Pescado Novo
Pescado Novo Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 40 Fishing Cards (4 suits, numbered 1 to 10)
- 10 Special Cards
- 1 rules booklet
Players: 2-4. Ages: 10+. Playing time: 30 minutes.
Setup
A match of Pescado Novo can be played with 2 to 4 players. With 4 players, you may choose to play individually or in teams of two. When playing in teams, players alternate seats, sitting across from their partner, as in truco, buraco, and other similar games.
Separate the 10 special cards, identified by their purple border, and shuffle them. Separately, shuffle the remaining cards.
Randomly draw two cards from the common deck, without looking at them. Add two special cards, also without looking at them, to the remaining 38 common cards, forming the FISHING DECK, and reshuffle. Deal 3 cards to each player and reveal 4 cards from the FISHING DECK on the table.
The player to the left of whoever shuffled begins play.
Advanced Variant
Instead of drawing two cards from the common deck, draw four, and put four special cards in their place.
When dealing the cards, reveal 4 cards from the FISHING DECK on the table, and deal the entire remainder of the FISHING DECK to the players.
Playing
Pescado Novo is played over a series of turns. The first player begins, and play then proceeds clockwise.
On your turn, choose one of the cards in your hand and play it on the table. If, by adding the played card to one or more cards on the table, you reach a sum of exactly 15, you capture - fish - the card you played and all the cards that, together with it, add up to 15. If there is more than one combination of cards that adds up to 15 with the played card, the player chooses ONLY ONE of the combinations and takes those cards for themselves.
Example: A player plays a 4. On the table there is a 3, a 5, a 6, and an 8. In this case, the player takes the cards 4, 5, and 6, OR takes the cards 4, 3, and 8.
When fishing cards from the table, the player places them face down in front of themselves. They will count toward scoring at the end of the match.
If, while fishing cards from the table, the player takes ALL of the open cards on the table, leaving none for the next player, they make a PESCADO, which is worth one point at the end of the round. Mark a PESCADO by placing one of the fished cards face up in front of yourself, to represent the PESCADO.
Play then passes to the next player, clockwise.
When all players have played all the cards in their hand, 3 new cards are dealt to the players. This cycle repeats until the deck has no more cards.
When the deck has no more cards, the players have already played all their cards, and there are still cards on the table, whoever fished cards last takes all the remaining cards on the table.
The Round
When the deck runs out, the round comes to an end. Calculate the scores. If, adding up the scores from previous rounds, none of the players or teams has reached 12 points, start a new round. If at least one player or team has reached 12 points or more, the game ends and the player or team with the highest score wins.
Scoring
At the end of a round, score 1 victory point for the player or team who achieves each of these:
- Having the 7 of Tuna (Blue)
- Having the majority of Tuna (Blue) cards
- Having more cards than your opponents
- Having more 7s than your opponents
- 1 point per PESCADO
End of Game
At the end of the round in which one of the players or teams reaches 12 points, the game ends, and whoever has the most points in the total of all rounds played wins the match.
The Cards
The 10 special cards (purple border) work as follows:
- B - Skip your turn. This card is discarded and play passes to the next player. If a B card is revealed on the table during setup, discard it; the table will then have only 3 cards.
- * - Choose one open card on the table and take it. If that was the only card on the table, score a PESCADO. If a * card is played on an empty table, or is revealed during setup, treat it as a "0" (zero).
- 1/10 - This card counts as either a 1 card or a 10 card.
- J - Play this card on the table. You skip your turn, and the next player to take cards from the table also takes this card along with them. This card is worth -1 point at the end of the round for whoever fishes it.
- 0 - This card sums to 0 and is worth 1 point for whoever fishes it.
- 11 - Counts as a card of value 11.
- 12 - Counts as a card of value 12.
- 13 - Counts as a card of value 13.
- -2 - Counts as a card of value -2.
- -1 - Counts as a card of value -1.
Credits
- Game Design: Renato Simões
- Artist: Chris Borges
- Publishing: Geeks N' Orcs