Automatown rules post

Automatown

A game of assembling automa armies

by Seth Jaffee

2-4 players, 45-60 minutes, ages 14+

V3.0 8-3-17

Components

1 Start player marker

4 Reference cards – 1 per player

21 Worker spot cards (poker size)

30 Blueprint cards (1/2 poker size)

1 Basic action card

36 Worker pawns

140 resource cubes:

   20 white

   10 each in pink, natural, light blue, and gray

   10 each in red, yellow, blue, and black

   10 each in clear red, clear yellow, clear blue, and clear black

Setup

1. Shuffle the blueprint cards to create a deck. Place the deck near the turn order card, then deal out 3 blueprint cards face up in a line to the right of the deck. This is the supply of blueprints available.
2. From the blueprint deck, deal 1 blueprint card to each player. You may look at your blueprints whenever you like, but don’t show your opponents.
3. Shuffle the worker spot cards to create a deck. Place this deck below the blueprint deck, then deal N+1 worker spot cards face up in a line to the right of the deck, where N is the number of players in the game. These are the available worker actions.
4. Place the basic action card to the left of the worker deck. This card is available every round.
5. Randomly determine a start player and give that player the start player marker. This marker will pass clockwise at the end of each round.
6. Sort the resource cubes by type and place them within reach of all players.
7. Give each player a reference card and 3 worker pawns. Place the rest of the pawns in a supply pile within reach of all players. Return unused reference cards to the box.

You are ready to begin!

Gameplay Overview

You are a criminal mastermind, determined to take over the city, and then the world! To achieve this goal you will build an army of automata to do your bidding. As you complete robots, you will put them to work building more of your army. The first player to amass a force strong enough to take over the city will be victorious!

Turn Order

The game is played in a series of rounds. In each round, players take turns collecting, upgrading, and exchanging resources until they have used all of their workers and have passed. After all players have passed, the round ends, and you’ll have a chance to spend your resources building new automata.

A Game Turn

Placement Phase: Send automata to collect, upgrade, swap, and trade resources

On your turn, you will place 1 or more automata onto a worker spot card, your reference card, or the basic action card and resolve its effect immediately.

• Worker spot cards have 3 tiers, and when sending your automata to a card, you must use the lowest unoccupied tier. [NEW: No you don't!] The first tier requires 1 worker pawn, the 2^nd tier requires 2 worker pawns, and the 3^rd tier requires 3 worker pawns. When sending workers here, resolve the effect of the tier immediately. Each tier on a worker card has a similar effect, but gets stronger at the higher tiers.
• Reference cards also have 3 tiers. The first tier requires 1 worker pawn, the 2^nd tier requires 2 worker pawns, and the 3^rd tier requires 3 worker pawns. When sending workers here, take one of the available blueprint cards into your hand and replace it from the deck so that there are always 3 blueprints available.
• The basic action card does not have tiers, and is not limited – any number of worker pawns may be placed here. Unlike other worker cards, you only ever place 1 worker pawn at a time on the basic action card. When placing here, immediately take one of the available rewards of your choice: 1 white cube, 1 swap, or 1 upgrade.

When placing automata, you may also use the abilities of your built blueprint cards, at most 1 card per automata placed. Turn the card sideways to indicate it’s been used.

When you are out of workers to place, you must pass. When all players have passed, the round is over.

Build Phase: Spend resources to build automata

All players may play the build phase simultaneously. Each blueprint card has a resource cost on it. You may discard those resources and place the blueprint face up in front of you. This represents an automata you have built. It counts as strength toward your score, gives you an ability to use and allows you to use more worker pawns in future rounds.

Note that the cost always includes 1 cube in each of 4 types of low/medium/high quality:

Pink/Red/Clear Red: Head

Natural/Yellow/Clear Yellow: Arms

Light Blue/Blue/Clear Blue: Torso

Gray/Black/Clear Black: Feet

White = scrap

For example, a red cube represents a medium quality head component.

Each card can instead be built using 4 white cubes. In this case, place the blueprint card face down in front of you. This represents a basic automata which provides 1 worker, 1 strength, and no abilities.

Note that for any given color, you may “overpay” by using a better quality resource of that color. For example, a “pink” cost indicates a low quality head piece. This cost may be paid with a pink resource, or a red resource (medium quality), or a clear red resource (high quality).

On the same note, a black resource may be used to pay a cost requiring black, gray, or white, but not clear black, and not yellow.

This also means that the “4 white” cost on the back side of the blueprint cards can be paid with ANY 4 cubes.

You may build as many automa from your hand as you can afford during the build phase.

[NEW: Try allowing builds whenever you want, so doing it during a round would get you a new worker pawn immediately!]

Reset Phase: Reset the game for the next round

Do the following to prepare for the next round:

1. Remove all worker pawns from the worker cards and return them to the supply.
2. Discard the rightmost worker card, slide the rest to the right 1 space, and deal a new card from the deck in the last space. In a 4 player game, instead discard the last 2 cards and replace them.
3. Count the number of workers on your blueprint cards in play and take that number of worker pawns from the supply -- plus 3.
4. Count the strength of each player’s army. If anyone has reached 15 or more strength, then the next round will be the last.

Game End and Scoring

At the end of each round, count the strength of each player’s army. When a player has 15 or more strength, the game will end at the end of the following round. At that time, count your strength again.

The player with the highest total strength wins! In the case of a tie, the victory is shared.

[NEW: Maybe end immediately, if you can build whenever?]

Playtesters:

Guy from Raytheon (v1.0)

Tony Ewing (v1.0, V2.0)

John Haremza (v1.1)

Michael Brown (v1.1, 2.0, 3.0)

John Heder (v2.0)

Becky Pusch (v2.0)

Staci (v3.0)

Jordan (v3.0)