Game: Ebbe & Flut

Thread: Re: Explenation??

Moviebuffs — 2008-06-02T14:16:44+00:00

There's a much better English set of rules here:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/file/info/3128

Plus, in the "Files" section of this page: Ebbe & Flut you can find an English FAQ.

N.

Thread: Explenation??

Pedrator — 2008-06-02T08:30:17+00:00

Hello everyone...

say, could anyone explain me in few words how this game works? I find the rules are very unclear. I just don't seem able to figure it out. I know the set up, ok.. I also understand that each player has three possible starting spots, I just can't understand the game mechanics. It gets wors... I've read both the german and the english rules, one says that when two cards of the same color sharing the same number or letter are in the same row or column they must be moved, the other says that if cards of different colors with the same number or lette...

As far as I understood, I play cards on any of the three starting spots, which means I may even start stacking cards. so I should play cards of same letter or number to start moving the previous ones either to the left or upwards. Is this correct? and when I start moving cards that's when the stacked cards beginn to show, it may therefore happen that I may have to move several cards in the same turn, is this correct?

What's with the phase where we have to check on the opponent's game to see if he's tricking us out by having cards of same number/letter in same row/colums?? Why would any of the players do that? is there some kind of strategy behind this??

...I suppose you can tell by my very confusing post that I'm very confused about this game...

HEEEEELP!! PPPLLLLLEEEEEAAAASSSEEE!!
thanks...

P.S.: I somehow came to develop a special liking in adlung games, I find it somehow fascinating how they manage to be so creative with just a deck of cards... but those bloody rule books... it's not the first time, they tend to be somewhat confusing to me, (like meuterer for example) They're just not very well structured I think...

Thread: You Never Know What The Tide Will Bring In . . . Or Take Out

ccarlet1 — 2008-01-20T02:20:37+00:00

Ebbe and Flut is an excellent card game: quick and very fun, but also the kind of game you have to play very close attention to. When you are a few turns into the game, the card layout is ever changing, and you have to think carefully about your move, and watch your opponent carefully too.

We really enjoy this as a couples game, and it will definitely be coming with us on a backpacking trip or two this summer.

Bits:

Being an Adlung-Spiele game, it consists of cards only. Of the 60 cards, 10 are boundary cards, forming the vertical boundary of the 5x5 grid on which your cards are laid (six of these cards also depict the layout for solo and partner play in different languages).

The other 50 cards are divided equally in two suits: water and land. The 25 cards of the suit depict a combination of a letter (A-E) and a number (1-5) in all combinations.

The artwork is pretty simple and subtle. The water cards have their numbers/letter in blue, and the land in biege; the water depicts land in relief around the edge, and the land depicts land in relief in the center. It takes a little getting used to distinguish one card from the other when they are stacked on each other because you can only look at the edge of the card underneath. However, the patterns are also different, so you soon get used to it.

The cards are of good quality, but the artwork is quite plain.

Set Up:

Set up is pretty quick, but you want to make sure that your grid is set up well. The boundary cards are laid out vertically, five on each side, leaving space to lay your 25 cards in piles of five horizontally. Hence the layout is a 5x5 boundary of cards: boundary cards vertically and water and land cards horizontally. After a few plays, you get the hang of spacing your cards out just right and it is not a problem.

Play/Rules:

The object of the game is to move your cards from the lower right hand side of the gird to the upper left side of the grid and out. After all 25 of your cards have been placed in the grid, and all possible cards have been moved out, whoever has moved out the most cards is the winner.

You can only move cards into the grid by placing them on one of three starting positions: the lower right hand corner, the space horizontally adjacent, and the space vertically adjacent. Only one card is placed from your initial piles at the beginning of your turn. If these three spaces are filled, then you have to start placing your cards on top of those already there.

You move cards when either a card's letter or number matches orthogonally with another of your cards. That is, if my A5 card is beside my A3 card, I may move one or the other card, in this case vertically, towards my opponent. If my E5 card was above my B5, I could move one or the other one space to the left. As your goal is to get your cards to the top left side of the grid, movement is either away from you or to your left, depending on whether the match is horizontal or vertical.

Another way of thinking about it is that, at the end of your turn, there should not be any matching letters or numbers of the same colour, horizontally or vertically on the grid.

As more cards make their way into the grid, there may be many movement possibilities. The player may make the movements in the order he or she chooses, as long as it complies with proper movement rules.

If one of your cards is moved on to one of your opponent's starting spaces, you may remove it from the grid and place it in front of you to count towards your final score. If one of your cards is forced off the board at any other spot, it is discarded.

