Basic Game

Shuffle the black cards and the blue cards separately, so all the black cards remain together, and all the blue cards remain together.

Deal four black cards face down to each player and two blue cards face down to each player. Each player should therefore have six cards to begin the game with (not including their 4 singular cards).

Lay out the board.

Place 10 orange markers for each player on their heart symbol in the one closest to them. These are the players lives that will be depleted during each battle (they will be refilled at the beginning of each new battle).

Place the two player avatars in the middle circle, within the rectangle.

Note: in the basic and advanced game, all the circles within the rectangle are counted as a single battle. The circles inside the rectangle are used for the extended game.

Now choose who will attack first.

Note: The attacking player has the advantage of first attack, and knowledge that the defending player will see their card placement.

Note: The defending player gains the advantage of taking counter measures by initially seeing the attacking players card placement.

Cards placed face up in the white positions are the cards that are active during battle, cards placed face down in the grey positions are the reserve cards.

The attacking player places their cards down first, in the active and reserve positions closest to them on the board.

The defending player places their cards down second, in the active and reserve positions closest to them on the board.

Players can place any of their initial six cards down in any position, and they are not required to place down all six card, however it is advised that players do.

Once the starting card positions are chosen, place the orange health markers upon the cards for all the white (active) position cards (but not the grey (reserve)positions). Also place out any green (armour) markers, if appropriate.

Note: Players may only have eight cards in play for any single battle.

Initially, players have the option of placing all cards on the board. However, as players gain cards through the game, they will need to determine which cards are best suited for the upcoming battle.

Limiting players to only eight cards provides adaptive and strategic game play.

Moving

During a players movement phase on their turn.

When it is a player’s turn to move, they can move one card left or right in both the active and reserve positions (or swap two cards around, only in the active positions, if one of the cards has the move anywhere epic)

Additionally the player can promote any card from the reserve, if there is a space free in the active positions e.g. one of the cards has been destroyed, leaving a free space in a white position.

Note: cards with the anchor epic cannot be moved or swapped, but they can be promoted to the white position.

Creature Cards

Cards depicting animals are used to fight the opponent and to determine the outcome of each battle. Each card has an attack and a health value.

For example, the Wolf card has an attack of 3 and a health of 2. The latter value is shown within a heart symbol on each card.

The reverse of the card is coloured in either black, blue or red. The black cards are generally the weakest, the blue ones are more powerful, and the red ones are the strongest.

Some cards have special abilities, called epics.

For example, the Gyr Falcon and the Cheetah both have the move anywhere epic shown between the attack and health value.

The epics in use are as follows:

Move anywhere – allows a creature to move to any of its own free, white positions or to swap with any of its own side (as long as they don’t have the anchor epic) before attacking.

Poisonous – inflicts a critical hit on the opposing creature, killing them instantly unless they are resistant or have any armour.

Resistant – this gives the creature poison resistance, meaning any poison hit on them is just regarded as a regular attack.

Armour – allows a creature to absorb one hit with no impact to their health. Any hit removes the armour until the end of the battle. At the beginning of the next battle the armour rejuvenates.

Holds – this keeps the opposing creature from moving away.

Anchor – creatures with this symbol are unable to move at all once they have been placed on a white card position.

Retaliate – this means when the creature is attacked, it hits back for one damage.

Pronged attack – this attack hits a possible two positions, for one damage each. The opposing card directly opposite is not harmed, but any enemy cards either side of it are hit.

Singular Cards

These are cards are dealt out at the beginning of each game; they are not used to battle enemy creatures but instead can be used to alter the outcomes of battles in a different way. They can only be used once, and once they have been used, they are discarded for the rest of the game. Each player gets one of each (four in total). The effects of the different cards are shown below:

Burn- use this to permanently destroy the opposing player’s card. The card selected must be on one of the white positions. Once it has been burnt, the creature card is removed from play until the end of the game

Swap - this card can be used to swap one of your cards for one of your opponent’s cards. The opponent’s card and yours must be on white positions. The cards switch sides, keeping whatever health they had at that point of the battle. At the end of the battle, both players keep whichever cards have been swapped.

Steal - this card is used to permanently steal an opponent’s card. The opponent’s card must be on a white position, and you must have a clear, white space opposite it for it to be moved into. At the end of the battle, the player gets to keep the stolen card. Of course, the opponent can always steal it back!

