Ride The Bus Drinking Game

Ride the bus drinking game is one of my personal go-to games to get things started. One night I was chilling with a buddy and all we had to drink was kraken rum. For anyone that hasn’t had kraken rum the taste is pretty rough and has a high alcohol percentage. We each did a shot and we both agreed we needed to amp each other up to drink the full forty of the harsh liquor. My buddy recommended we play the ride the bus drinking game and instead of beer you normally use to play we would take shots of the kraken. I don’t recommend it. Beer is far better suited to ride the bus.

Ride The Bus Drinking Game Rules

All you need to play the classic ride the bus drinking game is a deck of cards and beer (or any alcohol of your choice). Deal the cards by asking a series of 4 questions or simply deal each player 4 cards. If the player gets the answer wrong, they drink. However you decide to do it, each player should have 4 cards at the end.

• Red or black?
• High or low?
• In between or outside?
• Pick a suit.

Using the deck of cards set up a pyramid in the center, face down; the bottom row has five, next four, all the way up to one. The objective of the game is to get rid of all of your cards else, you could end up riding the bus. Flip the pyramid over starting with the bottom row. At this point everyone can get rid of any matching cards and assign drinks accordingly. When a player has a card in his or her hand that matches the card flipped over in the pyramid he can assign drinks. The drinks can be given to one person or split up depending on how many people are playing.

• First row – assign one drink per matching card.
• Second row – assign two drinks per matching card.
• Third row – assign three drinks per matching card.
• Fourth row – assign four drinks per matching card.
• Fifth row – assign five drinks per matching card.

Playing this game with hard liquor is not advisable because taking five shots in a row can knock you out pretty quickly. Your ride the bus drinking game will come to a screeching halt. Whoever has the most cards left at the end of the ride the bus drinking game must ride the bus as the name implies. If there is more than one player with the most cards, both players ride the bus or draw a card to break the tie.

To ride the bus, a player must shuffle and lay down eight to ten cards in a line. Cards are then revealed one at a time. This is where ride the bus drinking game gets interesting. If the card drawn is two to ten, the player does not have to drink and nothing really happens. If the player draws any of the face cards below, an appropriate number of drinks must be consumed accordingly.

• Jack – one drink
• Queen – two drinks
• King – three drinks
• Ace – four drinks

All these rules can get confusing. The cheatsheet below makes it easy to follow. You can download the Free Ride the Bus Drinking Game Cheatsheet as a PDF here as well.

There are many different variations of Ride the Bus but the idea remains the same. Check out the following video for a quick video tutorial on the ride the bus drinking game. You can also check out other drinking games two or more people can enjoy for more ideas. Kings Cup is also a great drinking card game you can try.