3-6 players

OVERVIEW
Got an impossible job? You need a team that specializes in the impossible. Whether it’s rescuing the president, stealing a priceless work of art, disabling a bomb or kidnapping a celebrity, this crew is ready, willing and able. Despite any complications that arise.

COMPONENTS
Board
Role Cards
Event Cards
Item Cards
Alert Cards
Loyalty Cards
Room Chits
Target/Decoy/Guard Chits
Character Pieces
Multiple 6-sided dice

SETUP
Players randomly choose one of many missions and take on roles of specialists attempting to carry out the mission.

Room chits are randomly placed face down in each of the nine rooms, ensuring it’s never the same map twice. The chosen mission will provide instructions as to what cards, chits and roles are required and where to place them.

For example, in “Save the President,” the Locksmith, Assassin, Hacker, Sniper, Strategist and Demolitions roles are available. This mission takes place in a house, so it’ll use 9 specific house room chits (library, home office, bedroom, security room, etc.). The president target chit, 4 decoy chits and 4 guard chits are randomly placed face down in separate rooms. A map will show you where doors, windows and patrol guards are located.

OBJECTIVE
Players cooperate to locate and complete the mission objective. In “Save the President” mission, the objective is to find the president and get him out alive.

SNAFU
The objective seems simple, but once you locate the target, you’ll hit a SNAFU, and your goal will become more difficult. Each mission has 9 possible SNAFUs.

The SNAFU is determined by the room the target is found in. Reference the mission’s matrix of scenarios to find what has gone awry and what needs to be done to finish the mission.

In our “Save the President” example, if the president was in the security room, there’s actually a traitor trying to stop the crew from completing the mission. Distribute loyalty cards and read the separate win conditions of the team and of the traitor.

However, if the president was in the kitchen, the target was an imposter, the alarm’s been raised and the real president must be found and escape with at least one crewmember.

Players win if they complete the mission’s win conditions according to the SNAFU instructions.

GAMEPLAY
Player actions include moving, searching, unlocking, attacking and hacking. Roles provide perks and additional actions. After completing their actions, the player draws an event card. These could help or hinder the crew by providing useful information, alerting authorities, setting off a trap, finding a map, etc. The player then draws a number of alert cards depending on the current detection level.

DETECTION
Often, getting in and out quietly is the best course of action. But as the game continues, events like leaving the window open or a squeak of a sneaker can cause detection to increased. Players can either take three actions without increasing detection or risk detection with a fourth action. As detection rises, players must draw alert cards, which usually means trouble.

Theme

Two to six players compete to control the fate of two dueling Secret Agents in a future-tech Cold War. New advanced drugs, Quantum Entanglement Agents, allow them to enter alternate realties and change their decisions in the past, present and future. Will the world end in a nuclear holocaust? Will the Agents live to tell the tale? Will love or hate grow between them as the treacherous Cold War unfolds? Soon the final future will be present and the consequences of decisions past will decide their doom.

Game Board

The game board/time-track is divided into twelve stages each representing a stage in the story. (Modeled after the 12 stages in The Hero’s Journey). Each stage is divided into six parallel alternate realities of that stage. Each of these realities depicts an event in graphic novel style with a short description and six choices listed. The consequences of each choice affect the three plot lines that the game follows: Nuclear War or Treaty Made, One or Both Agents Live or Die, Agents Fall in Love or Become Bitter Enemies. A dice is placed on one reality in each stage with the number facing up corresponding to the choice for that reality. Some choices, especially earlier on, yield bonus Entanglement Cards.

Game Play

Players roll to see who goes first with play continuing clockwise. First player draws two Entanglement Cards and then arranges a dice as they choose on the first stage. Subsequent players do likewise with subsequent stages until the first five stages have a dice placed. The first stage is now marked as the “present” using a token. Play continues with the next player playing a normal turn.

For a normal turn, players first draw two new Entanglement Cards and then play one card (unless using a Sync card) or may pass.

Once the tenth stage is unlocked with a Stage card the first stage is now locked into place and may not be changed. This continues so that there are only ever, at most, nine stages available for manipulation until the “present” moves past the twelfth stage and the game ends.

Entanglement Cards

Switch: Trade positions of present dice with any other.

Shift: Move the present dice to a parallel alternate reality.

Spin: Change the present dice’s number.

Sync: Combine with other card to allow its effect to apply to all dice of the same number.

Suspend: Combine with a card to allow it to be played as an additional card that turn.

Stage: Immediately advance the "present" to the next time stage and arrange a new dice how you wish in the next available future stage.

