Gachapon Trick
Gachapon Trick Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 49 Toy Cards — 7 colors, 7 ranks in each (¥200, ¥300, ¥400, ¥500, ¥600, ¥700, ¥800); 7 different toy types, one in each cost, one in each color (see the Deck Makeup chart)
- 1 Refund Card
Please provide your own money tokens.
The 7 toy types pictured on the cards are: a rhino, a robot, a bottle-shaped figure, a masked cat, a motorcycle, an elephant, and a frog seated on a cushion. Each toy type appears exactly once in each color and exactly once at each cost.
Setup
Shuffle the 49 Toy Cards and deal 10 to each player (12 cards if playing with 3 players).
Shuffle the Refund Card with the remaining Toy Cards and place them in a face down stack in the center of the table.
Give each player ¥5000 (use poker chips or smart chips or whatever you have available).
Game Play
In Gachapon Trick, the lead player may play any card they choose. The next player must follow that suit if they can, but may play any suit if they cannot.
The following players must follow any of the suits already played if possible.
The highest rank of the most represented suit wins the trick. If there is a tie for the most represented suit, the higher rank wins. If there is still a tie, the later played of the tied cards wins.
The winning player MUST purchase at least one card from the trick, but MAY buy as many as they want. The winner places the cards they purchased face up in front of themself. The winner MAY also buy the top card of the deck for ¥500 - only once per trick.
The winner of the previous trick then leads to the next trick.
If a player has ¥0 or ¥100 at the end of their turn, they are out of the round and cannot play anymore. Discard remaining cards in hand. Players out of play ARE still eligible to win. If a player is out of the round but it's their turn to lead, it passes to the next player clockwise. If there is only one player left, they may choose to buy whatever is left in their hand, and optionally one card from the top of the deck.
If you win a trick and cannot afford any of the cards on offer, the win transfers to next highest in winning suit majority or next highest card played if there is no suit majority. That player must buy one of the cards played, may buy more, and may buy from the top of the deck.
If you receive the Refund Card when purchasing a random card, you keep it until the end of the round and can use it to get money back equal to the value of any card in your collection by discarding both the Refund Card and the Toy Card. If it is not used, it has no value.
Deck Makeup
The 49 Toy Cards are arranged 7 costs wide (¥800, ¥700, ¥600, ¥500, ¥400, ¥300, ¥200) by 7 colors deep, with each of the 7 toy types (rhino, robot, bottle-shaped figure, masked cat, motorcycle, elephant, seated frog) appearing exactly once in each cost column and exactly once in each color row.
Set Collection Scoring
| Copies collected | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points | 1 | 4 | 9 | 16 | 25 | 36 | 49 |
Round End
Once all ten tricks (or 12 in a 3p game) have been played, each player scores each set of toys they collected (see the Set Collection Scoring chart - the top row is the number of the same toy, the bottom row is points).
You also gain 1 point for every ¥200 you did not spend. If you went the whole round without spending any money, you earn an additional 5 points for resisting the lure of the Gachapon parlor entirely!
Write down the scores and make sure each player has ¥5000 again. Set up the deck using the same procedure as at the beginning of the game. The player with the most points leads the first trick in the next round. If tied for the most points, play rock paper scissors to decide who leads.
Game End
The game ends after 3 rounds and whoever has the most points wins. If tied, whoever has the most money left wins.
Changes for 2 Players
Deal 10 card hands and 10 card draw piles to both players.
Start with ¥8000 instead of ¥5000.
Players take turns playing one card into the trick until there are 4 cards played. Both players draw 2 from their draw pile (until the deck runs out, then just keep playing out the hand).
Instead of the trick winner leading the next trick, alternate the lead for every trick.