At the end of your turn, you need to check carefully to make sure that you have completed all possible moves. When you are confident that you have moved all the cards that need moving you state either: "tide going out" (water), or "tide coming in" (land).

If your opponent has declared the end of his or her turn but has missed a card's movement, then you point out what they have missed. As a penalty, your opponent must surrender a card he has moved off of the grid (if he has any), and complete his movements. It is important then, to keep track of your opponent's moves. One card can often make the difference in this game.

After both players have moved their 25 cards into the grid, play continues until movement is no longer possible.

The player who has moved the most cards off of the grid is the winner. There is no tie breaker.

Strategy/Tactics:

Playing this game reminds me of those sliding puzzles, except that you're more conncerned about setting up the sliding than trying to make a picture.

As both players are moving their cards away from them and to the left, that diagonal path can get very crowded. Sometimes you can get pile-ups of up to seven or eight cards. While covering your opponent's cards is a good tactic, big stacks of cards tend to stay that way, and that means a lot of buried cards that never make it out.

So it is worthwhile to move a few cards into the less crowded areas of the gird: the upper right and lower left areas. As you are trying to propel cards across the grid, a line of cards along the bottom will help propel a card left; a column of cards on the right hand side, will help propel them forward. In these two regions, your cards are a lot less likely to get covered.

However, they are also less likely to get moved off the grid as they are not on the shortest route. You need to also keep cards moving diagonally. So you should be working on setting up cards that will help move others, while keeping a good supply of cards moving.

It is also impotant not to let your three starting piles stack up too much. If you have to start stacking on them, you should stack like cards together. For example, if I place an E card on top of another E card, then I will be able to move both of them if an E lines up with them elsewhere.

The real challenge comes when you have many, many moves to make and you want to optimize your movements to get the most cards out. There is no backtracking in this game.

You can't look at the cards underneath your own, but you can check to see if they are yours or your opponents, and how many there are. This is definitely worth doing. If you're not able to move out any cards on a turn, leave your opponent's cards covered. If you are able to move out cards, or able to set yourself up well for later, then don't worry about uncovering your opponent's cards.

When deciding what to move, think about what will propel your cards the furthest, but keep in mind that this does not always mean moving cards that are the furthest advanced first. For example, suppose I have these cards:

E2 E5

---C5

---C2

There are a number of different ways I could move these cards. In the column of three, I would move the C2 to the left first, then E5. I could then move the E2 to the left, and the C2 to the left, and E2 to the left again. Finally, I could move E2 away from me, the goal being to move cards as far as possible, without covering my own cards.

The C2 would be quite far to the left now, and would help other Cs and 2s to move, as would leaving the E5 on the right.

When you can't move cards very far, covering your opponent's cards is a good tactic. Of course your own cards get covered too, but they often turn up again and can sometimes lead to some very nice sets.

Sometimes, you will get very good card combinations that make for a lot of movement and multiple cards moved off the grid, but the game is often won or lost in the smaller tactics of inching your cards toward their goal.

In a best of seven series, my wife and I had four draws, so you have to play to win.

Conclusion:

There is some luck in this game, but you're not going to find youself wishing for a specific card. There are so many possibilities, and the board is always changing, that there is almost always something you can do.

Our games have been very close, often with a lot of doubt about who is ahead or has won until the final count is made. I like the level of concentration required in this game: you need to stay focussed, but it doesn't feel like a brainburner.

This is not the kind of game that allows for a lot of socializing, but would appeal more to those who enjoy a solid puzzle-solving element in a game.

I give this game a 9.

Thread: Re: Ties?

ccarlet1 — 2007-12-31T16:24:39+00:00

Cool.

Thread: Re: Ties?

Great Dane — 2007-12-31T07:54:46+00:00

There isn't a tie-breaker. If you cannot win over your opponent, neither of you have won.

A draw (or stalemate) is acceptable in Chess and several card games - so not here?

Thread: Ties?

ccarlet1 — 2007-12-31T06:17:18+00:00

I couldn't find anything in the rules about a tie breaker. My wife and I just tied twice in a row. Did I miss something or does anybody have a tie breaking method?

Thread: Tidal Pools

ccarlet1 — 2007-12-28T01:29:47+00:00

Ebbe and Flut is our current favourite of the Adlung Speile series. It is a simple mechanic that even has an ebb and flow feel to it. Many combinations of moves in one or more turns, are often followed by one or more turns with few or no moves. It also reminds me of those sliding block puzzles, like you get with Nutella.

