SpongeBob SquarePants: Plankton Rising Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Component Notes
• Set Up
• Game Play
  • Solo Variant
  • Turn Order Summary
  • 1. Place Team Token
  • 2. Flip and Resolve a Plankton Card
  • 3. Roll and Assign Friend Dice
  • 4. Resolve Friend Dice and End Turn
• End of the Game
• Additional Rules
  • Time (clock icon)
  • Friends
  • Villains
  • Orders
  • Spatula Tokens (spatula icon)
  • The Krabby Patty Board
• Game Play Difficulty Variants
  • Friend Dice Facings
  • Icon Key
• Credits

Components

• 1 Krusty Krab Game Board
• 10 Friend Dice
• 1 Chum Bucket Plankton Figure
• 6 Krabby Patty Ingredient Tiles
• 4 Team Tokens
• 30 Spatula Tokens
• 30 Theft Counters
• 60 Time Counters
• 4 Team Home Base Cards
• 48 Krusty Krab Cards, including Friends, Orders & Villains
• 18 Plankton Action Cards
• 1 Instruction Manual

Component Notes

Krusty Krab Cards — includes Orders, Villains, and four types of Friends: SpongeBob SquarePants, Patrick Star, Squidward Tentacles, and Mr. Krabs. Each Friend card shows a warning icon with a condition (for example, "If you have at least 1 other Friend, +1 die") and an ability.

Team Home Base Cards — indicates the starting dice pool, Team Leader (starting Friend) and ability for that team. For example, Squidward's House shows a dice pool of two red dice and one green (Teamwork) die, with abilities keyed to the Teamwork symbol: one lets a player remove a Time Counter from any Friend, and another (unlocked by rolling 3 or more Teamwork symbols on the first roll) lets a player shuffle a Friend back into the Krusty Krab deck.

Chum Bucket Plankton Figure — stands atop the Chum Bucket and tracks Plankton's progress.

Plankton Action Cards — two-sided cards (for example, one side reads "Kitchen," the other "Dining Room") that determine where Plankton acts.

Team Tokens — one per team, marked with different icons (an arm-wrestling icon, a trophy icon, a "BFF" heart icon, and a guitar icon).

Friend Dice — ten shared dice, in four colors (yellow, orange, red, and blue), each shared amongst all players.

Spatula Tokens — shown with a spatula icon.

Theft Counters — orange cubes, shown with a star icon.

Time Counters — white cubes, shown with a clock icon.

Krusty Krab Game Board — depicts the Krusty Krab restaurant, divided into a Dining Room (with several table icons) and a Kitchen.

Krabby Patty Ingredient Tiles — six tiles that together form a complete Krabby Patty (bun, and five filling layers). Each tile has a food side and a "computer" side (the side Plankton wants to see, for analyzing in his lab).

Set Up

A. Lay out the Krabby Patty Ingredient tiles to form a complete Patty. Tiles should be placed with the computer side face-down. Place the Theft counters nearby.

B. Place all the dice, the Time Counters and the Spatula Tokens (face-down) within easy reach of all players. Note: Dice are shared amongst all players.

C. Place the Krusty Krab game board between the players with the Plankton Chum Bucket figure nearby.

D. Shuffle the Plankton cards and place them in a pile face-down near the game board.

E. Each player chooses a team and collects the matching Home Base Card (or assign at random) as well as the matching Team Deployment Token. The card indicates that player's starting dice pool as well as the starting Friend (team leader) for that team, which each player should collect from the Krusty Krab card deck.

F. Shuffle all of the other Krusty Krab Cards (all remaining Friends, Orders and Villains with matching card backs), into a deck and place it near game board.

    a. Deal out the top eight cards face-up, placing 4 near the Kitchen and 4 near the Dining Room sides of the game board.

Game Play

The player who most recently went swimming goes first, and play proceeds clockwise.

Solo Variant

Plankton Rising can be played as a solo experience. In order to take on Plankton alone, start the game by selecting two starting teams and starting Friends, as you would in a 2-player game. Alternate turns between the two chosen teams, following the rules as normal.

Turn Order Summary

This also appears on the back of each Team Home Base card as a reminder.

