Alice
Alice Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 100 cards, divided into: 30 protagonist cards (blue), 43 character cards (red) and 27 chapter cards (dark blue).
- Rules booklet.
Setup
Separate the protagonist, character and chapter cards by their backs and shuffle them separately to form three different decks. Place them in the centre of the table and deal 1 chapter card and 2 protagonist cards to each player. These 3 cards make up each player's hand and must be kept secret from the other players.
Then, turn up 3 character cards to form the Tea Party as shown in this diagram:
[Diagram labels: in the centre, the "Tea Party" row of three face-up character cards (Hatter, Caterpillar, Queen of Hearts in the example). Above the row is a space for "Characters that have eaten Cake"; below it a space for "Characters that have drunk Potion". To the sides of the table: the protagonist deck and protagonist discard pile, the character deck and character discard pile, the chapter deck and chapter discard pile. In front of each player: their initial hand, their open chapters, and their victory pile.]
The sleepiest player is the starting player and takes the first turn. Turns pass clockwise until an end-of-game condition is met. You are ready to begin!
Turn Sequence
Each turn consists of three phases: Discovery, Adventure and End of Turn.
1. Discovery
This is the first phase of your turn. It is used to obtain new protagonist and chapter cards.
This phase is mandatory. You must draw a protagonist card or a chapter card from one of their corresponding decks and put it in your hand. You choose which deck you prefer to draw the card from. If you begin your turn with no cards in hand, you must draw one additional card from either of the two decks.
2. Adventure
This is the main phase of your turn. In it you may play cards from your hand to activate their Wonders, recruit character cards from the Tea Party, and open the book to return characters to their chapters and so complete them.
This phase is optional, so you decide how many cards you want to play, or whether you do not want to play any at all and simply pass the turn. Although it is usually better to play some!
The cards you play must follow these simple rules:
- "Order of Presence" rule. You may only play a protagonist or character card if its presence value (upper left corner) is higher than or equal to that of the last card you played earlier this turn. That is, if you want to play several cards, you must play them in ascending order of presence value. For example, you could play a Card Soldier with value 0, then a Queen of Hearts with value 2, then a Knave of Hearts with value 2 and finally a Caterpillar with value 4. After the Caterpillar you could not play the Duchess with value 1, for example. To restore order in Wonderland you have to be orderly!
- "Only 1 chapter" rule. If you play a chapter card, you open the storybook and activate its vortex power to try to fill it. You cannot play more cards after playing a chapter card, so if you do, it is always the last action of your turn.
3. End of Turn
If at the end of your turn there are completed chapters in front of any player, each of them scores theirs. Congratulations! You have helped complete the book a little more. To score a chapter, place all the characters on the pages of the completed chapter (except the Card Soldiers, if any) in their corresponding discard pile, and place the completed chapter card (and the Card Soldiers, if any) face down in your victory pile.
The more valuable cards you have there, the closer you will be to winning!
Now, fill the gaps in the middle row of the Tea Party with new cards from the character deck. The middle row must always have 3 cards visible face up at the end of your turn.
Then, pass the turn to the player on your left.
How Are Cards Played in "Alice"?
Playing Protagonists and Characters
At the start of the game you will only have protagonist cards in your hand, but soon you will also obtain character cards from the central Tea Party. To play one of these cards, simply place it in front of you and activate its abilities in order.
1. Potion or Cake. If the card you played is a protagonist, it probably gives a Potion or a Cake to a character in the Tea Party. In that case, you must apply its effect immediately. A Potion will shrink the character while a Cake will enlarge it. In either case, the transformed character will make room for a new character in the Tea Party. We explain how this works further on (see the section "The Tea Party, Potions and Cakes").
Example: this White Rabbit gives a Cake to a character in the Tea Party.
2. Wonder. Protagonists and characters have a special ability called a "Wonder" that will help you complete the chapters of the book. On the cards, the Wonders are located above the name of each card, but if you do not yet understand the icons you will find an explanation of each Wonder in the "Wonders" section. For example, the White Rabbit lets you put up to 2 character cards from the Tea Party into your hand.
Some cards have several Wonders separated by a bar: you must choose only one of them. (Some cards have more than one Wonder to choose from; you must activate one of them when you play it.)
A Cheshire Cat played by another player can block the Wonder of a card played by another player. It is the only Wonder you can play at any time, even if it is not your turn.
3. Entering a chapter. If the character you have just played matches the icon of one of the pages (gaps) of one of your unfinished chapters, you may place it on its corresponding page after having activated its Wonder. The Cheshire Cat does not prevent the character from entering a chapter even if its Wonder has been deactivated.
