Lockpick
| Lockpick | ||
|---|---|---|
| Nicholas Vaccaro | ||
| A solitaire lock-picking challenge | ||
| Players: | 1 | |
| Length: | 20 minutes | |
| Complexity: | Medium | |
| Trios per color: | 1 | |
| Number of colors: | 5 | |
| - - - - - - Other equipment - - - - - - | ||
| Color die, six-sided die, Zark City deck | ||
| Status: Playtesting (v1.1), Year released: 2016 | ||
Lockpick is a solitaire game in which the player attempts to hack through a complex firewall using her homemade software, "Lockpick 1.0". The player attempts to break all of five different colored locks before the system detects the hack.
Equipment
| 🂠 |
You need:
- The Color Die
- A six-sided die
- Zark City cards, Rage cards, Five Crowns cards, or another five-suited deck with 13 ranks
- 15 pyramids, one trio from each color on the Color Die
Goal
Freeze all three tumblers in each of the five firewall locks before the hack is detected.
Setup
Place all pyramids standing in a line grouped together by color, ordered Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Purple. Separate the deck of cards by suit, shuffle each stack together, and place each of the five stacks face-down in front of its matching-colored trio. Leave enough space below the shuffled, face-down stacks for five columns, with each column able to fit around 10 cascaded cards. A discard pile will go off to the side.
How to Play
In a nutshell, each turn you will draw cards, place those cards, and then use any sets of three that have been created to freeze the lock tumblers, which are represented by the 15 pyramids.
You start each turn with zero cards in hand. Begin each turn by rolling both the color die and the six-sided die. The color die indicates which of the face-down Code Stack decks you will draw from, and the six-sided die tells you how many to draw. So if you roll a , you will draw four cards from the green face-down Code Stack deck. This act of drawing is called "Popping." If the result of the color die is wild , you may choose to draw from any color of the face-down Code Stack decks. Once you have cards in hand, you will Push (lay down) cards onto the Pick Stack columns.
Pop
To Pop is to draw cards into your hand from one of the face-down Code Stack decks. The quantity of cards you should draw is decided by the six-sided die. The deck you should draw from is decided by the color die. If there are not enough cards in the face-down Code Stack deck that is indicated by the color die, but there is at least one, just draw as many as are available.
Push
To Push is to lay down all the cards in your hand, one by one, onto the cascading card columns (the "Pick Stacks"). Begin by placing a card onto any Pick Stack column you wish. Then choose a direction (left or right) and place one card from your hand onto each column in the direction you chose. You can rearrange your hand any way you like before placing the cards onto the columns. When you hit the edge of the board, wrap around to the other side. Make sure to place the new card so that it cascades down from any previous cards: the values of all cards in the Pick Stack columns should remain visible. See example below.
- Example Pop and Push
The player rolls on her first turn. There are at least 6 cards on the Red Code Stack deck, so she pops 6 codes (draws 6 cards) from it. For easy tracking in our diagram, let's say that, improbably, the cards she has drawn are , and let's say that she has chosen to place them in that order. She decides to place her first card on the Green Pick Stack column and move left. The next cards go onto the Yellow, Red, Purple, Cyan and Green (again) Pick Stack columns.
Set
While you are laying down cards, it would be wise to try to arrange things so to create sets within the columns. A set consists of three cards of a matching value ( ) or three cards that form an ascending or descending run ( ). Runs of cards can wrap around between the King, Ace and 2. Sets do not have to consist of matching suits.
| Example Sets | |||||
| valid 3-of-a-kind set |
valid ascending set |
valid descending set |
valid ascending set |
valid descending set |
invalid set |
Lock In
Whenever a Pick Stack column has three adjacent cards forming a set, you must Lock In these cards. Do this by removing the three cards from the column and discarding them to the Lock Stack (the common discard pile off to the side). Then Freeze one Tumbler from that column by placing a standing pyramid on its side. Congratulations; you're that much closer to breaking through the firewall. The set cards do not have to be the most recently-placed ones to be Locked In. If sets form due to cards' being pulled from the center of the columns, those sets must also be Locked In. (See diagram of this below.) You should perform Lock Ins right away if you notice sets that happened on previous turns. The only time you should wait to Lock In cards is if you are in the middle of Pushing (placing cards down from your hand).
Jump
To Jump is to move a single card from one column to another. The Jump action becomes available to you whenever the color-die tells you to draw from a Code Stack that is empty. To Jump, keep in mind the color and quantity you rolled. Scan the columns for cards that match the color you rolled. Now look at the most recently placed card of any of the Pick Stack columns, and count up the column, stopping at or before the number you rolled. If you reach a card that matches the color you rolled, you may take it into your hand and place it on any Pick Stack column, including the one from which the card was just removed. After placing the card, Lock In any sets if possible by discarding them and knocking over a pyramid in the column it came from. Upon rolling a wild, you are allowed to choose the color of a depleted face-down Code Stack deck in order to do a Jump move. You are also allowed to choose a depleted color and then refrain from taking the Jump action, thereby effectively passing.
- Example Jump
The player rolls . There are no cards left in the Cyan Code Stack, so the player decides to Jump. There are 7 cards in the Red Pick Stack column. Counting from the most recently placed card (), the third and fourth cards are Cyan. The player chooses to take the third card from stack and place it on the Yellow Pick Stack column. Removing the Ace from the Red stack causes the to make contact, forming a run in the middle of the stack. The player Locks In these three cards.
|
|
| Cyan Ace Jumps from red to yellow column |
Set forms in red column as a result |
Note that the , , and would also have been valid Jumps, but the was inaccessible because it was six steps up in its column, greater than the that was rolled.
Game End
To win, Freeze all 15 lock tumblers before you run out of cards in your face-down Code Stacks. If the final card is Popped from the final Code Stack, you have until the end of your turn to Freeze the last Tumbler. Otherwise, the hack is Detected and you lose.
Terminology
- Firewall
- The set of 15 pyramids representing the security system to be broken.
- Tumblers
- Individual pyramids representing the different parts of the firewall. Tumblers are Frozen when cards are added to their respective Lock Stacks.
- Code Stack
- Face-down cards representing the available codes. Cards are Popped off the Code Stacks.
- Pick Stack
- Face-up cascaded cards representing possible codes. Cards are Pushed onto or Jumped between parts of the Pick Stacks.
- Lock Stack
- Face-up cards representing correct codes. Cards are Locked Into the Lock Stacks.
- Detected
- The hack is detected by the security system when all Code Stacks are depleted.
Rules Reminders
- Popping cards and Locking In are mandatory actions when possible. Jumping is optional.
- Even after all three Tumblers of a color have been Frozen, cards are still Locked Into the Lock Stack.
- If there are not enough cards in the Code Stack pile to equal the die roll, but there are at least some, the player simply draws all the remaining cards.
- If there Code Stack pile the player must draw from is completely empty, she may perform a Jump move or pass.
- If the player notices a Set of cards she failed to Lock In previously, she Locks In the cards immediately, even during another action.
- If the player rolls a wild, she may choose a color which allows her to Pop cards or Jump cards. If she chooses a vacant stack which allows her to Jump, she may then further choose to refrain from Jumping, thus effectively passing the turn.
Notes
This game was designed to be a solution to Glotz Challenge #2 from the Pyramid Arcade instruction book.