POLYCLOPSver 0.4

In polyclops, you are playing a multi-eyed creature. You look somewhat like this:

You have the ability to quickly alter your ocular characteristics... that is, swap out your eyes. Youre having a stare-down with another polyoptical crea-ture, and your goal is to win the stare-down, by crippling your op-ponent with your flinty, imposing glare so

you can gouge his eyes with your horns.

Pre-setupCut out all of the cards and shuffle them.

SetupShuffle all of the cards, deal three cards to each player, and lay three cards face-up in a row next to the deck. This forms the drawable cards:

Play areaAs a polyclops, you can spawn up to nine eyes, in three rows. You have the ability to spawn new eyes in the place of old ones, and to swap eyes around at will. The different rows of eyes match up with the corresponding rows of eyes on your opponents face.

Whats on a card

GameplayAt the beginning of each turn, a player may either select a face-up card from the draw cards and place it in his hand (immediately replacing it with a new face-up card from the deck), or he may draw a card from the deck.

If there are no cards left in the deck, then immediately shuffle the remaining draw cards and the discard pile into a new deck, and deal new face-up draw cards.

Then the player may take a total of three ac-tions, any combination of the following:

Option 1: Draw a cardCompletely separate from the initial draw (which requires no action point) a player may choose to spend 1 action point to draw a card from the draw cards, or the deck.

Option 2: Play an eyeA player may play an eye on the appropriate row as indicated by the number of arrows on the card.

A player must discard a number of cards from their hand equal to the cost of the eye to be able to play the eye.

The first eye played for each player is free, so select wisely.

Option 3: Replace an eyeA player may choose to play an eye in the position of one of their existing eyes. The player must pay the cost of the new eye, and the eye being replaced is immediately dis-carded.

Option 4: Move an eyeA player may choose to move one of his eyes in play to any existing empty slot on the same row. The attack marker stays in the same position. (see combat)

Option 5: Swap two eyesA player may exchange two of his eyes which are on the same row. The attack markers remain in the same position. (see combat)

Option 6: Attack (Staredown)A player may choose to initiate a staredown, by announcing any column that has one or more eyes on both sides of the column. A player may not attack an empty column.

CombatThe basic combat goes as follows: players tal-ly all of the scores of all of the eyes in the column involved in the staredown, after fac-toring in any eye powers and die rolls.

If a card has the die symbol, roll a die, and that number becomes their stare total for that attack only. The winning column deals damage to the losing column, and all attack markers are advanced to the next space.

DamageIf each side has an equal number of eyes, then one damage is dealt to each socket with an ac-tive eye. If the winning side has 2 or 3 eyes and the losing side has one, then double dam-age is dealt to the losing side.

ArrangementIf a column has no eye in the front row, no one-arrow eye, it cannot engage in combat. It cannot attack the opposite column, and it au-tomatically loses to any attack that the re-ceives.

Attack markersEvery eye in play gets an attack marker, a small token (coffee beans work well) that keeps track of the eyes attack. Whenever an eye is involved in an attack, the eyes dam-age is the number immediately after the attack marker. At the end of every attack, advance each attack marker for every eye involved.When an eye is moved, it re-tains the position of the mark-er. When the attack marker reaches the end of the attack boxes, it restarts to the beginning.

GougingWhen a socket receives as much or more damage than the number next to the socket, the eye is gouged. (see scoring)

ScoringOn the back of a rules sheet, draw a grid for each player, in order to keep track of scoring.

The numbers in the corners of each box indicate the dam-age that this socket can withstand before being gouged. Damage is tied to the in-dividual sockets, not to the eyes them-selves. When a socket accumulates as much or more damage than the sockets number, the eye is gouged. When an eye is gouged, do the following:

1. Remove all damage from that socket. There is no carryover damage from the at-tack that gouged the eye.

2. Do not discard the gouged eye, unless a card or an eye power dictates so.

3. Add one to the gouge counter or the player with the gouged eye.

WinningYou win by gouging a pre-determined num-ber of your opponents eyes. You can set up a shorter game where youre playing to 3 gouges, or as long of a game as you like.

BETA EDITION:This game is a work in progress! The digital and disposable nature of the game allows me to update frequently. If you have any suggestions or improvements/ex-pansions/design fixes, or if theres a place in the rules that needs expansion or clarification, do let me know atandhedrew@andhegames.com.

GAMEPLAY VIDEO: At andhegames/polyclops when it becomes available.

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