Martianopolis 500
| Martianopolis 500 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Designed by Matthew Rogers | ||
| ||
| Zip around the track to the finish. | ||
| Players: | 2 - 4 | |
| Length: | Long | |
| Complexity: | Low | |
| Trios per color: | 1 | |
| Number of colors: | 1 per player | |
| - - - - - - Other equipment - - - - - - | ||
| 12 Chessboard wedges, playing cards, marking stones | ||
| Setup time: | 2 minutes | |
| Playing time: | 25 minutes - 60 minutes | |
| Strategy depth: | Low | |
| Random chance: | High | |
| Theme: | Racing | |
| Status: Playtesting (v1.0), Year released: 2014 | ||
Under development
This game is currently under development, in the Playtesting stage. Feedback is strongly encouraged! Feel free to give comments on game design or structure on the talk page.
Hey, it's a race on Mars! Riding thoats, piloting pods, or pedaling hexacycles, each player has a team of three racers in it to win it.
Setup[edit | edit source]
Set up twelve chess wedges in a circle, to create a track with a circumference of 48 squares. Place two opaque pyramids flat to mark the start/finish line, pointing to opposite ends of any join between two wedges.
Each player takes a nest of one translucent color and sets the pyramids flat, one per square, on the three squares in a single file behind the starting line, pointing forward. The player may choose the order of the pyramids (large-medium-small, medium-small-large, whatever).
There should be marking stones in three colors: at least four stones of each color per player. Place all the stones in a bank, which may conveniently be the center of the track.
Shuffle and divide the entire deck evenly among the players. (For three players, set aside any one face card prior to shuffle and deal.) Players may not look at their cards in advance. Rank of cards is Ace high, followed by King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, etc. Values of Aces and face cards are all 10.
Play[edit | edit source]
When a player says "Shoom," each player takes a card from the top of their hand, and looks at it. Then someone says "Klutschk!" and all play their cards simultaneously, either face-up or face-down. Resolve face-up cards first, as follows:
In the event of a tie, tying players play new cards face-up until all face-up cards differ. Highest card moves first, but all players of face-up cards have their moves limited by the value of the lowest card.
A player moves all three pyramids each turn. Each piece has movement points equal to twice the value of the movement card, minus the number of pips of the pyramid. (Exception: pieces that crashed the previous turn, see below.) Move orthogonally or diagonally forward; orthogonal forward moves cost one point, diagonal moves cost two.
No more than one racer may be in a given square at any time.
All movement points must be used. If a pyramid is forced off the track, or finds itself unable to move forward with movement points to spare in the middle of the track, it has crashed. Place it upright in the last square it can occupy. On the next turn, its only movement will be to return to flat orientation.
When all players of face-up cards have moved, then turn up the face-down cards, and resolve moves just like the original face-up cards, except this time the highest card is the movement card.
(Note: If only one player plays face-up, that player goes first and uses that card for movement. If only one player plays face-down, that player goes last and uses that card for movement.)
When any player exhausts his or her supply of cards, shuffle the whole deck, and re-deal to all players.
Finish and Win[edit | edit source]
Race for five laps. Each player tracks the progress of his racers by taking a stone of the color matching its size when it completes a lap. (E.g. with Zendo stones, take a white stone each time the small racer completes a lap, a green one for the medium racer, and a black one for the larger racer.) On finishing the fifth lap, remove the pyramid from the track.
The player who gets all three pyramids off the track first, wins.