You may now play another character and follow these three steps, but remember: you must follow the Order of Presence!
Playing a Chapter Card
When you play a chapter card from your hand, you open the storybook and activate its vortex power, which will absorb into the pages of the book all the characters it can, whether from the Tea Party or from your hand.
Follow these steps:
-
Place a chapter card from your hand in front of you. This card will remain there until you complete it or until the game ends.
-
You have opened the book and activated the vortex! Check whether any of the characters in the Tea Party and/or your hand match those the chapter needs and place any number of them on their corresponding page. The chapters do not have to be completed by doing this; you can put in some of the characters or none.
The vortex is powerful! Once the book is open, you may also place characters from the Tea Party and/or your hand on their corresponding pages of chapters you opened in previous turns. You could even decide to play a chapter that you cannot fill on its own just to activate the vortex and put characters into OTHER chapter(s).
Some pages of the book require tiny or huge characters: in that case, you must take them from the corresponding row of the Tea Party. You cannot take them from other sizes! If the book page does not specify a particular size, you can take whichever card you want, even if it is enlarged or reduced!
Important: placing characters in their chapters does not activate their Wonders.
[Example diagram: a chapter played this turn and a chapter played in a previous turn, with pages requiring Huge characters (Knave of Hearts) and Tiny characters (Caterpillar) in the Tea Party rows; also shown are the Tea Party (Gryphon, Queen of Hearts, March Hare) and the player's hand (Knave of Hearts, Duchess, Alice).]
-
The book closes. Once you have returned all the characters you wanted to their pages in their chapters, the book closes. You must move on to the End of Turn phase (see page 4).
The Tea Party, Potions and Cakes
The Tea Party is a central row of cards from which all players can recruit characters or put them into their chapters thanks to the power of the vortex. In addition, the characters of the Tea Party may become tiny or huge due to the effect of a Potion or Cake.
If a player plays a Potion or Cake effect, they must choose one of the characters in the Tea Party and slide it upwards (it has become huge with a Cake!) or downwards (it has become tiny with a Potion!) within its same space. If doing so makes it coincide with other character(s) that already occupied that tiny or huge space, it covers them. For the purposes of the game, a covered character does not exist until the card covering it disappears in some way. You can use a Potion or Cake to return to normal size a card that had been transformed by a previous effect: this is the only case in which a card of the middle row could be covered.
After applying the effect of a Potion or Cake, immediately refill the Tea Party by filling the freed gaps in the centre with new character cards. Sometimes this is also useful for having more characters available in the Tea Party during your turn.
Example 1: Play a protagonist card with Cake. Choose a card from the Tea Party to give it to. It grows and slides to the space for characters that have eaten Cake. Refill the gap immediately with a new card from the character deck. (Continue your turn by activating the Wonder of the protagonist you played.)
Wonders
Wonders are special abilities that protagonists and characters activate once you play them. It is mandatory to carry them out, although some cards let you choose among several. The cards have a diagram that summarizes their Wonders, but until you get used to them, you can look them up in this table:
| Card | Wonder |
|---|---|
| Alice | Choose a character in the Tea Party and activate one of its Wonders as if you had played it. The character stays in its place. |
| Alice | You may place Alice on any page of one of your chapters as if she were the right character. |
| White Rabbit | Put up to 2 characters from the Tea Party into your hand. If they were huge or tiny, they stop being so once they are in your hand. |
| Cheshire Cat | Discard it at any time to cancel the Wonder of another Cheshire Cat. |
| Cheshire Cat | Discard it at any time to cancel the Wonder of another card. |
| Cheshire Cat | Discard it from your hand during your turn to draw a protagonist card. |
| Hatter | Place the first card of the chapter deck in front of you face up. By doing this, the Hatter opens the storybook and activates its vortex. Once the book is closed, you may continue with your Adventure phase in the usual way. |
| Caterpillar | Put into your hand all the tiny and huge characters in the Tea Party, even those covered by other cards. |
| Gryphon |
End of the Game
Your adventure ends when the character deck or the chapter deck runs out. When this happens, the player whose turn it is may finish it, but it will be the last turn of the game. As soon as it ends, you must discard your hands and count the victory points in your victory pile.
Important: if the protagonist deck runs out, shuffle the discard pile and form a new deck.
Scoring: the End of the Adventure!
Each chapter shows the victory points it is worth in its upper left. The protagonists sent to your victory pile by the effect of the Knave of Hearts card also add points, but if you have Card Soldiers, they subtract. Each unoccupied page of the incomplete chapters you have in front of you at the end of the game also subtracts one point. Do not play chapter cards recklessly!
