Egocentric World Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal
• Setup
  • Discarding or playing a card
• Gameplay
• Special Abilities
• Solo Mod
  • Citybot's turn
  • Citybots' special abilities
  • Player's special abilities

Goal

Each player controls a city, represented by her hand of cards. Each card has an Egocentrism value, and sometimes a special ability.

The goal of each player is to finish the game with the smaller Egocentrism score. However, cards with high Egocentrism give advantages during the game. One game can be composed of one or several rounds.

Setup

At the beginning of each round, shuffle the 60 cards and form a deck face down at the center of the table. Flip the first card to initiate a discard pile.

At the beginning of each round, distribute 5 cards to each player to compose her hand. One player can't look at the cards of the other players.

When the deck is empty, shuffle the discard pile and place it face down to form a new deck.

Players then take turns clockwise.

For the first round, randomly pick the first player. In each following round, the first player is the one with the highest score at the end of the previous round. Settle draws randomly.

Discarding or playing a card

A card thrown into the discard pile is discarded when it came directly from the deck, or played when it came from the hand of a player.

A discarded card is put face up on the discard pile without triggering its special ability.

A played card is put face up on the discard pile and the player who played it can eventually trigger its special ability.

Gameplay

During your turn, you must complete one of the following actions:

• Draw and look secretly at the first card from the deck. Then you must EITHER discard it, OR keep it to replace one card from your hand. The replaced card is then played.
• Take the first card from the discard pile to replace one card from your hand. The replaced card is then played.
• Reveal a card from your hand of the same value as the first card on the discard pile and play it.
• Reveal a pair of cards with the same value from your hand and play one of the two. The other one stays in your hand.
• Say "STOP" so the round will end just before your next turn starts.

A round ends immediately if a player has no more cards in hand.

When a round ends, each player sums up the Egocentrism values in her hand. The player with the lowest score wins.

During a game with multiple rounds, each player adds up her scores at each round. Rounds are played until one player reaches 50. Then, the player with the lowest total wins.

Special Abilities

When a card is played, the player playing it decides if its special ability is triggered or not.

• Hourglass icon — You can play another turn after this one.
• Two players icon — Designate two players (you can be one of them) and exchange two cards from their hands. In the hand of each player, you can either take a card secretly -chosen freely if it is in your hand or randomly picked in another player's hand- or announce a specific value. If the player has a card with this value, she must exchange it. If you announce a wrong value for one or both players, the exchange is cancelled and you must draw and add to your hand a card as a penalty.
• Magnifying-glass icon — Designate a player and look secretly at all the cards in her hand.
• Envelope icon — This special ability is not activated when the card is played. At the moment another player designates you to resolve special abilities (two players icon or magnifying-glass icon), you can reveal and play this card immediately and cancel the effect of this special ability.
• "7 8 9" icon — During your turn, when this card is in your hand or on top of the discard pile, you can use it as if it has a value of 7, 8 or 9.

Solo Mod

Instead of confronting players, you compete two Citybots, one on your left and one on your right. Those are considered players for game purposes. All usual rules apply, with the few exceptions below:

• For each game, set a difficulty level of 1, 2 or 3. At the end of each round, before calculating scores, if the difficulty is 2, each Citybot removes its card with the lowest value. If difficulty is 3, each Citybot removes its card with the highest value.
• During the first round, the first player is the Citybot on your left.
• A Citybot's hand is composed of a pile of hidden cards, composed of 5 cards at the beginning of a round, and of visible cards, revealed in the course of the game. Cards retrieved by a Citybot during the game are added to its visible cards.

Citybot's turn

To resolve a Citybot's turn, proceed to the following steps in the given order, until its turn ends:

1. If all its cards are visible and its Egocentrism total is lower than yours, the Citybot says "STOP" and its turn ends.
2. If not all its cards are visible, it reveals the first card of its pile.
3. If not all its cards are visible and none has a value superior to 7, it reveals the next card of its pile.
4. If one of its visible cards has the same value as the one on top of the discard pile, the Citybot plays this card and its turn ends.
5. If at least two of its visible cards have the same value, the Citybot plays one of those cards (the highest value if there are several pairs visible) and its turn ends.
6. If the highest value among its visible cards is superior to the one on top of the discard pile, the Citybot takes the latter card, plays its card with the highest value and its turn ends.
7. If its turn has not ended yet, the Citybot draws a card from the deck and reveals it.
8. If the highest value among its visible cards is superior to the drawn card, the Citybot takes the latter card, plays its card with the highest value and its turn ends.
9. In any other case, the drawn card is discarded and the Citybot's turn ends.

Citybots' special abilities

When a Citybot plays a card with a special ability, the following rules apply:

• Hourglass icon — The Citybot takes another turn after this one.
• Two players icon — The Citybot reveals and exchanges the first card of its pile with the card having the lowest value among yours. If all its cards are visible, the Citybot exchanges its card with the highest value with the card having the lowest value among yours.
• Magnifying-glass icon — All cards still hidden into the other Citybot's pile are revealed.
• Envelope icon — You can't use the special abilities (magnifying-glass icon or two players icon) against a Citybot having a 9 card visible. If one or more 9 cards are revealed from a Citybot's pile when using the special ability (two players icon), this Citybot immediately plays one of those cards.
• "7 8 9" icon — During steps 4 and 5 of a Citybot's turn, when this card is among its visible cards or on top of the discard pile, it counts as having the values 7, 8 and 9. If the Citybot can play a 7 or 9 card during step 4, it won't use this special ability.

Player's special abilities

When you play a card with a special ability, the following rules apply:

• Hourglass icon — You can play another turn after this one.
• Two players icon — Exchange one of your cards with one from a Citybot, one of its visible cards or the one on top of its pile (the card you give remains visible). OR exchange two visible cards of two different Citybots.
• Magnifying-glass icon — Reveal all cards still hidden into the Citybot's pile of your choice.
• Envelope icon — This special ability is not activated when the card is played. When a Citybot uses the special ability (two players icon), you can immediately play this card and cancel this special ability.
• "7 8 9" icon — During your turn, when this card is in your hand or on top of the discard pile, you can use it as if it has a value of 7, 8 or 9.