POLYCLOPS

ver 0.4

Whats on a card

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 creature, and your goal is to
win the stare-down, by crippling your opponent with your flinty, imposing glare so
you can gouge his eyes
with your horns.

Pre-setup
Cut out all of the cards
and shuffle them.

Setup
Shuffle all of the cards, deal three cards
to each player, and lay three cards faceup in a row next to the deck. This forms
the drawable cards:

Play area
As 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.

Gameplay
At 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 actions, any combination of the following:

Option 1: Draw a card

Completely 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 eye

A 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 eye

A 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 discarded.

Option 4: Move an eye

A 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 eyes

A 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.

Combat
The basic combat goes as follows: players tally all of the scores of all of the eyes in the
column involved in the staredown, after factoring 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.

Damage
If each side has an equal number of eyes, then
one damage is dealt to each socket with an active eye. If the winning side has 2 or 3 eyes
and the losing side has one, then double damage is dealt to the losing side.

Arrangement
If 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 automatically loses to any attack that the receives.

Attack markers
Every 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 damage 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 retains the position of the marker.
When the attack marker reaches
the end of the attack boxes, it
restarts to the beginning.

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

Scoring
On 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 damage that this socket can withstand before
being gouged. Damage is tied to the individual sockets, not to the eyes themselves. 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 attack 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.
Winning
You win by gouging a pre-determined number 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/expansions/design fixes, or if theres a
place in the rules that needs expansion
or clarification, do let me know at
andhedrew@andhegames.com.
GAMEPLAY VIDEO: At andhegames/polyclops
when it becomes available.
If you would like to get the newest updates and new BETA edition games to play,
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