5 Minutes Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Setup
• Play
• End of the Game
• Mission Examples
• Timer

Contents

• 5 digital timers
• 5 numbered dice
• 5 coloured dice
• 10 colour cards (2 for each player colour)
• 20 letter cards
• 50 personal mission cards (10 per player)
• 100 generic mission cards (white border, numbered)
• 9 blank mission cards (invent your own missions!)

The sheet does not explain how the numbered and coloured dice are used; they are listed here as printed.

Setup

• Each player receives a timer, 1 numbered die and 1 coloured die. Then each player chooses a colour and takes the two cards of that colour and the 10 personal mission cards of that colour. If you are playing with fewer than 5 players, return the remaining material to the box.
• Shuffle the 20 letter cards and form a face-down deck in the centre of the table.
• Then take one colour card from each player, shuffle them, and form a small face-down pile, also placed in the centre of the table. Each player places the other colour card in front of them to show their colour.
• If you have not yet created your own custom missions, return the blank mission cards to the box.
• Finally, shuffle the 100 generic mission cards. Each player receives 20 of them face down and shuffles them together with their own 10 personal mission cards. In this way each player creates a personal deck of 30 cards. Place this deck in front of you and set your timer to 5 minutes.
• Also place your timer in front of you on the table, so that only you can read its display (detailed timer instructions are at the end of these rules). During the game it is not advantageous to let opponents know how little time you have left.

Play

• Play proceeds in turns. The oldest player who is taking their game turn starts, then the turn passes to the next player.
• A turn consists of these steps:
  1. Start your timer.
  2. (only yours, not the others'!)
  3. Draw the top card of your deck.
  4. Read the mission aloud.
  5. Complete your mission, without errors. Quickly!
  6. ...especially quickly!
  7. Stop the timer when the mission is completed.
• In short: start the timer, complete the mission, stop the timer. Play continues this way until the players run out of their 5 minutes.
• If you have already played all the cards of your personal deck, shuffle them and rebuild a draw deck. The same applies to the letter cards: if they have all been played, reshuffle them and rebuild the deck.
• If you had to draw a colour card, put it back down as soon as you have completed your mission, then reshuffle the whole colour-card deck.

End of the Game

Before starting to play, agree on when and how the game will end. We suggest one of the two following options:

1. One out! The game ends as soon as the first player runs out of time. That player loses in any case! All the others compare the time left on their timers. The player who has kept the most time has won.
2. Only one will remain! When a player runs out of the time available, they are eliminated. The last player to remain in the game wins.

Mission Examples

The following explains some missions. The cards explained in this section are marked with an asterisk. The examples are the distributor's Italian-language examples, so the wordplay relies on Italian words.

• Mission 19*: words containing "st"? For example stalla (stable) or basta (enough).
• Mission 60*: film titles and/or types of vegetable. Example for card P: patate (potatoes), Papillon, pomodori (tomatoes), Parla con lei (Italian for "talk to her").
• Missions 68 and 69*: alphabetical order in reverse. It sounds demanding, and it is. If you draw the letter card B, the solution is B, A, Z, V, U... (after A you start again from the beginning... or rather from the end!).
• Mission 81*: famous pairs: Tom and Jerry, Lilli e il Vagabondo (the Italian title of Lady and the Tramp), Romeo and Juliet.
• Mission 84*: adjectives: the question is "what is something like?" The answer is: something is big, colourful, noisy, fun, fast... and so on.
• Mission 86*: prefixes: list prefixes, for example ri- (comincio, ricomincio: I begin, I begin again), dis- (armato, disarmato: armed, unarmed), and so on.
• Mission 88*: this one is harder: list 6 nations whose initial letter matches the final letter of the previous nation. Tip: you can use the English names: England, Denmark, Korea, etc.
• Personal mission card*: compound nouns? Especially lavapiatti (dishwasher), spazzacamino (chimney sweep), etc.

Timer

• Each timer runs on a 1.5 V battery (not included).
• It has an automatic alarm and a 4-digit LCD display, and reaches a maximum of 99 minutes and 59 seconds.
• Minutes and seconds are set independently. Pressing MIN and SEC at the same time resets the timer. The alarm sounds for 32 seconds.
• The timer switches on when the battery is inserted, in stop mode. Pressing the red button starts the timer; pressing it again stops it again.
• Pressing MIN sets the minutes for countdown mode. Pressing SEC sets the seconds. Both buttons work only when the timer is stopped or has been reset.