Penk! Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Set Up
• Gameplay
  • 1. Rolling the Dice
  • 2. Marking the Cells
  • Jolly
  • Completing a Row or a Column
  • Failing a Roll
• End of the Game
• Score

Set Up

Each player takes a scheme sheet. Everybody will need a pencil or a pen. Place the 6 dice in the middle of the table.

Randomly choose the first player who will mark the ! symbol on their scheme sheet.

Gameplay

Players will take their turns one after the other clockwise starting from the first player. Each turn consists of 2 phases: Rolling the dice and Marking the cells.

1. Rolling the Dice

Take all 6 dice and roll them! After you've done this you can reroll any number of dice up to two times. Each time you decide to reroll, choose the dice you prefer: the second time you reroll, you can decide to reroll dice you have not rerolled the first time.

Example: Riccardo rolls his dice 3 times.

• 1st result: some dice are marked keep and the others reroll.
• 2nd result: the dice kept the first time are marked kept; of the rerolled dice, some are marked keep and the rest reroll.
• Final result: the dice shown are the ones he must keep.

2. Marking the Cells

The grid is divided into 25 cells: the die icon on the top of the columns shows the die type required to mark a cell on that column. The number of dice icons on the left of the grid shows the number of dice required to mark a cell on that row. The numbers inside the cells represent their value at the end of the game (you will score that value only if there are 3 marked cells in the same row or column).

To mark a cell you need to create a combination of dice from the ones you rolled. Marking a cell means to draw a circle around the number in the cell in order to make it visible.

Example: given the previous result, Riccardo decides to use the following combinations to mark the cells below. (The printed example is a diagram of the grid with the die icons across the top, the required-dice icons down the left, and the dice combinations drawn as dotted lines to the cells they mark.)

You can mark 3 cells per turn at best. You can freely decide how to divide the dice you rolled to create the combinations you prefer (you can use them all or just some of them). Dice already used for a combination cannot be used in another combination of dice.

Example: given the result in the previous example, Riccardo could have divided the dice in different combinations to mark, for example, three cells (shown as combinations of the rolled dice), without using the die showing one pip. (The printed example shows the three combinations as dice icons next to the grid.)

Jolly

Jolly can be used to substitute any other dice type with the following restrictions: you cannot use a jolly alone and jolly can be used only once in a combination, which means that jolly must be used together with other dice results.

Example: Riccardo got the following result (five dice: three dice showing numbers and two jolly dice) and he can thus get several combinations.

• Allowed: a combination of two dice made of one jolly and one other die.
• Allowed: a combination of several dice made of one jolly and other dice of the same type.
• Not allowed: a combination that uses two jolly dice.
• Not allowed: a combination made of a jolly alone.

Completing a Row or a Column

When you mark all the cells on a row or column, you scored a Penk! All other players must block that row or column on their scheme sheet. To do so, they draw an X on every clear cell in that row or column (don't draw an X on the cells you have already marked). When an X is present on a cell, that cell is eliminated and cannot be marked anymore.

Example: Riccardo completes the first row on his scheme sheet and Floriana deletes the empty cells on the same row on his own scheme sheet.

Failing a Roll

If you cannot mark any cell after you rolled (because all possible combinations would make you mark cells that have already been marked or that have already been eliminated), you must eliminate all the clear cells of a column (not a row) of your choice where you still have clear cells. You must choose a row or a column where at least one clear cell is present.

Example: Riccardo rolls the dice 3 times, but he does not get useful combinations to mark any cell. He chooses to eliminate the clear cells on the column where he has already marked 3 cells that will score him points.

End of the Game

The game ends when any of the player completes 2 columns which means that there are no clear cells in those columns. It is not important how cells are filled, they can both be eliminated or marked.

When this condition occurs, all players take their last turn until the first player (in this way all players play the same number of turns). Then, you can check the score.

Score

Each player sums up the values of all marked cells in each row and column where at least 3 cells have been marked. This means that rows or columns where you have drawn only two circles, won't make you gain points! Sum the points of all rows and columns. The player with more points wins the game.

Example: the first row on Riccardo's scheme sheet has 4 marked cells. This row's score is the sum of the numbers in all the marked cells on that row.

Riccardo's final score is the sum of each row and column score.