1. Place Team Token in a location.
2. Flip and resolve a Plankton Card.
3. Roll and assign Friend Dice.
4. Resolve Friend Dice and Finish Turn.

1. Place Team Token

The active player chooses where to send their Friends, by placing their Team Token in either the Kitchen or the Dining Room of the Krusty Krab. During their turn players can only interact with the four face-up cards in their location and with the Friends on their team (who are also in the chosen location), unless an ability says otherwise.

2. Flip and Resolve a Plankton Card

Plankton is doing his best to disrupt business at the Krusty Krab. To do so he will bother customers, interrupt Orders and try to steal pieces of a Krabby Patty to analyze in his lab. The Plankton Cards track his progress, and each card shows 1 Ingredient and 1 location.

Reveal the top card of the Plankton deck.

Theft (theft counter icon): Add 1 Theft Token to a theft space on the tile for the Ingredient shown.

If all of the Theft spaces on an Ingredient are full, no more tokens can be added to this Ingredient. If the spaces are still full at the end of the turn, the Ingredient will be flipped over showing the Plankton has stolen it and analyzed it in his computer (see Krabby Patty on page 11).

Time icon: cannot be removed this turn.

If the Ingredient shown on the Plankton Card was previously turned over to the computer side do not add a Theft Counter to it. Instead, read the text on the Ingredient Tile and complete the indicated action for Plankton.

Plankton Movement

Next move the Chum Bucket Plankton Figure to the indicated location; Kitchen, Dining Room or Chum Bucket. If the location is the Chum Bucket, set the piece to the side. This represents Plankton returning to his restaurant to work on his plans.

Plankton will then interfere with all of the Friends in his current location. Add a time counter to each of them (see Time). This includes Friends on the active player's team if their team (as indicated by their Team token) is in the same location as Plankton.

Plankton will also activate the abilities on any Order and Villain cards in his location (see Villains and Orders). This usually results in more Time being applied to Friends, Time being removed from Villains or other set-backs for the players. If an Order, Villain or Ingredient ability requires players to return cards in play to the deck this is done immediately when instructed. However, the cards are not replaced until after all of the Plankton effects have been resolved.

Example: Plankton activates Squilliam's abilities because they are both in the Krusty Krab Kitchen.

3. Roll and Assign Friend Dice

After resolving the Plankton card, the active player then collects and rolls their Friend Dice pool (the three dice indicated on their Team Home Base Card plus any extra dice from Friend card abilities and/or Spatula Tokens).

The Friend Dice have different combinations of symbols representing the four qualities needed to keep the Krusty Krab running smoothly. These symbols are: FRIENDSHIP (heart icon), EFFORT (orange triangle icon), TEAMWORK (green shield icon), and FUN (blue flower icon). Each die is stronger in one of the symbols, including a double symbol (2) which counts as 2 of that icon. (See page 12 for a visual guide to Friend Dice face combinations.)

After rolling their dice, the active player reviews the result, and chooses to assign at least one die (but may assign more) to match the symbols of:

A. characters in their location, to either make a new Friend, complete an Order and/or attack a Villain

B. a character ability for a Friend already on their team

C. the ability on their team card

If a player cannot or does not want to assign any dice for a roll, they must select and set aside one die from their dice pool (for the turn).

The player then rolls the remaining dice in their pool, attempting to match more symbols. Usually, they will want it to be the same card(s) they assigned dice to for their first roll, but can choose another in their location.

If a player matches all the symbols on a Friend card they will add it to their team at the end of the turn. If they match all of the symbols on a Villain Card they will add a time token to the Villain. If they match all of the symbols on an Order card they will complete the Order for a hungry customer!

Dice assigned to Friends on a player's team may be used to activate these abilities immediately! For example, if a player assigns a die to use a Friend on their team with an ability that allows them to remove a Time Counter from a Friend, they may do so immediately. Some abilities on Friend cards do not have dice symbols next to them. This means they may be used once per turn without assigning dice to activate them.

Abilities on Team Home Base cards and Friend cards may only be used once per turn after all of the Plankton effects have been resolved.

