Spiteful Guards (2011)

Inspiration

The main idea in this game is the concept of “escape across the border”. You can evoke some different places and times on our world and history: the Berlin wall, the 38th parallel on Korean Peninsula, the Mexico-United States border...

Materials

You need these parts from a Shibumi game system:
• The 4X4 squared board
• 10 black balls (representing black player’s civilians)
• 10 white balls (representing white player’s civilians)
• 11 red balls (representing the border guards)
• The cotton bag or plastic box of your set (representing the tunnel under the border)

Set up

Place the board between the two players forming a rhombus. Leave the cotton bag or plastic box near the board and form a red line of guards (this will be the border between the two territories).

On the ground floor (4X4) each player takes 6 balls from his/her color and puts first 3 on his territory and then the other 3 balls on opponent’s territory in the remaining unoccupied holes.

On 1st floor (3X3) continue the red border of guards (3 in this floor) and then each player takes another guard ball to put on opponent’s side. Finally each player takes a ball of each color (black and white) and puts these on his own side in the way that he/she thinks may benefit more.

On 2nd floor (2X2) continue the red border of guards (2 in this floor) and then place one civilian of your own color on your opponent’s territory. These images are samples of a game, you may change some parts of the structure following these instructions. So every game is different!

Finally one of the players take the black ball and the white ball secretely on each of his/ her hands closed. The other player chooses one hand and the ball on this must be placed on the top of the pyramid (on the 3rd floor), the other ball is placed on ths cotton bag or plastic box. Now you’re ready to play SPITEFUL GUARDS!

Goal of the game

Each player have to save civilians (preferably of his/her own color). Each civilian that remains alive on the tunnel (cotton bag or plastic box) at the end of the game will give his/ her owner a victory point. The player with the most victory points at the end of the game wins.

Playing the game

1. The player who has a civilian of his/her color on the top of the pyramid begins. The other one has a civilian of his/her color on the tunnel (a “wannabe” victory point!).
2. Atthebeginningofeachturntheplayerhastolookatthetopfloorofthepyramidand count how many civilians of each color and red guards has on it. You can consider these four cases:
a. Most of one civilian color (like on the first turn)
b. Most of red guards color
c. Draw between red guards and any civilian color (including both)
d. Draw between civilians
3. The player has to proceed for each case as indicate the following instructions:
a. Picking up* a civilian of the same color who has the most on the top floor and placing it on the tunnel (bag or box)
b. Picking up* a red guard and placing it on the tunnel (bag or box)
c. Picking up* a red guard and placing it on the tunnel (bag or box)... in a draw between civilians and guards, you have to count the guards as the most
d. Picking up* a black or white civilian (you can choose) and placing it on the tunnel (bag or box)
4. *Rules for picking up:
• You have to pick up whenever its possible on floors under the top floor
• Only if this is not possible you’re allowed to pick up from the top floor
• You can pick up balls (guards or civilians) that are holding at least zero and at most one ball. In case a ball is holding two or more balls of the floor immediately above you’re not allowed to pick up it.
• When you pick up a ball that is holding some other balls in the structure (example: a ball on the ground floor corner that is holding a ball from the first floor which is also holding a ball from the second floor), the ball/s on upper floors will flow down slowly and will replace the position of the ball you just picked up. Do it carefully!
5. Every ball (red, black or white) that you pick up on your turn has to be placed inside the tunnel (bag or box)
6. The game ends when every corner hole on the board are not covered by balls.

This situation forces the end of the game. Note that the holes corresponding to the coordinates A1, A7, G1 and G7 are empty.
At the time that all four corners are empty the game is over. No matter if there are still balls on the first floor or above.

Scoring

At the end of the game take out the tunnel every civilian or guard balls. Every pair of guards automatically kills a pair of civilians of each color (black and white). This is not just, but they were on the tunnel looking for civilians and the name of the game is Spiteful Guards (now you know the reason). When you remove the killer guards and the killed civilians, you can count the victory points (civilians really saved) for each player.

Visual example of the guards action on the tunnel: you have on the bag or box 9 red balls (guards), 5 white balls (white player’s civilians) and 6 black balls (black player’s civilians). Each pair of guards kills a civilian of each player. The final result is 2 black civilians, 1 white civilian and 1 red guard (this one doesn’t affect to the final result). Black player has 2 victory points and white player has 1 victory point. Therefore black player wins!

Spiteful Guards was designed in November 2011 as an entry for the Shibumi Challenge.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/13434/shibumi

More info: http://miqueljornet.com/