Tower of Babel

Playing time: 30 minutes

The Tower of Babel may be one of the most intriguing feats of early human civilization as described in various religious texts. Only the texts usually get it wrong. In the Bible, it is presented as having "its top in the heavens". In reality, the Babylonians were early astronomers, and many houses had "the heavens on its top" -a star chart inscribed on the roof. But I like the image of an ever expanding ziggurat, so let's build one!

Components

1 6-sided dice (used as a 'D3', i.e. all results are divided by 2 and rounded up.)

150 material tokens
- 40 Stones
- 30 Crates
- 50 Bricks
- 15 Ladders
- 15 Stools

Special tokens
- 10 Ropes
- 10 Mortar

Setup

20 Brick tokens and 10 Stone tokens are set aside for use during the game. Each player draw 6 tokens, which are kept hidden from your opponents.

Rules and gameplay

Building a tower
A tower must be started using at least 3 sections for the base level.
Each level above this must be at least 2 sections wide, but must contain 1 less section than the level below. (A ziggurat is a kind of pyramid after all).
Anytime during the game, a level can be expanded 1 section, as long as the one above is also expanded at the same time. Only 2 levels at a time can be expanded in this manner.

Using the tokens
Any token can be used on top of 2 other of the same kind.
A Stone can stand on the ground and on a Crate.
A Crate and a Brick can stand on anything but a Ladder and a Stool.
A Ladder can stand on anything but a Stool.
A Stool can only support other Stools.

The special tokens Rope and Mortar are used like this:
A Rope ties together Any number of Ladders or Stools on the same level, or 1 Ladder or Stool on the edges of two adjacent levels. They are then stable enough to be replaced by a Brick token.
In the same way, one Mortar token make two or more Bricks stable enough to be replaced by Stone tokens. The Stone still must have either another Stone or a Crate to stand on.

Playing the game
Using the starting hand, each player start building their tower on the table using the tokens available to him/her. Once everyone have finished building, one player throw the dice and the result is the number of tokens to draw in the next round.
If one player is alone in having the lowest tower after any round, s/he is only allowed to build 1 new level in this round.

Winning
The game ends the round that all players reach at least 5 levels.

Gentoo

A game of penguin procreation

Components:

12 Nesting Stone tokens 20 Penguin tokens 90 Gentoo cards 20 Fish tokens

Object:

Hatch as many new penguins as you can.

Setup:

1. Place six Snow cards in a Player Pile in front of each player. Any extra Snow cards will not be used.
2. Shuffle the rest of the Gentoo cards. Flip the top four face up in the center of the table. These are the Choice Cards.
3. Place the rest of the cards face down in a stack in the center of the table. This is the Draw Pile.
4. Place the Penguin Tokens next to the Draw Pile.
5. Each player flips their top three cards and places them in a row. These are the player’s Cards In Play. They will all be Snow cards at the start.
6. Give each player three Nesting Stones.
7. Give each player five Fish Tokens. These are used to pay for Choice Cards.
8. The player who has been closest to the South Pole goes first.

Game Play:

Each player’s turn has two phases:

Phase I: Common Area

1. Draw – flip the top card from the Draw Pile and add it to the Choice Cards in the center of the table. There should now be five cards there. If you run out of cards in the Draw Pile, shuffle the Discard Pile and use it as the new Draw Pile.

2. Choose – You may choose one of the Choice Cards to add to your hand. Take the Choice Card and add it to your Used Pile next to her Cards in Play. You may not use this card this turn, but it will come into play later when the Used Pile is shuffled and turned into the Player Pile. Some cards have a cost shown as fish icons on the card. If so, you must pay the required number of fish tokens to choose the card. Eggs - The player may only choose an Egg Card if he or she has the required number of Nesting Stones indicated on the card.

3. Discard – If there are more than four Choice Cards showing, pick one to discard. Move it to the Discard Pile.

Phase II: Personal Area

1. Flip – flip the top card of your Player Pile and add it to your Cards in Play. If you have no more cards in your Player Pile, shuffle your Used pile to use as your new Player Pile. When you do this, restore your fish tokens back up to five tokens.

