The only boardgame where you’re allowed to cut the paper into pieces, especially when you are losing. A One Paper Game for 2–9 players.
What's the idea?
You are exploring and conquering a (randomly generated) ice planet!
What can I do?
Starting from the edge of the board, everyone takes the same action each turn: move to a new node.
- Some nodes have special actions, such as teleportation.
- Most nodes, however, trigger a cutting action.
Cutting the board?
Yes, you must cut into the game board following certain rules!
If a piece of paper comes loose, it drifts away and is out of the game, including all people on it.
When do I win?
Be the first to fulfill your personal mission and reach the center!
Don’t like cutting?
The rules explain a variant in which you don’t cut the paper. You can also use as little ink as possible (toggle “ink friendly” in the settings below).
What do I need?
Three simple steps:
- Generate a random board below and print it.
- Read the rules (one page).
- Grab some pens, scissors and friends.
Voila, you can play!
The rules for the base game are one page (including images and examples). The other pages explain what all the different nodes and expansions do.
Want to be minimalistic when printing? Only page 1, 3 and 4 are relevant for the base game.
Tip for Teaching: only explain the first page, then immediately start playing! Simply place the node list on the table, so players can look up what something does whilst playing.
Tip for Cleanup: when the game is done, you should have a bunch of puzzle pieces ( = all pieces of paper you cut off). Here’s the challenge: try to fit them back together to recreate the original paper! Sounds easier than it is :)
Board Generation
Input your settings below. The "seed" can be anything (like your name, city, or favourite animal).
If this is your first game, or a new group of players, enable the "First Game" option.
Click "Generate Board", save the image (or PDF), and print it. You're ready to go!
Expansions
Woah, that's a lot of expansions! Yeah, cutting games have many awesome possibilities I wanted to explore. The expansions are completely independent and as simple as possible. Still, it's recommended to try them in the order listed, and only combine multiple of them once you're comfortable with each on its own.
What's a secret board? The "Expeditions" expansion adds nodes that trigger whenever their piece of paper comes loose. If you are able to print double-sided, these nodes will be placed on the backside of the paper. This means the paper actually has secret treasures and traps that will only be revealed during the game!
(It's advisable to perform one "test print", to make sure your printer mirrors the backside correctly. If not, there's probably a setting on your printer for "page flip", and you need the opposite of what it's currently at.)
Feedback & Credits
Found a mistake? Have a positive or negative experience with this game you want to share? Other feedback?
Always let me know at [email protected]
This game and all its assets were completely created by me, Pandaqi, and so is this website that generates random game boards. Check out my other (board)games or support me if you enjoy my work!
As usual, the font is the only thing I didn’t create myself. This time I used SciFly, created by Tomi Haaparanta.
Also as usual, I wrote two detailed articles about the development of this game:
- [Devlog] Unstable Universe => about the general process, problems, decision making, why I did what I did
- [Technical Devlog] Unstable Universe => about the algorithms and (programming) techniques used for creating this website that generates random game boards
Two pictures of the game "in action". Some people in my play groups insist on using these way too complex icons, like a sheep or stick figure—I recommend just using simple shapes in your games. The bottom board is from an older version of the game, but the sunlight in the picture was really nice, so I decided to keep it on this page.