parodies. Dumb Ways To Die characters have also been featured in ads for Empire Life Insurance, promoting the message that the dumbest way to die is without life insurance.