2. Play – you may play any one of your Cards in Play. Choose a Card in Play, places it on the Discard Pile, and follows the instructions on the card. Hatching an Egg – you may hatch an egg only when you have both an Egg card and a Hatch card showing in your Cards in Play. Turn both of them in and collect a Penguin token. When you hatch an egg, you must give one of your nesting stones to another player. If you have no nesting stones, you can still hatch your egg.

3. Move to Used – If you cannot or choose not to play a card, then if you have more than three Cards in Play, choose one of them and move it to the Used pile.

After these two phases, play proceeds to the next player.

Winning the Game:

The first player to collect five penguin tokens wins the game.

Cards:

• Snow – Cannot be played. You may move it to your Used pile if you have more than three Cards in Play.
• Egg – combine with Hatch to produce a penguin. Each Egg shows the nesting stones (3, 4, or 5) required to collect.
• Skua (1 fish) – discard any Egg currently visible on the table (Cards in Play, Choice Cards, or atop a player’s Used Pile).
• Stone Thief (1 fish) – take a Nesting Stone from any other player.
• Good Nesting Site (1 fish) – reduces the number of nesting stones required to take an Egg by one. Discard when Egg is collected. Does not count as your played card. Limit one per Egg.
• Hatch (1 fish) – Use to collect a penguin. Requires an Egg in play.
• Leopard Seal (2 fish) – force another player to lose one penguin token.
• Vicious Peck (1 fish) – blocks a Stone Thief card; you play this card out-of-turn to keep from losing your stone.
• Confusing Blizzard – Reverse direction of play
• Gone Fishing – The next player loses a turn
• Thaw – if you have a Snow card in play, melt it. Discard both the Thaw and the Snow cards.

Notes: Deck Building is inherent; Slippery Slope comes from stealing Nesting Stones, which can lead to lots of eggs.

Mind Duel

Sections:
1)Theme
2)Set up
3)Card layout
4)Card actions
5)Gameplay
6)Building the endgame deck
7)Avenues to victory

Theme:

A martial arts fighting game where two opponents are dueling. Thematically much of the gameplay occurs in the moments before the first move is made. Players are sizing up the opposition, clearing their head, planning their attack.

Set up:

One attitude board.

This is a cross with 2 axis divided into four sections. One axis is the offence/defence track. The other is the anger/fear track. Each axis has 10 boxes into which action cards are placed. At the start of the game the anger/fear track is empty. Cards are dealt to the appropriate box based on their Chi value as stated on the card. Chi Values start at 1 in the middle and increase to 5 in each direction.

Two psychology boards.

These contain four boxes Offence, Defence, Anger, Fear. The players six chi counters are divided equally between offense and defence.

Card layout:

Good attitude action.
Bad attitude action.
Intitiative/focus cost value.

Cards actions:

Move a chi counter from one pool to another; offense/defence or anger/fear. (mainly in chi value 3 piles)
Build focus. (Stronger at higher chi value piles, none in chi value 5)
Recover Chi. (If playing anger/fear)
Attack/Defence (All piles except chi vale 5)
Damage/Counterattack (50% in defence/offence chi value 4, weaker. 100% chi value 5, stronger.)

Gameplay:

Play as follows:

1) Perform an action.
2) Draw a card from the Offence/Defence track. (Maximum hand 10)
3) Discard a card.

Any of these stages can be skipped.

Cards can only be drawn from the piles you have the correct amount of chi markers for.

Before an action is played a player can declare an attack.

Cards are resolved in initiative order after both players have taken a turn. The first card played sets the timeframe for the round. Eg, if a value 6 card is played followed by a value 4 card then a value 2 card can still be played. The cards are then resolved from lowest initiative to highest: 2-4-6. The player whos card resolved last in the previous round places first.

Building the endgame deck:

When an event card is used or discarded from your hand it is placed on the anger/fear track at an appropriate position of your choice. Defence cards go to the fear track and offence to the anger. The card must be shown to the opponent before being placed face down. In this manner you and your opponent are building the event piles for the anger/fear track. There is an element of strategy involved in placing on piles that are easy enough to reach.

If lose 3 chi counters to the fear/anger pools you can no longer draw from the offense/defence piles. Also the event cards in your hand can only be used for their anger/fear actions. Effective forward planning can make for an endgame streamlined for what you want to do. Also if the winning player is brought onto the anger/fear track then the slippery slope can be potentially be reversed if the other player has not planned for the eventuality.