If you are experienced "Alice" players, you can play that each chapter not completed at the end of the game subtracts as many points as its victory point value, but one fewer for each occupied page. Thus, for example, a 5-victory-point chapter with one page occupied by a character would subtract 4 points at the end of the game.
Calculate your points well!
The player (or players) with the most victory points is the one who has contributed most to returning peace and order to Wonderland.
Congratulations, you have won! Alice, the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat are more than grateful to you. Come back to Wonderland whenever you like!
You can play a wilder game by ignoring the Order of Presence!
FAQ
Can the Cheshire Cat prevent Alice from being placed in a chapter? Yes. Because placing Alice inside a chapter is a Wonder, the Cheshire Cat can block it. Alice would go to the protagonist discard pile. However, the Cheshire Cat cannot block a character from entering a chapter even if it has blocked its Wonder beforehand.
Can I complete a chapter with Card Soldiers? Yes. This is a good strategy at the end of the game if you want to avoid incomplete chapters giving you negative points. Besides, it is always fun to complete another player's chapter with one of your Card Soldiers to send it to their victory pile at the end of the turn. Or even to fill a chapter for them with nothing but Card Soldiers!
Do the Wonders of the Gryphon and the Queen of Hearts affect Alice? No. Alice is a protagonist card, not a character, so she cannot be stolen or discarded by the Wonders of the Gryphon and the Queen of Hearts even if she occupies another character's gap in a chapter. It is not so easy to get rid of the protagonist of the story!
How many cards can I have in my hand? The number of cards in your hand is unlimited, but it is hard for many cards to build up there if you play them effectively.
Can I play a Cheshire Cat to block a Wonder of a character that I played myself? You can, for example if you want to play a Hatter to complete a chapter but do not want to activate its Wonder (especially in the last turns, since it would give you a new chapter that could subtract victory points).
If I play a Queen of Hearts and there are only Card Soldiers on other players' chapters, must I discard them? You do not have to do that, since you could name any other character even if it is not placed in any chapter.
If I play a Gryphon, am I obliged to steal a Card Soldier from players who only have Card Soldiers occupying pages in their chapters? Yes, you are obliged to steal a character card from each player if you can. If they only have one or more Card Soldiers, you must place it/them on one of your unoccupied pages. But this need not be bad! You might complete a chapter thanks to it.
Can I play Card Soldiers or Alice on pages that need a tiny or huge character? Yes, you can play Card Soldiers or Alice on a page that requires a reduced or enlarged character.
Action Card (Player Aid)
Actions
- Alice: Choose a character in the Tea Party and activate one of its Wonders. / Place Alice in one of your chapters.
- White Rabbit: Put 2 characters from the Tea Party into your hand.
- Cheshire Cat: Discard it to cancel another Cat. / Discard it to cancel the Wonder of a character. / Discard it to draw a protagonist card.
- Hatter: Take the top card of the chapter deck. The vortex opens.
- Gryphon: Steal characters from other players' chapters to put them in yours.
- Caterpillar: Put the tiny and huge characters into your hand.
- March Hare (x3): Reveal 3 character cards and place them in your chapters if you can. If not, they are discarded.
- Duchess (x2): Draw 2 chapter cards into your hand.
- Knave of Hearts: Draw a card from the protagonist deck and put it in your victory pile.
- Card Soldier: Discard this card and a soldier from a chapter. / Place this card in a player's chapter.
- Queen of Hearts: Name a character. The other players discard that character from their chapters.
Help
- The number shown on a chapter card represents the victory points.
- The symbol on a chapter page represents the character that the chapter needs in order to close. The number only serves as a reference to find the character sooner.
- The number in the upper left of a card is the presence value.
- Blue cards are protagonist cards. Red cards are character cards. The dark cards are chapter cards.
- The Cake symbol turns a Tea Party character into a huge one. The Potion symbol turns a Tea Party character into a tiny one.
Remember...
- On your turn you may play as many cards as you like.
- You must play the cards in equal or ascending order.
- When you play a character, if you can, place it in one of your chapters.
- After playing a chapter, your turn ends.
- When you play a chapter, the vortex opens.
- The vortex draws in the cards you choose from the Tea Party and from your hand.
- At the end of a turn all players remove the completed chapters to score.
- The protagonist or character cards of a chapter that is removed are discarded, except the soldier.
- Soldiers are worth 2 negative points.
- When no chapter or character cards remain, the active player finishes their turn and the game ends.