4. Resolve Friend Dice and End Turn

A player's turn ends when they have used or discarded all of their dice (or it becomes impossible to successfully assign dice to at least one available card).

Friends: If a player assigned dice to match ALL of the symbols on a Friend Card, they have successfully made a new Friend! They add that Friend to their team removing any Time Counters from them.

Villains: If a player assigned dice to match ALL of the symbols on a Villain Card they have successfully disrupted that Villain's plans. Add a Time Counter to the Villain, AND the active player gains a Spatula Token for each Time Counter added (see Villains and Time).

Orders: If a player assigned dice to match ALL of the symbols on an Order Card they have successfully made the requested food for that Order. The player collects the Order Card, placing it sideways in their player area.

All dice are then returned to the pool.

Krabby Patty: Check the Krabby Patty Ingredient tiles. If all of the Theft spaces on any Ingredient are filled with Theft Counters, remove the counters and flip the tile over to reveal the computer analysis side. This shows that Plankton has stolen that Ingredient and studied it.

Any Friends and Villains with full Time tracks are then placed to the side of the play area in a discard pile (see Time for more details).

Any spaces in the Dining Room and Kitchen created by making Friends and removing timed-out Friends and Villains are filled with the top card(s) from the Krusty Krab deck. Return all dice to the supply. Then it is the next player's turn, proceeding clockwise.

Play continues in this manner with the active player assigning their Team token, revealing and resolving a Plankton Card and then rolling their team's dice pool, as they attempt to make Friends, complete Orders and stop Villains. As players add new Friends to their team, they will also gain new abilities, including rolling additional dice, changing and re-rolling dice, and removing Time and Theft tokens.

See pages 10 & 11 for more details on Friends, Orders, Time, Villains, Spatula Tokens, and the Krabby Patty board.

End of the Game

If the players can complete seven customer Orders before Plankton carries out his plans they will win! Difficulty can be adjusted to make the game easier or more difficult. For an expert game try completing all 11 Orders before Plankton steals the Krabby Patty. For an easier game remove some or all of the Villain Cards from the deck. More details on adjusting difficulty can be found on Page 12 of the rulebook.

Players can lose the game in a few different ways, as follows:

1. If Plankton steals all 6 parts of the Krabby Patty, by filling them with Theft Tokens and turning them to the computer analysis side.
2. If collectively ten (or more) Friends are defeated, all players lose, as there are not enough customers and staff left to keep the Krusty Krab in business.
3. If any one player has all the Friends on their team defeated, all players lose.

Note: If players were to both win and lose the game at the same time (for example: Plankton steals the last piece of a Krabby Patty on the same turn that players complete the last Order) the players win!

Additional Rules

Time (clock icon)

Each Friend and Villain has an amount of Time they will stay in play, as indicated by the Time Counter spaces on the upper right-hand side of their cards. Various game actions will cause Time Counters to be added to Friends and Villains.

When adding Time to characters, place Time Counters on empty spaces on their character card. To add Time Counters to Villains, players must roll and assign dice matching the symbols on the Villain Card (see Villains below).

Note: The number of Time spaces on each character is limited. If all of the Time spaces on a character card are filled they may not take additional Time tokens.

At the end of each turn, if all of the Time counter spaces on a character are filled, that character is defeated and placed in the discard pile. Remember, if 10 or more Friends are defeated, players will lose the game.

Some abilities allow players to give more Time to Friends by removing Time Counters. This may require assigning a die to activate the ability.

Friends

All Friends have a special ability listed on their card. Some add more dice to a player's dice pool. Others allow a player to change the value of a die or re-roll dice before assigning dice. Additionally, some Friends may be able to draw Spatula Tokens, or remove Time from Friends or Theft Counters from Ingredients. Note that some character abilities require a player to assign a specific Symbol from their dice pool to use the ability. These abilities are resolved immediately when the matching dice are assigned. Remember, dice can only be assigned to use these abilities once on a player's turn.

Friend abilities that allow a player to change a certain symbol to a different die face may be used to change both the single and double version of that symbol to any other die face available on that die.

A Friend card shows:

A. Friend Type — this icon indicates the Friend's type: Fun, Friendship, Teamwork or Effort. Some game events will effect specific types of Friends, as indicated by this icon.