Avenues to victory:

You win the game by moving all of an opponents chi counters to the anger/fear pools. There are two ways to do this.

Firstly, you can force an opponent to become angry or fearfull by unbalancing them to an overly offensive or defensive attitude.

If you spend more then two turns with your chi balance on the highest defence or offence level then you lose a chi counter to the fear or anger pool. Certain cards effect your opponents Chi balance so part of your strategy should be to retain cards that either protect against or cause damage to the opponent.

Secondly, You can declare an attack that, if succesfull, will result in the opponent losing a number of chi counters to the anger/fear pools.

An attack plays out as follows. The players use the focus points they have accrued to play attack and defense cards. The focus cost of an card is also it's intitiative value.

Attack cards have an positional arrow with three positions; low-middle-high. The arrows point between position. A successful attack will combine cards so that the arrows follow from the last position reached. For example an arrow from middle to high would have to be followed by an arrow from high to middle. At the end of a combination of four a final card is played that causes the chi damage.

Defense cards attack the opponents focus making it harder to complete an attack.

The attacking player plays the first card followed by the defensive player. The initiative value of the first card played sets the time frame for the round.

#CLIQUES

*Players compete to build the coolest clique in school, consisting of students represented by special playing cards.

COMPONENTS

Cliques is a light modular non-collectible card game for 3-6 players, requiring at least one Cliques pack per 2 players. Cliques packs consist of 52 Student cards (depicting school students), one Initiative card (used as a marker and rules reminder) and 40 Victory Point chits.
The Student cards include:
* 2 unique Founder Student cards
* 2 copies each of 7 different Core Student cards* 4 copies each of 9 different student Friendship cards

THE ICONS

Icons can appear on Cliques cards representing 3 resource Domains: Mind, Body and Spirit. There is an additional icon representing VPs.

THE CARDS

Each card has 5 sections: Leader Icons, Leader Ability, Support Icons, Bid Domain and Minimum Bid.

SETUP

Separate the Core and Founder cards from the Friendship cards. Distribute one Founder Student and one of each Core Student to each player. Each player shuffles his/her Core cards, draws four of them and places the rest in his/her stock. The youngest player present gets the Initiative card, making them the Trendsetter. Place the Friendship deck in the middle of the board and deal six Friendship cards face-up.

PLAY

Play consists of a number of rounds (see below). Each round, each player will add one Friendship card to his/her Clique. This will involve using cards from his/her hand to outbid other cliques who want that student’s Friendship. Friendship cards can earn VPs, can be used to bid on other Friendship cards, and may have special abilities.

WINNING THE GAME

At the end of any round, if one or more players have over 15 VPs, the game finishes and the player with the most VPs wins.

ROUNDS

Each player, beginning with the player on the left of the Trendsetter and proceeding clockwise, plays his/her entire hand to the table as a bid (see Playing A Bid, below) and draws a new hand of four cards. Players who have bid cards left on the table are called Active players. The six Friendship cards which will be available next round are then dealt out, so that players can plan while they wait.
The Trendsetter bids on an available Friendship card (see Bidding On A Card, below). The winner of the bid adds that Friendship card and all his/her bid cards to his/her discard pile, and takes 1 VP for every VP icon in his/her bid. This process continues until the Trendsetter wins a bid. If there are any Active players left, the Initiative card is passed clockwise until it reaches an Active player, who becomes the Trendsetter. The new Trendsetter bids on an available card, and so on.
When there are no Active players left, the round ends, any unclaimed Friendship cards are discarded, and a new round begins.

PLAYING A GROUP

A player plays a Group by playing out his/her entire hand to the table in any order (s)he chooses. One of these cards may be played as a “Leader”, which may change its bid value or have a special effect. This card is played normally. The remaining cards are “Support” cards and are played upside-down. When the player’s hand is empty, the Group is finished and (s)he draws 4 cards.
The Group will have a total bid value (possibly zero) in each of the three Domains. The total value is shown by counting the relevant Domain icons on each bid card, according to whether it was played as Leader or Support.