After laying out a grid of five cards we got started. Penny was the land and I was the water. Your cards have a number from 1-5 and a letter from A-E on them. You move them either forward or left, depending on whether a number/letter matches in a column or row, with a view to having your cards exit in your opponents corner.

If nothing matches, then you have to start putting your own cards on top of each other, but I got off to a pretty good start and within a few turns I managed to get a card to the halfway point.

When you move cards you not only cover your own cards, you also, much preferred, cover your opponent's. A pile of both our cards was growing right in front of my exit spaces, as was another close to Penny's. As cards migrate, previously covered cards are revealed, so you never know what the tide will cover up or turn up.

Penny got a big run and drove the water out in a very long turn. There is often an avalanche effect in this game, where you can continually get matching cards. Penny moved many cards and got two off the board, but when she announced the end of her turn--very important in this game--she had missed a potential move and had to give up one of her cards.

This was the first time that I had ever noticed that she had missed one. It's usually me who does that. Still she was leading 4-2.

There's no backtracking in this game. If you move a card you set a chain of events in motion as well as uncover other cards, so a card moved is a card played, much to my regret as I recognized too late a better combination of moves.

We were both playing very defensively and covering each other's cards whenver we could to the extent that this game was quite low scoring comared to our other matches.

When I flipped up my second last card though, I was able to move two more cards off and it as all tied up 4-4.

Penny then moved another card off. With my last card I wasn't able to do anything. The tide was out, leaving only a little tidal pool behind.

Penny won 5-4.

The huge pile of cards in front of my exit spaces contained 11 cards, seven of them mine. The pile on Pennys side contained 8 cards, five of them mine. No wonder I lost!

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ZiggyZambo — 2007-10-08T21:25:38+00:00

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ZiggyZambo — 2007-10-08T21:25:06+00:00

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cuazzel — 2007-09-20T17:13:00+00:00

Box back (better resolution)

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cuazzel — 2007-09-20T17:11:45+00:00

Box front (better resolution)

Thread: First Impression mini-review

SusanRoz — 2007-06-15T03:10:54+00:00

Ebbe & Flut is another one of those Adlung games that manages to fit a "big" game into a little tuck box of cards. This is a nice abstract game for two players. As with most Adlung games, the English rules in the box are written in an entirely different English language than most of us know, but a very nice person (Christine Biancheria) has provided an excellent rewritten version here on BGG. The loosely-fitted theme is the ebb and flow of the tide. One player is the water and the other is the land. Each has 25 cards lettered from A to E and numbered from 1 to 5. Cards are played to a 5x5 grid on the table. Each player has a three starting spots for cards in their lower right hand corner and the goal is to get your cards to your opponent's starting area. Each card that you get on one of those spaces comes off the table and scores a point for you at the end of the game. Players randomly draw one of their cards each turn and place it on one of their starting spots. The twist is that cards of the same type (water or land) cannot remain in a row or column with either a matching letter OR a matching number. One of the matching cards (player's choice) must drift to the left or up a space depending on whether the match is in a column or row. This may further set off a chain reaction as the new placement may create new matches. Cards can and will be covered by others during the game. Cleverly placing cards so that they match others is the way you try and move your cards toward your opponent's start area. It can be quite brain melting trying to figure out the results of a certain placement. Often both my opponent and I were surprised at all the possibilities with a seemingly useless card. The game really did kind of feel like its theme. I'd get water cards flowing toward my opponent's side and then he'd cover them up as he spread his land cards toward me.

Fans of puzzle-like games should enjoy this game quite a bit.

Thread: Just go with the flow

Odat — 2006-01-30T05:01:06+00:00

Terence: 11
Marisue: 8

Ebbe and Flut is one of the more recent additions to our game collection. I'd heard the game mentioned a few times in various geeklists and forum postings, but never really checked it out. So when Buck, the owner of our FLGS mentioned that he was going to be getting some in, I looked it up and decided that it sounded quite cool. The rest, as they say, is history.

I played the game three times solitaire to get a feel for how it played, after struggling through the fairly horrible included instructions and the much more clarified re-translation on the geek. Confident that I had a handle on what was going on, we gave it a try.

My scores in my solitaire games were 11, 5 and 15, which was quite a spread. I put this down mainly to having a bit of a poor memory when it comes to what cards are hidden under other cards.

So I was a bit surprised when I came out victorious in this particular game. I should point out that the score would have been 11 to 10, but Marisue got caught twice saying she was finished when there was still a conflict left remaining.

