Deal all players a random deck of 8 cards. Everyone picks 2 cards and places those faceup before them. The other 6 go into your hand.
Pick anyone to be start player.
The game ends as soon as everyone’s “die” ( = the cards in their hand) is completely empty.
Count how much health each player has placed before them (indicated the heart icon on each card). Most health wins!
From start player, take clockwise turns until done.
During the game, you’ll build a row of faceup cards (from left to right) in front of you.
On your turn,
- Roll your die. That is, shuffle the cards in your hand and reveal a random card.
- Now check the first card in your row and its effect. Most of these effects modify your number if you decide to stop here. Because …
- You may decide to stop here and use your current number + effect … or you can reroll.
Whenever you roll again, you apply the power of the next card in your row. So after the second roll, you look at your second card. After the third roll, you check your third card, and so forth.
If you run out of cards, you must stop rolling (and use your final result).
Now attack! Your final value (from your final roll + effect applied) determines the damage you do.
- Pick another player. If your damage is negative, however, you attack yourself (with the positive version of the number).
- Remove cards from the victim’s row with a combined health equal to the damage you do. (You may remove less than that, but never more.)
- You can never remove a player’s final card.
Finally, add the card you “rolled” to the left or right of your row.
Next player’s turn!
Played the base game and ready for more? Or looking to tweak the game to fit your playing group better? Check out these variants and expansions!
For a first game (with new players),
- Consider starting players with fewer cards (for a quick intro game)
- And with as many “no special action”-cards as possible.
For an even simpler game (perhaps to play with young children),
- Only include the cards with powers that change your number. These are easy to understand and remember when you can not read (well).
- Start with fewer cards, so the row of rerolls can’t grow quite as long.
- (Optional: negative numbers simply do nothing. You can’t attack yourself.)
For an even tougher game,
- When attacking another player, you can only ever remove one card (with a health below or equal to your damage).
- The only situation in which you may remove two cards (at most), is if your final attack is value 6 or higher.
- (Optional: you can remove a player’s final card, and it simply means they only get a single roll on their turns. Until their row has become longer, of course.)
For a slightly different game,
- Notice that all the cards show a faint arrow pointing left or right. In this variant, that arrow becomes important!
- At the end of your turn, when adding a card to your row, the arrow of the card where you stopped determines where you must add it.
- In other words: If the arrow points left, add the final roll result to the left of your row. If it points right, add to the right.
- (Some special cards from expansions don’t have this arrow. In that case, place the card at any end you want, as per the usual rules.)
This expansion adds more types of powers on cards.
- Stopped? triggers only if you stopped here (and didn’t keep rolling). All cards in the base game are this type by default.
- Passed? triggers as soon as you decide to keep rolling after this one and stays on future rolls.
- Unseen? triggers at the end of your turn if you never reached this card at all. This is always combined with a second effect of another type.
The Unseen cards have an eye icon on them to make sure you don’t forget them.
This expansion also adds Shield cards (with a shield icon). When used, their protective effect is true until your next turn. It’s recommended to rotate the card sideways to remember this.