Day & Night Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• (1) Preparations
  • 1.1 Choose a Character
  • 1.2 Book of Spells
  • 1.3 Discard Pile
  • 1.4 Tiles & the Board
  • 1.5 Starting Situation
  • 1.6 Declaring the Duel
• (2) Course of the Game
  • 2.1 Course of a Turn
  • 2.2 To Build a Temple
  • 2.3 Spells
  • 2.4 The End of the Game

(1) Preparations

1.1 Choose a Character

Choose Day and play safe. In general Day is a bit more cautious compared to Night. Night is just too reckless in her opinion. However, Day might surprise you with a bunch of unexpected moves.

Choose Night and go for it. Night is faster and meaner. She wants to win, preferably as soon as possible!

1.2 Book of Spells

When both players have selected a character and the matching pawn, it is time to bring in the right pile of cards, better known as the Book of Spells. Day uses 'Mystify' and Night uses 'Crystalize'. Each Book of Spells consists of 70 spells. The spells must be shuffled in order to have any effect at all. Remember to transfer all of your Day or Night energy into the Book of Spells. The Book is closed; you wouldn't want anyone to stick their nose into your spells would you? The pile of cards should be put on the table, text and art work facing down.

1.3 Discard Pile

Whenever a spell is used it cannot be put back into the Book of Spells. Spells must always be fresh, everyone knows that! Used spells should be put onto a separate pile, the discard pile. Make sure you have room for the discard pile at the beginning of the game.

1.4 Tiles & the Board

The board should be put in the middle of the table, between you and your opponent. Since Day and Night are both of the jealous type, it is necessary to evenly divide the tiles that come with the game. You will soon notice Day prefers the tiles with their Day side up while Night insists they show off their Night side.

1.5 Starting Situation

At the beginning of the game the pawns for both players should be placed in the most right corners of the board, diagonally opposite each other. This means Day and Night start the game being as far away as possible from their opponent. All of the squares on the board are empty in the beginning. The empty squares are called neutral tiles.

Both players start the game having 5 spells in their hands.

1.6 Declaring the Duel

Have one last look at your opponent before you turn into Day or Night. Naturally, the next time your opponent asks you to pass the peanuts, you react by giving him/her a nasty snarl. Don't ever let yourself be bribed by the fact that your opponent happens to be your mother, mother in law, girlfriend, boyfriend or even your little brother; you are Day/Night and your enemy Night/Day must be defeated! Keep in mind this is, of course, a decent duel which means you should never hurt your opponent (including in real life!)! If you are by any chance the proud owner of a gong this would be a nice way to start the game: hit the gong and yell aloud in a mystic language you haven't quite managed to master yet. The game begins. Figure out for yourselves which one of the players gets the first turn. Don't forget about this rule: you are NEVER allowed to say you lost the duel because the other player got to begin the game.

(2) Course of the Game

You were almost trying to play the game without even knowing anything about it! Mind the following rules:

2.1 Course of a Turn

A turn consists of 4 phases: awakening, casting spells, travelling and retreating.

Phase 1: Awakening

If you are Day, you open your eyes to see an enormous sun in a blue sky. Perfect, your turn begins! If you are Night you open your eyes to see pretty much everything covered in darkness except for the light of the stars and that gorgeous moon right above you. Great, this is your starting signal! 5 billion years of the same rhythm, you won't soon break that habit! Day as well as Night lose their power after 12 hours of work and are then forced to rest up. This means every turn lasts for 12 hours. You don't have to spend all the hours by doing work; you could also choose to retreat and end your turn.

Phase 2: Casting Spells

The time has come to efficiently use the spells you have collected. Each spell is time-bound and sometimes other rules apply as well (for example: position on the board, whether the tile your pawn is standing on is a Day or a Night tile). Keep those 12 hours in mind.

To cast a spell you must be able to perform the entire text written on the card. For example: if the card tells you to turn over 2 tiles and you can only turn over 1 tile due to the situation, you can cast the spell but the card has no effect whatsoever.

If a spell has a duration/length of time of 'X' the meaning of that 'X' is explained further on.

Phase 3: Travelling

Your position on the board is very important! For instance, some spells only affect your direct surroundings. It's not a coincidence so many duels took place in the valley of emptiness! By travelling from one tile to the next in this magical area, you gain the knowledge to cast a certain spell. Travelling consumes time as we all know. To travel from tile to tile takes you 3 hours and, as said before, you receive a card for every tile you visit. You can visit a maximum of 4 tiles per turn if you decide to not cast any spells.

