Flotsam Fight
Flotsam Fight Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
How to Play "Flotsam Fight" — Overview
Oink Games' own official four-step summary graphic:
- The person who manages to load all of their treasure cards into the lifeboats wins this game.
- On the treasure cards you can find the value of the treasure and the numbers of the lifeboats you can load the treasure into (the value's factors).
- But you can only load your treasure into a lifeboat if your treasure's value is higher than the value of the treasure cards already loaded into that boat.
- Flotsam Fight is a card game in which you have to decide in which order you load your various treasure cards into the lifeboats — to be quicker than your opponents can be a real fight.
Components
- 64 Treasure cards, each showing a value and the numbers of the lifeboats it can be loaded into
- 8 Lifeboat tiles, numbered 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 — double-sided, one side white (inactive) and one side blue (active)
- Victory point tokens: +2, +1 and -1
Setup
Place the 8 Lifeboat tiles in the centre of the table, inactive (white) side up.
Shuffle the 64 Treasure cards. In a game with 2 to 5 players, deal 10 cards to each player. In a 6-player game, deal 8 cards to each player. Place the remaining cards face down next to the lifeboats — this is the draw pile.
The first player is whoever most recently travelled by sea.
How to Play
In each round, the lifeboats numbered 3 to 10 are available for loading Treasure cards, but the number of lifeboats you may actually use is set by the number of players: a 2-player game uses 2 lifeboats, a 3-player game uses 3, and so on up to a 6-player game, which uses 6. After the first round, each following round is started by the player who scored the fewest points in the previous round.
On their turn, each player either plays 1 card or passes. A player who passes is out of play until the turn comes all the way back around to them — unless every player but one has already passed.
A card may only be placed on a lifeboat whose number divides the card's value evenly. For example, card No. 35 may only be placed on lifeboat 7 or lifeboat 5, because 35 ÷ 7 = 5 (and 7 × 5 = 35). This sounds like it calls for constant mental arithmetic, but it doesn't: the edge of each card shows the numbers of every lifeboat it can legally be loaded into.
Treasure may only be loaded onto as many lifeboats as there are players. Once that many lifeboats already hold a card, no further lifeboat may be brought into play. When you place a card on a lifeboat, you activate that lifeboat by flipping it over (the white and blue sides both show the same number). One more requirement applies to every placement: the card you place must be higher in value than the card already sitting on that lifeboat.
Passing and Resetting the Lifeboats
Play continues until every player but one has said "Pass" on their turn. For example, in a 3-player game, once 2 players have passed, this happens. The one remaining player may still play a card — but only if it is the last card in their hand.
When this happens: remove all the Treasure cards from every lifeboat and set them aside, apart from the draw pile, then flip every lifeboat back to its inactive (white) side. Play resumes with the last player who played a card. Any player who is left holding exactly 1 card at this point draws 2 cards from the draw pile set aside during setup. If the draw pile is empty, shuffle the Treasure cards that were set aside from the lifeboats in previous resets to form a new draw pile.
Scoring a Round
A round ends the moment one player plays the last card from their hand. That player takes a +2 token.
The other players' placings are decided by the highest-value card still left in each of their hands — not by how many cards they are holding. Compare those highest cards: the player whose highest card has the lowest value takes a +1 token, and the player whose highest card has the highest value takes a -1 token. Players in between receive no token.
The next round is started by the player who took the -1 token.
End of the Game
The game ends after 3 rounds have been played. The player with the most points wins.
In case of a tie, the tied player with the most +2 tokens wins. If the tie still isn't broken, the tied player with the higher score in the final round wins.