Published by Gigamic and distributed in the UK by Hachette Boardgames, Papayoo isn't a new game - it was originally published in 2010 - but this is a new edition, now part of Gigamic's series of sliding-box card games, alongside Line-it and Slide. The game tho' can trace its routes much further back because it's essentially a variation on the traditional trick-taking card game Hearts, which has been around since the middle of the 19th Century.
The cards in this new edition of Papayoo feature colourful art from Agence Bravo but the deck comprises cards numbered 1 to 10 in the traditional four suits, plus 'Payoo' cards numbered 1-20. There's also a custom eight-sided die that's rolled each round to determine which suit's #7 card is the 'Papayoo'.
The game is designed for 3-8 players, tho' if you're playing with seven or eight players you need to take out the #1 cards for the four suits so that players can be dealt hands of the same size (the full deck of 60 cards is equally divisible for three, four, five or six players but needs to be reduced to 56 cards to be equally divisible by 7 or 8). There's an element of drafting as players pass 3-5 cards to the player to their left (the number to be passed is dependent on the number of players), and for card counters this process gives you valuable information about your neighbour's hand.
The game itself follows standard trick-taking rules, in that you must always follow suit if you can, but there are no trumps. The Papayoo #7 card as determined by the die scores 40 points but all other suited cards score zero points; all the Payoo cards score their face value. Like Hearts, players are trying to score as few points as possible, so you want to be able to discard your Papayoo and high-scoring Payoo cards to tricks being led or won by your opponents.
Tho' Papayoo is essentially a Hearts variant, it's a slightly more steamlined game because it eliminates the exception rules in Hearts. There is no 'shoot the moon' scoring and no limitation on when you can lead with a Payoo card. This makes Papayoo a very easy-to-teach trick taker, and the colourful presentation further adds to its appeal.