Temple of Masks
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.
Temple of Masks (was originally called Tikal, until I realized that a board game exists with that name. It was retitled to be named after Temple II at Tikal)
| Temple of Masks | ||
|---|---|---|
| A game about the Mayans | ||
| Players: | 2 - 4 | |
| Length: | Medium | |
| Complexity: | Low | |
| Trios per color: | 5 | |
| Number of colors: | 4 | |
| - - - - - - Other equipment - - - - - - | ||
| Mega Hexano board | ||
| Setup time: | 1 minute | |
| Playing time: | 10 minutes - 30 minutes | |
| Strategy depth: | Medium | |
| Random chance: | Medium | |
| Theme: | Mayan | |
| Status: Playtesting (v1.0), Year released: 2013 | ||
For 2 to 4 players
Story[edit | edit source]
Play a game rich in Mayan culture, and learn a little bit about this interesting culture. The significance of the pyramid to the Maya is inescapable. However, this game plays with certain other facts. The meaning of the pieces and layers extend beyond the architecture of Tikal, to the very heart of Mayan belief and science. The pyramids represent the five Mayan calendars. The descent of the pieces from the pinnacle of the temple is illustrative of the linear passing of time. The individual levels represent the sky at different times. Finally, the significance of the number three (and sometimes, according to records, four) is for the different "crosses" (or constellations), and the auspicious circumstances when they are all visible in the sky at one time.
Setup[edit | edit source]
5 House set 1 Tikal/Mega Hexano board
Arrange five rainbow pyramid stashes in a central area.
Rules[edit | edit source]
Roll the Ice Dice dice to determine which pieces you can select from If there are no free available pieces of that color, roll both dice again, until you can make a legal move. [Or perhaps take a piece from the play area?]
Placement and Moving: Put piece on any blank space or the middle space. If there is already a piece on the middle space, it gets moved into any one of the space of the second level.
If you put a piece onto one of the empty spaces marked between 2 to 4, you must move one other piece from that level outward into any of the spaces of the next outer layer that touch the current space.
Pushing: Larger pieces can push smaller pieces, so that it is possible to get multiple pieces to move outward on a give turn. Move the pushed pyramid outward (one level away from the middle) and into any square that connects to the piece.
Any piece that is pushed or moved beyond C4 is removed and placed back in the stash area
Stacking: Pyramids can be moved out of a level and onto same-sized or smaller pyramids (stacking on a pice or a stack of pieces.
Stacked pieces can be pushed and can push. When doing this, the bottom pice of a stack determines the size of the stack for the purpose of moving or stacking.
At the end of a turn, any pieces above two high are removed from stacks and returned to the central area.
Capture: At the end of your turn, if there are at least three pieces of a color in a zone, with no other colors present in that zone, remove these pieces from the board and put them aside to score. You have scored a group of constellations. Note, you can only score once per color. If there are stacked pieces in a zone, the second level is disregarded when scoring the bottom level, and visa versa. Thus it is possible to score with three blue pieces on the second level of a given zone, regardless of whether there are other colors on the first level.
Winning: After a player manages to capture pyramids of all five colors, or after no capture possible, end the game.
Count all pieces, one point each. Add one additional point for each monochrome tree that you have managed to collect.
The higher score wins.