Double Fanucci (or just Fanucci) is a fictional card game in the Zork series of computer games, which is the official national sport of Quendor. It is a joke game - the rules are designed to be extremely complicated, but even the rules that have been written down are always marked as "abridged". It is speculated that a complete rulebook for the game would be larger than the entire Encyclopedia Frobozzica. Thus it is described in the aforementioned encyclopedia as "a game of tremendous complexity and almost infinite rules" [1].

Double Fanucci is partially playable in the game Zork Zero, which requires the player to use the technique outlined below.

Note: The remainder of this article treats the details of the fictional game as facts.

Fanucci was designed by the deposed king Zilbo III and quickly became a popular pasttime. From 691 GUE, annual Fannuci tournaments have been held in Borphee . It became Quendor's national sport in 757 GUE.

Gameplay

The game is played with a deck of 174 cards, including 165 suit cards and 9 face cards.

There are 15 suits:

• Mazes
• Books
• Rain
• Bugs
• Fromps
• Inkblots
• Scythes
• Plungers
• Faces
• Time
• Lamps
• Hives
• Ears
• Zurfs
• Tops

Each suit features eleven cards, with values from 0 to 9 inclusive, and infinity.

Lastly there are nine face cards:

• Granola
• Death
• Light
• Snail
• Beauty
• Time
• Grue
• Lobster
• Jester

Gameplay is taken in turns. Each player is dealt four cards at the beginning of the game, and can draw another card at any point when this stock diminishes beneath four. Cards may also be discarded. The simplicity ends here. Every move holds the potential for a special 'play'. The possible plays are as follows:

• Combine
• One-Play
• Two-Play
• Pass
• Overpass
• Trump
• Undertrump
• Reverse
• Muttonate
• Divide
• Ionize

Each play can cause a player to gain or lose points. Unfortunately this is where the gameplay becomes so complex that, even if one were capable of understanding it, it would require a large volume to write it down - the specifics are determined by what card was used, with which play it was executed, and other factors, like the phase of the Moon, the ancestry of the players, and which of the many hundreds of rule variations are being used.

One important rule is as follows (from Encyclopedia Frobozzica):

Three [legal] undertrumps after an opponent's discard of a Trebled Fromp is an indefensible gambit. [2]

This is the only known way to win at Fanucci.

Another well-known rule is as follows:

The game is suspended when one player's lead exceeds 1241, and the game must be replayed in its entirety, except during a Frotz Moon or in a 6-player game where at least 3 players are of Mithican ancestry.

The game is similar in many respects to Mornington Crescent, which is also a fictional game of near-infinite rules and variations.

Variations on the game

• A simpler, "corrupted" version of the game is known as Gabber Trumper, which can be played by those who do not wish to learn the complicated rules of full Fanucci.
• Port Foozle Casino usually plays with Revised Miznian Rules, 7th-Level Amendments.
• The Fanucci Casino Rebuilding Act of 817 GUE has adopted another set of rules.
• It is assumed that there are many other variations on the rules.

External links

• Encyclopedia Frobozzica Appendix C - Double Fanucci
• Do-It-Yourself Double Fanucci