This is a very simplistic game, along the lines of Memory or Spoons. In fact, after thinking it through for a while, I realized you could do this with decks of cards (each player would get one red and one black suit, red could be negative and black positive, read on to understand).
Basically, it works this way. Each player has a stack of cards. Each player’s stack is roughly equivalent. As I mentioned, this could be regular playing cards, or themed cards (the stacks could be represent red triangles, green clovers, elves vs. orcs, whatever). Each stack has a few ‘positive’ cards, a few ‘negative. Let’s say each stack has 10 cards. Each stack could consist of: -1, -5, -3, +20, -10, +10, +5, +7, +12, -4, etc. Random values, could even have a multiplier and divider in there to spice things up. The goal of the game is to end with the highest point value. Each player starts at zero points.
Here’s the gimmick: before you start, each player takes their stack and ’stacks’ the deck any way they want: all the good cards first, alternating good and bad. All the decks are set next to each other in the middle. Each player takes a turn and flips the card over into a discard pile next to the pile for that deck. A player may take a card from their deck, or any other. So, you can stick to your deck and draw when its good (a little bit of a memory game, you have to remember which ones are good), but when a bad card is up on your deck, you go to another player’s stack. To remember which is good and bad, some players may use simple tricks, for example, every other one is good. Other observant players will notice this and take the next good card before the player who stacked that deck can.
For extra variety, the decks can be flipped back over in their original order and played one or two more times. This round is much more a game of memory to recall which cards in the other decks were good (this would be good for players who get creative and don’t use a repetitive pattern, also, you could have more cards in each deck to make it harder to remember, i.e. 20-30).