Hand-to-Hand Wombat Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Contents
• Setup
  • 5½ Practice Building
• Let's Play: Building
  • First Time Playing? Easy Mode!
• Out of Time
• Scoring
• Winning
• Voting
• Wombat Roles
  • Good Team
  • Good Team then Bad Team
  • Bad Team
  • Not Sure How to Sabotage?
• Advanced Play
• More Game Modes

Contents

• 3 Wombat Towers (3 Spindles of 6 Stacked Bricks)
• Boundary (Box Lid)
• 10 Wombat Cards
• 6 Reference Cards
• Score Card
• 2 Point Trackers
• Comic Book

Players: 3-6. Ages 7+.

Original game design by Cory O'Brien. Developed by Exploding Kittens.

Setup

1. Assemble all 3 Spindles. Make sure these are secure—they should not come apart during the game.
   • A. Post: line up the post with the base bottom.
   • B. Press: press the post firmly into the base.
   • C. Repeat for all 3 Spindles.
2. Give each player a Reference Card.
3. Prepare a 90-second timer on a cellphone or other device. Make sure it has a loud sound or vibration to indicate when time's up because your eyes will be closed when the timer ends.
4. Place the Boundary (Box Lid) within reach of all players, set the Score Card off to one side, and place each Point Tracker on its start circle on the Score Card.
5. Place the Spindles upright inside the Boundary. Randomly scatter all the Bricks inside the Boundary around them.

5½ Practice Building

Before playing for the first time, practice building. Everyone covers their eyes with one hand. With your other hand, reach into the Boundary and cooperatively build all 3 Towers so that they look like the image below, with 6 Bricks on each tower going from largest at the bottom to smallest at the top. You can use the dots on the Bricks to figure out where they belong.

Be sure to communicate with each other while you're doing this.

It's harder than you'd think. When you've done it, continue reading.

6. Grab as many Wombat Cards as there are players—include 1 Wicked Wombat (Bad Team) and the rest Basic Wombats (Good Team). Put any extra Wombat Cards away. You won't need them.

   For Example: If you're playing with 4 players, you'll use 1 Wicked Wombat and 3 Basic Wombats. If you're playing with 5 players, use 1 Wicked Wombat and 4 Basic Wombats, and so on.

   What are all the other Wombat Cards for? After your first game, check out the "Advanced Play" section on the other side of these instructions to learn how to include the other Wombat Cards.

7. Shuffle the Wombat Cards from Step 6, then deal one face down to each player. You can look at and make claims about your own Wombat Card whenever you want, but keep it face down in front of you until the game is over so no one else can see it.

Let's Play: Building

First Time Playing? Easy Mode!

To make building a bit easier, place the largest Brick on each of the 3 Spindles before you begin. Continue playing with this advantage until the Good Team wins their first game.

Randomly scatter the Bricks inside the Boundary and set a timer for 90 seconds. Close your eyes and cover them with one hand, then start the timer.

When the timer starts, each player uses one hand to play. The Good Team builds the Towers by placing the Bricks in the correct order on each of the 3 Spindles from the largest at the bottom to the smallest at the top. The Bad Team secretly sabotages the Good Team's Towers. (Flip this page over to find tips on how to sabotage.)

You Can't:

• Open your eyes.
• Use more than one hand.
• Place Bricks or Spindles outside of the Boundary.
• Intentionally remove the base from the Spindles.

You Can:

• Communicate!
• Put your hand on top of a Tower to protect it.
• Hold onto Bricks in your hand.
• Take Bricks off Spindles.

Out of Time

When the timer runs out, all players immediately stop what they're doing, open their eyes, and begin Scoring.

Scoring

• If 3 Towers are complete, the Good Team scores 2 points.
• If 2 Towers are complete, the Good Team scores 1 point.
• If 2 Towers are incomplete, the Bad Team scores 1 point.
• If 3 Towers are incomplete, the Bad Team scores 2 points.

Completed Towers: A Tower is complete if all 6 differently sized Bricks are on the Spindle in the correct order from largest at the bottom to smallest at the top.

Only one team scores at the end of each round. Use the Point Trackers on the Score Card to keep track of the total score for the game.