Heal - this can be used to fully heal one of your injured cards. It brings the card back to full health and armour, e.g. if the Anaconda had 2 health left, and you used this on it, it would go back to its original 5 health.

Moving

During a players movement phase on their turn.

They can move one card left or right in both the active and reserve positions. (or swap two cards around, only in the active positions, if one of the cards has the move anywhere epic)

Additionally you can promote any card from the reserve, if there is a space free in the active positions e.g. one of the cards has been destroyed, leaving a free space in a white position.

Note: cards with the anchor epic cannot be moved or swapped, but they can be promoted to the white position.

Fighting

A card uses their attack to hit the opposing cards health. Each creature in the players active spaces has to attack.

Players can choice between going from Left to Right, or Right to Left.

An example of attacking: the Wolf is attacking the Gyr Falcon. The Wolf is 3 attack against the Gry Falcon's 2 health. Therefore, the Wolf eliminates the Gyr Falcon card removing it from battle.

Another example: the Rat attacks an Anaconda. The Rat is attacking for 1 against Anaconda's 5 health. One health is removed from the Anaconda’s health, leaving it with 4.

Another example with the Rat; it attacks a Porcupine which has 4 health, as well as the Retaliate epic. The Rat removes one health from the Porcupine, leaving it with 3 health. The Retaliate epic then removes 1 from the Rat's health eliminating it from the battle. In this last example, you may think that you don’t want the Rat to attack, however, if it is in the white position then it must attack on its turn. The only creatures that don’t attack are those with a zero attack rating e.g. the Rock card.

If your card is attacking an empty white position (e.g. the creature who was there has already been eliminated), then any damage is against the opponents heart.

If their heart drops to zero, they have lost the battle, even if they still have cards in play.

Note: if the Porcupine attacks the Hedgehog, then the Hedgehog is the only creature that retaliates.

Sequence of Bidding

There are several aspects of the advance game that players can bid on.

1.⁠ ⁠Agree who will bid first.

2.⁠ ⁠Bid for the right to attack first.

3.⁠ ⁠Bid for the black cards.

4.⁠ ⁠Bid for the blue cards.

Remember to alternate who bids first each time!

Once all the bidding is finished and the cards have been distributed, the game follows in exactly the same manner as the basic game.

Advanced Game

They key difference from the basic game is the addition of bidding for your starting deck of cards and for the chance to attack first.

Give the two players 15 markers each, these will be used just for the bidding phase.

Next agree who will bid first.

Now start the bidding.

Your first bid is to choose who will begin as the attacker.

Player one may bid one or more markers.

Player two can then chose to pass, or out bid player one if they wish to attack first

Whichever markers are bid, they are removed from the players pile and the bid now moves onto the cards.

Bid on Cards

The black cards are bid for first. Take out eight random cards from the black card deck, keeping them face down at first. Take the first card and turn it face up.

Alternating bidding is now in effect. Player two will start the bid, and player one will either pass or out bid player two.

Players will alternate the bidding for subsequent cards

Note: only one bid for each player for each card.

Both players lose their respective bid markers from their pot.

Now we turn over the second black card, and now it is player one’s turn first to bid.

It should be understood that each player must end up with four black cards each. If player one had bid enough to win the first four cards, then the next four black cards must be given to player 2.

Once all the black cards have been handed out, the bidding moves on to the blue cards.

Here you must take out four random blue cards from the blue card deck, follow the same pattern as the black cards.

Once both players have two blue cards and four black cards, the bidding is finished.

It should be understood that each player must end up with two blue cards each. If player one had bid enough to win the first two blue cards, then the next two blue cards must be given to player 2.

Note: if both players run out of bidding markers before all the cards have been bid for, then the remaining cards are shuffled and dealt out randomly to each player, so that you always end up with 2 blues and 4 blacks each.

Expert Game

To reduce chance yet further, in this version players lay out all cards to be bid for in advance, i.e. lay out eight black cards and four blue cards face up and then bid on them in turn.

Knowing what the order of the cards will allow you to structure your bidding.

This bidding follows the exact same rules as the advance game.

Then players follow the rules as per the usual game.

Extended Game

The extended game can be applied to either the basic or the advanced game. This simply means that the game will last longer as there are more steps to take before you reach the opposing player’s heart. If you look at the board, in the extended game the three circles within the rectangle are all now counted individually. This means that there is an additional battle to be fought before you can reach the opposing player’s heart.

To summarise: all three circles are in play in the extended game. In a non-extended game, these would count as only one circle.

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