BIDDING ON A CARD

Only icons in a card’s Bid Domain count when bidding for it. The Trendsetter must meet a Friendship card’s Minimum Bid value to bid on it. Other Active players may bid on the card. Successive bids must be higher than previous bids. The highest bidding player puts the card and his/her entire Group into his/her discard pile, and gains 1 VP for each VP icon in the bid.

UNABLE TO BID

If the Trendsetter can’t meet the Minimum Bid of any available Friendship cards (or doesn’t want any available cards), that player discards his/her bid cards and draws 5 cards.

BID DOMAINS

Body: strong at catch-up mechanics and producing multiple Body icons. Weak at earning VPs and producing Mind and Spirit icons.

Mind: strong at manipulating your cards. Weak at producing Body icons.

Spirit: strong at producing VPs and playing extra Leaders. Weak at producing multiple icons.

A Hero's Tale

1-4 players.

Overview:

Distribute the four heroes. Each hero comes with limited stats and a special ability. There are 4 experience decks, which are face up on the table. Each deck has cards to advance your power in different areas. Each round, you draw an encounter card and resolve it. The encounter maybe a monster, puzzle, skills test, etc. If your band is successful, the encounter card will dictate how many experience cards your band is able to pick up. You will then have to decide which cards to pick up and who gets them. Only the top card of each experience deck can be selected. If there are additional cards below the top card, they can be selected once the cards above have been selected. Collected experience cards are placed into the discard piles of the selected players.

Each encounter will also drop loot cards. These cards will have items to help the band along their way, usually in the way of weapon upgrades and items with combat modifiers. Draw a number of Loot cards dictated on the encounter card and distribute them to the discard piles of the players.

Game Flow:

There are 3 decks of encounters. The first deck has easy encounters and the second and third build on the difficulty. At the end of each deck is an Overlord that must be defeated to continue. At first, the heroes will only be equipped with a few Channeling Cards and either a dagger or scepter depending on their class.

At the beginning of a Round, if your draw deck has been depleted, shuffle your discard pile and it becomes your draw deck. As the game goes on you will acquire more Spells, Moves, Items, and Channeling Cards. This will create the feel that your character is progressing or leveling.

Experience cards:

There are 4 decks: Magic, Heal, Melee, and Armor.

• The Magic Deck provides Spells and Channeling Cards (Intellect) for Ranged Spells.
• The Heal Deck provides Spells and Channeling Cards (Spirit) for Healing Spells.
• The Melee Deck provides Moves and Channeling Cards (Strength) for Melee Moves.
• The Armor Deck provides Moves and increased Stamina that provide protection against encounters.

An Experience Card will either be a Spell/Move or Channeling Card. Each Spell/Move card will have ranks along with channeling requirements. Depending on how many Channeling cards are played on the Spell/Move determines its Rank.

Combat Example:

An encounter with a monster will work something like this.

Combat turn:

1) Each player brings his hand up to 5 cards.

2) All players either:

a) Place a Spell/Move or Channeling Card into play. Or b) Resolve Spells and Moves.

3) The monster performs an action if it is able.

Repeat combat turns until all heroes or the monster is dead.

The monster has a speed stat that shows how often he will perform an action. So, if the monster’s speed were 3 it would perform an action on turn 3 of combat. Which would be after players have had the chance to play 3 cards. Monsters perform action according to a combat chart. The chart has a list of 12 moves the monster can perform. When the monster is able to perform an action, roll 2D6 and reference the chart. Some monsters will have special abilities that will be written on its card, which will override the chart.

a) Play a Spell/Move or Channeling Card.

Spell Card Example:

Fire Blast: (1 Intellect)

Rank 0: 1 HP on 1D6 roll of 6
Rank 1: 1 HP on 1D6 roll of 5 or 6
Rank 2: 2 HP on 1D6 roll of 4 or higher
Rank 3: 3 HP on 1D6 roll of 2 or higher.

So, to create a Rank 3 Fire Blast you would play the Fire Blast card followed by 3 Intellect Channeling Cards. A Rank 0 Fire Blast would not need any Channeling Cards but it harder to hit with.

b) Resolving Spells and Moves.