Phase 4: Retreating

In this phase Day/Night is so tired she has to retreat. It is time to rest, regain energy for the next turn and make plans. The magic of the valley of emptiness causes Day/Night to preserve the knowledge needed for up to 5 spells every time they go to sleep. The rest will be forgotten. It does not matter how many spells you collect during your turn because after the fourth phase you are forced to put your spells on the discard pile until you have 5 cards left in your hand. Nothing happens if you already have 5 cards or less in your hand. You don't lose any spells in this case.

2.2 To Build a Temple

The goal of the game is to build two temples. A temple consists of a pattern covering 9 adjoining tiles of the player's own type. As soon as a player has 9 or more adjoining tiles of his/her own type, 9 temple counters are to be placed upon those tiles. All of the tiles must lie next to each other. Diagonally adjoining tiles are not a part of the temple.

These tiles can not be turned over again for the rest of the course of the game! If a spell is used to create a temple consisting of more than 9 tiles, the player is allowed to choose 9 of those tiles to place temple counters on. Note that the 9 chosen tiles must form the temple together. The game is not over yet after the building of only one temple. The player finishes his/her turn and the game continues normally.

2.3 Spells

How spells work

Each spell works in its own unique way. The following clarifications of terms used on spell cards are needed to fully understand the meaning of a spell:

• Day: refers to the player who chose Day
• Night: refers to the player who chose Night
• Neutral Tile: a square with no tile on top of it
• Turn over: Day and Night tiles can be turned over. A Day tile will become a Night tile and vice versa. Neutral tiles can not be turned over. If a square is empty nothing happens.
• Change: If a square has a tile on it, turn it around. If there is no tile on the square – if it's a neutral tile – place a tile of your own type on it.
• Mystify: Day is able to use spells to mystify tiles.
  • Step 1: Day puts a number of counters on a Day tile, equal to the number mentioned on the card.
  • Step 2: at the beginning of each of Day's turns a counter must be removed from every tile covered with Mystify counters.
  • Step 3: when the last counter is removed from a tile and the tile is a Day tile, the tile changes into a Day temple tile and can no longer be changed into a Night tile.
  • Night has the possibility to end this process by turning the tile over before the last counter is removed from it. If Night turns a mystified tile over or changes such a tile into a Night tile, all Mystify counters are to be removed from it before turning it into a Night tile.
• Crystalize: Night is able to use spells to crystalize tiles.
  • Step 1: Night puts a counter on one or more tiles, depending on what the card says. The tiles on which the counters are placed can not be changed by either Day or Night for as long as the counters remain on them. At the same time Day can no longer travel over crystalized tiles. If Day's location tile is crystalized, Day is stuck in the crystal and can not travel to any other tiles.
  • Step 2: At the beginning of Night's turn all crystalize counters are to be removed.
• Location tile: refers to the tile on which a player's pawn is standing. Both players can stand on the same tile, so they can have the same location tile.
• Adjoining tiles: tiles that are directly connected to one another (not diagonally). One tile can be adjoined by a maximum of four tiles.
• Surrounding tiles: tiles that are surrounding a certain tile, including diagonally connected tiles. A tile can be surrounded by a maximum of 8 other tiles.
• Distance: If a card mentions the distance between two players, it refers to the lowest number of tiles a player has to travel in order to get to the other player's location tile. For example: at the beginning of the game the distance covers 12 tiles.
• Temple tile: a temple tile can no longer be turned over or changed. However you can still stand on them and travel over them.

2.4 The End of the Game

The goal of the game is to own two temples. The first player who manages to do this wins the game (note that you have to build two temples, not just have two temple tiles).

It could occur that due to the finishing of a temple or to the mystifying of a tile it becomes impossible for Night to build two temples; there simply isn't enough room. In this case the game continues as it would normally, since Night still has the opportunity to win the game by owning more tiles than Day at the end of the game. The game continues until one of the players' Book of Spells is completely empty or until Day finishes building her second temple.

It could occur that after a long battle you find that your Book of Spells no longer contains any spells. What should you do?

If you have an empty book of spells at the beginning of your turn you are allowed to put all of the used spells back into the Book. Don't forget to shuffle the cards. You can only do this if you:

1. own more temples than your opponent
2. own more tiles than your opponent (if both players own one temple)

If you don't own more temples/tiles than your opponent you can not refill your Book of Spells. You are forced to continue the game without gaining new spells. Travelling from one tile to another still takes you 3 hours, but you no longer receive any cards. The same applies to spells that allow you to draw a certain amount of cards. You can still use these spells but they don't have any effect. If you, on top of all of this, do not have any cards left in your hand or you don't have any cards that can get you more tiles, you have lost the game.