Awesome Version of How to Play Ride the Bus Drinking Game
Ride the Bus is one of the most popular drinking games and a personal favourite of mine and my girlfriend Claire. We have played it many times by ourselves and with groups of friends. Once you understand the rules it is so easy to play.
So how do you play ride the bus?
Ride the bus drinking game is played with a deck of cards with the aim that each player must lose as many their cards as they can. The game is played in 3 stages with the player with the most cards left in their hand at the end of stage 2 is the loser and gets to Ride the Bus
Claire and I have has written our best article and described how to play ride the bus in a simple but detailed way. We included images and a great infographic summary for you to download onto your phone. I have recently discovered the online drinking game version of ride the bus and it’s awesome. It’s one of many, great online drinking games that Claire and I now add to our date nights and game nights with friends.
I am going to cover both the original Ride the Bus Drinking Game rules and the online ride the bus app version.
What I have discovered is that there is a heap of different versions on ‘how to play Ride the Bus’, including different rules. I am going to show you the way we play which is the most popular version.
I am going to start with the online drinking game version of ride the bus. This is because is it so simple to play, you will pick it up in a few minutes and it will make the original game much easier to understand.
Ride the Bus Online Drinking Game
- The app: iphone | ipad or Android
- Drink – Beer or favourite drink
- Number of player 2+
Note: These instructions are for the IOS – iphone version. The Android maybe slightly different.
The object of the game is for each player to pass through what we will call 4/5 bus stops. The only way you can do this is by answering (guessing) 4 questions. Guess right you move forward to the next stop, guess wrong you take a drink and start again… It’s that simple!
Set up
When you open the app you will be presented with 4 tabs
- Play
- Options
- How to Play
- Support
Brief description of each tab
By pressing play you will enter and start the game
By going into options, you have the choice to set up the to your preference. This is worth playing around with to see the different modes available.

These Are The Options Available:
The Game Mode: allows you to choose the questions and in which order.
Choose the Classic mode and you will get the following questions:
Stop 1. – Red or Black
Stop 2. – Guess the suit
Stop 3. – Is the card outside or in between
Stop 4. – Is the card, Club, Diamond, Spade or Heart
Stop 5. – card any of the previously chosen

Choose the High or Lower Game Mode and you will get the same question (higher or lower) at each stop
Choose the Guess the Suit Game Mode and you will get the same question (Guess the Suit) at each stop
Choose the Custom mode and you will get the option to the above questions in any order you choose.
Grid Layout – This allows you to choose the layout of the cards. The most popular layout is the pyramid
- Corridor
- Pyramid
- Diamond
Drink Allocation – Speaks for itself!
- Always One
- Always Two
- Increasing
- Decreasing
Ace – Choose if you want the ace to be high or low
- High
- Low
Card Colour – Speaks for itself – Colour layout
- Blue
- Red
Card Selection – Options of how to select the card.
- Drag or tap
- Drag
- Tap
When Claire and I played we used the following set up
Game Mode: Classic
Card Layout: Pyramid
Drink Allocation: Always One
Card Colour: Red
Card Selection: Drag or Tap
By choosing Support Us, you get to:
- Rate the app
- Remove ads (Cost of $1.49)
- Give feedback
- Access Facebook
- Look at other Apps
How to play Online Ride the Bus
Start the game by pressing play and typing in the name of the players. You can play with any number of players from 2 +
- Player 1 starts the game by tapping on a card
- The card turns over and the first questions appears – Is the card red or black
- You got it – you guess the answer.
- Guess right on move on to the next stop
- Guess wrong, take a drink and pass to next player
- This example is in classic mode so the next question will be
- Guess the suit, followed by
- Is the card outside or in-between followed by
- Is the card, Club, Diamond, Spade or Heart.
- That should be the final 4th question but when I got to the end there was another question
- Is the card any of the previously chosen
The extra 5th stop (question) seems only to be in the classic mode setting. The rest are 4 questions





The End of the Game
One player gets through the 4 / 5 stops without guessing incorrectly, which is called getting off the bus – easier said than done.
My hope is that the detailed description allows you to get a feel for the game before you down load the drinking app and just start playing.
Original Version of Ride the Bus Drinking Game
2 + players
What you need
- Deck of Cards
- Drink
- Choose the dealer
Unlike the online version, the object of this game is to have the least number of cards in your hand by the end of the round.
There are 3 stages to game
Stage 1 – Deal the cards – answer questions
Stage 2 – Climb the pyramid – get rid of your cards
Stage 3 – Person with the most number of cards to – Loser, must Ride The Bus
Stage 1 – Deal the cards
The game starts by the dealer, dealing out 4 cards to each player in 4 separate rounds or games. That is 1 card to each player per round/game.
In each round the dealer will ask a question to each player, which they then have to guess the answer.
Will the next card be:
- Red or Black
- High or Low
- In-between or outside
- What suit – Pick a suit
- The dealer asks the player 1 to guess the colour of the card Red or Black
- He then turns over a card in front of the player
- If the player guessed correctly he/she gives out 1 drink (to your partner or player of your choice)
- If it was an incorrect guess they take a drink
- The player keeps the card and the dealer moves onto the next player