If a player decides to execute a spell or move he rolls 1D6. If the roll is equal to or greater than the required roll (specified on the card for the rank) then the spell/move hits. Place a number of hit tokens on the monster dictated by the Rank of the spell/move. Once a spell/move is successful, all channeled cards are placed into your discard pile. The player then decides weather to discard the spell/move or place it back into his hand. If a spell/move is unsuccessful nothing happens, unless the player want to discard all of his cards in play. A player cannot have more than one spell/move in play at a time.

Weapons:

Weapons are placed in front of a player, and are in play all the time. They modify different stats for your character and his spells/moves.

Gone Viral

There's lots of disease in the human body. Most never get serious; but not you! Oh no - you’re shooting for 100% septic. Ancient Viral legend says it’s possible. Invade every part of the body? Oh yeah. It’s on.

Goal:

Be the most virulent and spread and gain the most Septic Points by the time the Brain shuts down. You gain Septic Points by shutting down Organ Spaces and controlling a majority in an Organ Group at the end of the game. There are the Guts, Endocrine, Respiratory, Heart, and Brain Organ Groups. You also gain Septic Points at the end of the game by controlling Purple Organ Spaces in the body.

How to Play:

You’re a virus. You replicate, infect, and spread throughout the body. Players have colored Virus Chips they’ll place in Organ spaces, and then play Action Tokens to grow in number until the number of viruses meets the Immune Level of the Organ Space. That Organ space then shuts down and you gain Septic Points. But be careful! If you spread to fast, the Organs will shut down on their own and you’ll lose your Viruses!

Setup:

1. Each player starts with two Virus chips (VC) of their color. Starting with a random first player, take turns placing one VC in the Guts. The last player places both VC, and in reverse order players place again ending with the First player.

2. Each player begins with six basic Action tokens in a draw bag.

• Two Replicate tokens --> Play to double your VC in an Organ space.

• Two Spread tokens --> Play to move all your active VC from one Organ space to a connected one.

• Two Infect tokens --> Play to place one VC in any space of an occupied Organ Group.

1. Place a random Action token on each Organ space. See Action tokens section for some variety. Players gain this token type when they “Mutate” by exchanging VC for it.

   Play

2. On a basic turn, draw three tokens from your bag. Choose one to Play, one to discard, and one to return to the bag. If you can't draw three, pick one to play, and return your discarded tokens to the bag.

3. Resolve the played Action token.

4. Mutate - Player may exchange a number of VC from a single Organ Space to gain an Action token of the type on that space.

5. Next Player.

   Organ Spaces

Each white Organ Space has an Immune Level and a VC Cost printed on it.

• The VC cost is the number of Virus Chips you exchange to gain an Action token of the type placed here.

• The Immune Level is the total number of VC needed to shut down the Organ Space. The player with the most VC present gains Septic Points, the player with the second highest takes the Action token. If only one player there, he gets both. Immediately, all VC in excess of the Immune level move to an adjacent Organ space. If this move causes it to meet/exceed the Immune Level, the Organ immediately shuts down, all VC and the Action token are removed from the space. No one claims points for the Organ.

For example, if John (yellow) Replicates 7 VC on the Immune Level 10 space, he wins the space with 14 VC. The excess 4 VC must move to an adjacent Organ. John picks the one on the left, where Dave already has 5 blue VC. The Immune Level of that space is only 8, so when John moves his 4 yellow over, there are 9 VC in the space. This is more than the Immune Level, so the Organ shuts down and all 9 VC are removed.

If John instead played a Spread token and moved his 7 VC to the IL space, there would be 12 VC, and John would have won the space. In other words, you must take down the Organs one at a time, and not spread too fast!

Action Tokens:

In addition to the basic actions, most tokens allow multiple plays, such as:

• Play a second action instead of returning it
• Spread AND Replicate
• Lower Immune Level of a space and Infect
• Cause opponent to discard a random token
• Exchange an opponent's VC with one of yours
• Move twice

Game End:

When the last Organ space in the Brain Shuts down, the game ends. Players now score additional points for controlling Organ Groups:

• Guts: 5 points
• Endocrine: 5
• Heart: 7
• Respiratory: 10
• Brain 15
• Each Purple Space: 3 points

Add these to the points earned throughout the game to find the winner.