Marisue took the early lead, getting 3 points before I had even accumulated a single one. A few cards later I had managed to tie that up, and was making extra sure that I wasn't missing something. This lead didn't last long before Marisue managed to collect quite a few more points. It wasn't until the end of the game that I managed to squeak out the remaining points to take the lead and win.

In all, I highly enjoy the game, as a single player experience or with two players. Clearly I'll have to work on trying to remember what cards I've seen and which are buried, so that I'm not left waiting desperatly for a card with a 5 on it to appear so that I can get things moving, only to find that they're already all out there.

Marisue enjoyed the game, classifying it as a puzzly-abstract game. I'm sure I'll be playing this one a lot, possibly as a Solitaire game, to fill out boring lunch hours at work and so on.

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LA_Ken — 2005-11-13T20:23:57+00:00

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pietlavens — 2005-04-21T13:17:39+00:00

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Goodsound — 2005-03-23T20:30:45+00:00

Backcover of german edition

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BilboAtBagEnd — 2004-09-07T22:23:18+00:00

A game in progress

Thread: Re:Session Report

Christine Biancheria — 2004-04-09T17:13:45+00:00

EYE of NiGHT (#23776),
I agree. I re-translated these rules (see above), and there is definitely no provision for removing your opponent's cards in the same way.

Thread: Session Report

PBrennan — 2004-02-18T22:28:17+00:00

It's abstract and works well to theme at the same time. Go figure. You're continually assessing letters and numbers within your turn to move things your way, and then by the end of the turn, you can admire how the tide went out to kick the theme back in. This is for gamers only really - too abstract for family. Some turns are quick, some will take a while to work out. At the end of 45 minutes, I've felt like it was a decent exercise, and exercise's the key word. A 6 after 3 plays.

Thread: Re:Session Report

robmderrick — 2003-12-15T18:36:31+00:00

EYE of NiGHT wrote:
Finally we played Ebbe & Flut,... When you get a card of yours into the corner, you remove it for a point. But you can also remove the other player's cards from the game in the same way.

How do you mean this? You don't move your opponents cards at all, so I'm wondering what you mean to remove the other player's cards. If you were allowed to move your opponent's cards, then you would never face the possibility of losing one of your own cards off of the top or side of the 'board' outside of the scoring area, which is definitely considered in the rules, and often figures significantly in the games I've played.

Thread: Session Report

EYE of NiGHT — 2003-12-15T16:37:30+00:00

Finally we played Ebbe & Flut, an odd game from Adlung. As usual, their version of English provides obstacles, but it makes sense after a few readings. Basically, you draw and play cards in your corner, and try to flow them across the plan to the other player's corner. Where rows or columns contain matching letters A-E or numbers 1-5, you move them forward or left. When you get a card of yours into the corner, you remove it for a point. But you can also remove the other player's cards from the game in the same way.

Cards stack up, so moving a card can cause more matchings when the next card down is revealed. Ian didn't really get it until the end, and he did score a point, but I romped away, letting my cards flow and score, then recede, and scored several points. The mechanism does fit the theme very well, but looking at a grid of big letters and numbers is too abstract and jarrs with the theme. Maybe using shapes and colours would work better, like marine creatures (crab, starfish, shell, fish, prawn or clam).

I liked this game and would add it to the good pile of Adlung games.

And so we reach that notorious season of ill-will, when thousands of families gather round their Monopoly board and renew their hatred of board games in mutual acrimony. Already the TV ads for Cranium/Taboo have begun. And I must suffer a month's drought until my player's return to normal life. Have a lovely religious festival theists.

Thread: Re:Session Report

icheyne — 2003-12-08T15:01:21+00:00

It's actually quite straightforward, but I recommend playing solitaire before trying to teach it. Fresh Fish is the same in this respect.

???

Thread: Session Report

Henry Rhombus — 2003-12-06T15:40:26+00:00

I convinced my wife to try this two-player card game and give Lost Cities a rest. I explained the movement system, but didn't stress that any of the conflicting cards can be moved forward or left. Thus she was largely moving only the card that she had played most recently and becoming frustrated that the only moves available often took her off the board.

We began playing almost a two-handed solitaire version after a while, running through a multitude of possibilities for each card played. Only about two-thirds of the way through did I see how card movement could work when done well, with cards moving up the board in pairs or triplets to push one, then another into the scoring zone. Much more reminiscent of the tide when played this way.

The final score was 10-9 in my favor, which seems decent considering we both lost two cards by not scanning the board carefully enough before ending a turn. There's clearly a lot of thought that can go into playing this ugly little game, but I might have to find a new opponent to command the waves as my wife's head exploded shortly after we finished.