Winning

If either team reaches 3 points total, they win! When a team wins, the game is over and you can reveal your roles to each other.

After Scoring, if no team has won yet, move on to Voting.

Voting

After Scoring, all players count down from 3 and point to the player they suspect is on the Bad Team. If you don't suspect anyone, point upward.

Your choice isn't final yet, this vote is just to give you something to talk about. Discuss your suspicions before the Final Vote.

When all players have discussed and are ready to make a Final Vote, count down from 3 again, then point to the person you want to vote out of the game. Point upward to vote for no one.

After the Final Vote:

• If more than half of the players still in the game vote for one person, that player is out of the game and can no longer participate in Building or Voting. You can still talk, but don't ruin the game. Do NOT reveal your role to the remaining players!
• If no player has the majority vote (or if there is a tie), no one is voted out of the game.

Reset the Spindles and Bricks, set the timer for 90 seconds, and begin another Building phase.

If the Bad Team is out, the game isn't over! Just because the Bad Team was voted out doesn't mean they can't win. Continue playing as normal through Building, Scoring, and Voting. The Good Team doesn't know they're the only ones left and might clash enough that the Bad Team still earns points and wins!

Wombat Roles

Remember, you can say anything you want about your role during the game, even if it's a lie!

Good Team

Basic Wombat (5) The Basic Wombat doesn't have any extra rules for picking up or placing Bricks.

Confident Wombat (1) The Confident Wombat can't remove Bricks from Spindles. Once a Brick has gone onto a Spindle (even if it's still in your hand), it needs to stay on the Spindle until someone else removes it. You can (and should!) ask other Wombats to help you when you need to take a Brick off a Spindle. You can, however, place Bricks anywhere—either on the Spindle, in the Boundary, or into another Wombat's hand.

Needy Wombat (1) The Needy Wombat can't pick up loose Bricks from the Boundary—you can only take Bricks from other Wombats or from Spindles. You can place Bricks back in the Boundary, onto Spindles, or give them to other Wombats.

Generous Wombat (1) The Generous Wombat can't place Bricks onto Spindles, so you need to focus on finding Bricks and giving them directly to other Wombats. You can take Bricks from anywhere in the Boundary, Spindles, or from other Wombats.

Good Team then Bad Team

Confused Wombat (1) The Confused Wombat begins the game on the Good Team, but permanently switches to the Bad Team the moment the Good Team has a total score of exactly 2 points. You win with the team you are currently on at the end of the game.

The Confused Wombat doesn't have any extra rules for picking up or placing Bricks.

Bad Team

Wicked Wombat (1) The Wicked Wombat doesn't have any extra rules for picking up or placing Bricks. Your goal is to keep the Good Team from completing Towers before the timer runs out by sabotaging their efforts.

Not Sure How to Sabotage?

Here are some tips to help you frustrate your fellow Wombats:

• Take correctly placed Bricks off the Towers.
• Put the wrong Bricks on the Towers.
• Hand other players the wrong Bricks when they ask for help.
• Ask for Bricks you don't really need.
• Hide Bricks in your hand so nobody can find them when they need them.
• Spin the Boundary around to disorient the other Wombats.
• Pretend to be a special role that you aren't.
• Talk real loud so nobody can tell what's going on.

If you're on the Good Team, try not to do these things and be very suspicious of anyone who does them!

Advanced Play

Now that you've played before, groups of 4 or more can use the other roles that you haven't played with yet!

1. Shuffle together a deck of 5 Good Team Cards by gathering 2 Basic Wombats, 1 Confident Wombat, 1 Needy Wombat, and 1 Generous Wombat.
2. Use this chart to assemble the Wombat Cards for your game based on the number of players, then shuffle the Wombat Cards and deal 1 to each player. These are chosen secretly and randomly from the 5-card deck you built in Step 1. Put away any left over.

Players	Wicked Wombats	Confused Wombats	Good Team Cards
4	1	0	3
5	1	1	3
6	1	1	4

Remember, you can say anything you want about your role during the game, even if it's a lie!

More Game Modes

Interested in mixing things up even more? Visit www.handtohandwombat.com/how to find ideas for wild new ways to play with your fellow Wombats.

© Exploding Kittens 2022