- The same as game one except the question is: Guess if the next card is going to be Higher or Lower than your first card.
- Call the Ace high for this example but you can decide at the beginning of the games whether the ace is going to be high or low.
- If the card turn over matches the first card, it is classed as an incorrect answer.
- Optional – You could add an extra rule similar to the online version giving the player the option to say: Higher, Lower, or Same.
- Optional – This time the drinks increase to give 2 for a correct answer (choose to give 1 player all drinks or distribute between players) –, take 1 wrong answer
- Or If the player guessed correctly he/she gives out 1 drink / If it was an incorrect guess they take a drink
- The player keeps the card and the dealer moves onto the next player

- The same as game two except the question is: Guess if the next card is going to be in-between or Outside the value of your 2 current cards.
- For example: You have 2 cards – 4 and 8 (suit doesn’t matter) . The in-between value will be – 5, 6, or 7. Outside value will be – Ace, one, two, three or nine, ten, Jack, Queen, King
- If the card turned over matches the either card, it is classed as an incorrect answer.
- Optional – You could add an extra rule similar to the online version giving the player the option to say: In-between, outside or same.
- Optional – This time the drinks increase to give 3 for a correct answer (choose to give 1 player all drinks or distribute between players) – take 1 wrong answer
- Or If the player guessed correctly he/she gives out 1 drink / If it was an incorrect guess they take a drink
- The player keeps the card and the dealer moves onto the next player

- The same as game three except the question is: Guess the suit of the next card. – Spade, Club, Heart or Diamond
- This time the drinks increase to give 4 for a correct answer (choose to give 1 player all drinks or distribute between players) – wrong answer take 1
- Or If the player guessed correctly he/she gives out 1 drink / If it was an incorrect guess they take a drink
- The player keeps the card and the dealer moves onto the next player

Stage 2 – Climb the pyramid
The aim is for the players to get rid of all cards by pairing them with the ones on the pyramid and giving as many drinks as possible to other players.
- The row 1 has 5 cards – 1 drink
- The row 2 has 4 cards – 2 drinks
- The row 3 has 3 cards – 3 drinks
- The row 4 has 2 cards – 4 drinks
- The row 5 has 1 card – 5 drink

How to play stage 2
- Starting with the bottom (row 1) the dealer turns over each card one at a time.
- A player with a matching card (e.g. Pair of Aces) puts their card on top of the corresponding card and gives the number of drinks for that row to any player (e.g. row 1 – give 1 drink)
- Any number of matching cards from any players can be used (e.g. If there is an ace in the row and more than 1 player holds an ace in their hand, they can both put down their card)
- If there is an ace in the row and you have 2 aces in your hand you can put them both down and distribute the drinks 2 times
- If you don’t have a matching card you need to wait for the next row is turned.
- This continues up the pyramid, turning over each row at a time until you reach the top
Stage 3 – Finally Ride the Bus
At the end of the pyramid climb the player with most cards left is classed as the ‘Loser’ and then Rides the Bus.
- If there is a tie in the number of cards held, then add up the value of the cards.
- The player with the highest value is the loser and Rides the Bus
- If the values match then each player to pick a card from the deck, the one with the highest value to ride the bus.
The player who Rides the Bus must:
Answer all 4 questions correctly in one go to get off the bus
As in the online version, if the question is guessed incorrectly, they take a drink and go back to the beginning
4 Questions
- Red or Black
- High or Low
- In-between or outside
- Pick a suit
How to play the final stage of ride the bus
There are a many different versions available of this stage of the game, some we find to be a bit complicated so we keep it simple. We play it the same as the stage one except it’s with just 1 player
This is how we play it
- The player calls out if the card will be Red or Black
- The dealer turns over the card
- If correct move onto the next question – High or Low
- If correct move onto the next question – In-between or outside
- If correct move onto the next question – Pick a suit
- If correct – get off the bus
- But, at any stage if you guess wrong take a drink and go back to the beginning.
Optional rules
- If the any card turned over is a Jack – take an extra drink
- If the any card turned over is a Queen – take 2 drinks
- If the any card turned over is a King – take 3 drinks
- If the any card turned over is an Ace– take 4 drinks
The end of Ride the Bus
- The player answers all questions in one go
- Or You run out of cards
Don’t be put off by the detailed instructions. Once you understand ride the bus rules and concept it’s an awesome drinking game.
The amount of drinks you enforce is up to you. I would keep it less rather than more as you will guess wrong a lot of the time…
With the online version pf ride the bus you have the option to keep it really simple of play the full original game.
Get your printable summary of the of the Ride the Bus Game Rules