Doom Cards

Each player receives one Doom Card that shows three story outcomes as their goal. Example: Treaty Made, One Agent Dies, They Fall in Love.

Winning

Whoever completes all, or the most, of their Doom goals wins. A tie for winner triggers an additional round to be played with all time stages changeable allowing for dramatic comebacks and subversive planning.

A game of storytelling, misdirection, and deduction for 3-6 players - you must work together to tell a story, but don’t let anyone know what you’re really up to.

Setup

The stories are set in the small town of Telltaletown, which is represented by the game board. It has places like: corner store, gas station, diner, bank, church, jail house, forest, etc. There are ten characters represented by pawns: sheriff, banker, bar keeper, butcher, preacher, teacher, farmer’s daughter, mayor, storekeeper, out of town visitor. There are also several prop pieces like: shovel, shot gun, treasure chest, etc. The setting, props, and characters are the same each game, but everything else changes. First, a genre card is selected (comedy, mystery, drama, etc). Next, one character is chosen for the protagonist and one for the antagonist from the deck of character cards. Lastly, an inciting incident is drawn to get the ball rolling (e.g. explosion, missing person, murder, etc).

Gameplay

The game is divided into three phases: rising action (7 rounds), climax (2 rounds), and falling action (1 round). The players take turns adding to a single, continuous narrative. Players start with four action cards each and play one action card per turn. The action cards provide guidelines for adding to the story. For example, move exactly three characters, two characters must be at the diner, a new player must take the treasure chest, draw 2 new action cards. Important note: players aren’t connected to any character or characters in the story. Every player can freely control all the characters and props.

Objective

Players also start with plot objective cards that give them something they must try to steer the story towards. Each player gets one primary plot objective card and three secondary plot objective cards. The primary objective will be a binary outcome to try and make happen by the end of the story for either the protagonist or antagonist (e.g. move away, go to prison, die, etc). The secondary objectives are related to the positions of the game components (e.g. have each character in different a location, have one character possess three props at once, etc).

The catch is that each player also starts the game with two veto cards which can be used to negate any other player’s turn at any time for any reason. Meanwhile, throughout the game everyone is trying to figure out what objective cards the other players have. At any time, any player may guess at a primary or secondary objective of any other player. Players earn points (and additional veto cards) for achieving their secondary objectives as well as correctly guessing other player’s plot objectives. Players must forfeit action cards and veto cards for guessing incorrectly or having an objective card guessed.

The winner is the player with the most points among those who achieve their primary objective.

Introduction:

This game is set in the Monster Inc. universe. Players are trying to influence the life story of Blalil, a young and impressionable monster youth.

Components:

Game Board – I picture using a scroll as a game board. The scroll is split into four sections that represent stages of life. At the end of each stage there is a life event (scoring).
Play moves from left to right following diagonal paths (grid pattern). Players will dictate which path Blalil will take.

Voting Cards – (UP, DOWN, CHANGE CARD, MOTHER KNOWS BEST)

Life Event Cards – Players will secretly choose which outcome they want before the game starts as represented by these cards.

1 Die – (UP, UP, Down, Down, Back, Diverge)

2 Life Tracker Tokens – to mark progress of Blalil.

VOTING

Each round has a vote. The life tracker may be moved up or down depending on the majority of the vote. If there is only one trump card (MOTHER KNOWS BEST), that player can choose where to more the tracker. If there are two or more trump cards or there is a tie in voting, roll the die to see where the tracker will move. Trump cards may only be used once per life stage.
If BACK is rolled, move the life tracker to the previous space. This is not possible when the tracker is on a life event.
If DIVERGE is rolled, add a new life tracker. Place the original one on the up diagonal and the new token on the down diagonal. This will create two life paths. If there are already two tokens on the board, remove the oldest one.

• Players may only vote for one of the life tracker tokens at a time. The first life tracker to reach the life event is recorded, while the other is removed. If both trackers make it to the life event in the same round, they both count.

CHANGE CARD can be used during the vote stage. Add your current life event card to the unused deck, shuffle, and randomly select a new card (it is possible to choose the same card).

LIFE EVENTS

At the end of each life stage, there are life events. At the beginning of the game players will choose one of the life event cards for each of the four life events. Players will earn points if Blalil ends up passing through their life event. There are two life event cards for each life event space. There are four life events (getting into pre-school, choosing a clique, getting into college, and finding a job). The life events towards the center will be worth less than the ones on the outside. Also, the life events towards the end of the game (college, job) will be worth more.
There are 5 – 7 possible outcomes per life event.

When the story reaches the end of the scroll (job), play stops. The player with the most points (ie. Whoever has influenced Blalil the most) wins.