Thread: Re:User Review

clearclaw — 2003-11-30T18:51:03+00:00

Christine Biancheria (#9838),

Thanks for your translation! It was enough to persuade me that this was a must-gave two player game.

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bobborobbo — 2003-08-03T11:55:10+00:00

Thread: User Review

Christine Biancheria — 2003-06-23T16:20:25+00:00

This is a great little game with a unique mechanism for movement of cards. It's something of a tile-laying game and something of a puzzle.

Players form a 5-card-by-5-card grid between them. Each takes a set of 25 cards, one with blue cards representing the Water and the other the beige cards representing the land. Each of the 25 cards has a letter and number on it, going from A1 to E5. The overall goal is to move cards from your starting area (the corner of the grid to your lower right) across the grid to your opponent's starting area (diagonally across from your own). Each card that you succeed in moving into your opponent's starting area comes off of the grid and scores you a point.

The game is set up as follows: 10 Border Cards are provided to help form a box around this 5-by-5 grid. The sides of the box are made up of 5 Border Cards each. The top and bottom of the box are formed by the players' own cards. Each player shuffles his or her cards and makes 5 facedown stacks of 5 cards each in front of him- or herself to form the top and bottom of the box around the grid. This sounds confusing, but the idea is just to make this box around the grid so that the spaces on the grid are clearer.

The movement system is what makes the game unique. On a turn, you pull a new card from one of your facedown stacks and put it into play in one of your three starting spaces: the lower right corner, the space immediately above it and the space immediately to the left of it. Then you check your columns and rows on the grid. No cards in your own color may remain in a column or row if those cards share a letter (e.g., A2 and A5) or a number (e.g., A3 and B3). When this happens, it's a good thing because this allows you (in fact requires you) to move. If the two cards are in a column, you must move one of them to the left a space. If the two cards are in the same row, you must move one upwards a space. If this creates a new row or column in which you have cards sharing a number or letter, again, this is a good thing because you must conntiue to move cards to resolve this new situation. If multiple moves are required in a column or row to eliminate the situation, even better. The result can be a whole chain reaction of card movement.

When one of your cards makes it into one of your opponent's 3 starting spaces (again, these are diagonally opposite from yours), you take it off the board and keep it. It's worth a point at the end of the game. If, however, the card must be moved off of the grid at another point, you lose the card entirely.

Moving the cards is a lot of fun, and the "blocking" effect this can have is one of the more interesting aspects of the game as well. As the grid fills up and your cards are moved, they will inevitably cover up one of your opponent's cards and vice-versa. The covered cards remain blocked until the owner of the top card moves it again. This can be used as a tactic to block your opponent's cards as they approach their goal on your side of the grid. Also, at the beginning of your turn, you check your opponent's work to make sure he or she didn't leave any columns or rows in which movement of card was required. If you find a mistake, your opponent must give up a point card (if he or she has one), which then comes out of the game entirely. This doesn't happen too much, though, once you gain some experience.

It's definitely a more abstract game although there is a certain feeling of an ebb and flow to it. The artwork on the cards isn't great, but it's satisfactory. It's something of an interactive puzzle, rather than a traditional game, but the mechanism is fresh and interesting, and when you're in the right mood, it's really a lot of fun. Games seem to take about 45 minutes. There is a 1-player version, but I don't see it as being too much fun. The other nice thing about the game is that it would make a good travel game. The box is tiny, and the truth is that you could eliminate making the box around the grid and just shuffle your own cards into one facedown pile, thus making the board smaller and more adaptable to a plane or train.

One more point: this game got a really bad reputation because the rules are very unclear in the original. They must have been computer-translated and whole phrases were missing. To make matters worse, an incorrect FAQ was posted on the Geek and mistaken rules were described on Funagain, so I suspect a number of people have been playing the game wrong. I re-translated the rules and expanded them a bit to make them clearer. I'm posting the translation today. Hopefully, this will help revive interest in this cool, inexpensive little card game.

Thread: Session Report

jstahl — 2002-12-11T22:15:43+00:00

This one I picked up in Germany and Edith and I had lots of fun playing it on the train between stops. Eric had just picked up a copy (at the Auction) and wanted to give it a try. In this game one player plays the Tide coming in and the other plays the Tide going out. The theme actually works very well as each player move there cards forward and to the left, trying to get them into the home locations of the opponent. each turn you can see the water line move forward and back. It plays like a nice strategy game with lots of thinking but not too crazy 'way out there' thinking.
Results: Jeph, Eric

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2002-08-13T14:22:22+00:00