B. Time Capacity — this indicates how many Time Counters a Friend can have before being defeated (see Time above).

C. Friend Quality Symbols — this is the required set of symbols that have to be rolled and assigned to the card to make this new friend and add it to a player's team.

D. Friend Ability

Villains

The Krusty Krab Card deck includes Villains like DoodleBob and Bubble Bass. During the game, if Plankton is in the same location as a Villain, he will activate the ability listed on the Villain card.

To defeat Villains, players must assign Friend Dice to match all of the Symbols shown on the Villain Card. Each time they do so they will add one Time Counter to the Villain Card.

Note: Only one Time Counter may be added to each Villain per turn.

Players gain one Spatula Token for each Time Counter they add to a Villain. When all of the Time spaces on a Villain Card have been filled it is defeated and discarded at the end of the turn.

Example: DoodleBob's card reads: "If Plankton is present you may not assign dice to use your Friends' abilities this turn."

Orders

The Krusty Krab Card deck includes Orders placed by hungry Krusty Krab customers. Players must complete these Orders to win the game. During the game, if Plankton is in the same location as an Order, he will activate the ability listed on the Order card.

To complete Orders, players must assign Friend Dice to match the Symbols shown on the Order card. If a player matches all of the symbols on the Order card they will collect it at the end of the turn, and should place it, turned sideways, in front of their Friend cards to help all players keep track of the total number of completed Orders.

Players gain one Spatula Token for each Order Card they complete.

Example: The Krabby Patty Order card reads: "If Plankton is present, shuffle the Plankton cards."

Spatula Tokens (spatula icon)

For each Time Counter a player adds to a Villain and for each completed Order, they draw a Spatula Token. Spatula Tokens have a variety of effects, and may be used on ANY player's turn except for the turn on which they are drawn. Players can assist one another in their efforts by sharing tokens!

Spatula Tokens may let a player roll an extra Friend Die, remove Time or Theft Counters, or represent Friend Dice symbols, (which can be assigned to a card, for recruiting Friends, using Friend abilities, or attacking Villains (in addition to assigning dice).

A player can wait until after rolling and assigning Friend Dice before deciding if and how to use Spatula tokens. Once used, Spatula Tokens are discarded. If the supply is depleted turn all discarded Spatula tokens face-down and shuffle them to create a new draw pile.

Example Spatula Token effects: a BFF (Friendship) die-symbol token; a Fun die-symbol token; "Remove 1 Time Counter from 2 Friends"; "Remove 1 Theft Counter from any Ingredient."

The Krabby Patty Board

Plankton is trying to steal all six parts of a Krabby Patty to analyze in his laboratory. Each time a Plankton Card is revealed one Theft Token will be added to one of the spaces on the Ingredient shown on the card. At the end of each player's turn, check to see if there are 5 Theft Tokens on any Ingredient. If so, Plankton has successfully stolen that piece of a Krabby Patty. Remove all of the Theft Tokens and turn the Ingredient Tile over to show the computer analysis side. From now on, each time a Plankton card shows this Ingredient the text on the computerized side of the tile is activated instead of adding Theft counters! These effects DO NOT trigger on the turn the Ingredient is stolen — only on future turns when the Plankton card shows these Ingredients.

Example: when 5 Theft Tokens are on any Ingredient, turn the tile over. One Ingredient's computer side reads: "Add 1 Time Counter to each Friend on your team."

Game Play Difficulty Variants

As described in the End of the Game section on page 9 there are three ways that players lose the game:

1. Plankton steals all six parts of the Krabby Patty, or
2. ten or more Friends are defeated, or
3. any one player has all the Friends on their team defeated.

For players' first game it is recommended that seven of the eleven Orders must be completed before any one of the above conditions is met in order to win the game. For a more challenging game, increase the number of Orders that must be completed to win to 8, 9, 10 or even all 11!

To decrease the difficulty of the game we recommend playing with only some or none of the Villain cards in the game, this will decrease the ways in which Plankton can disrupt the players, making it easier to focus on completing Orders and making Friends.

Friend Dice Facings

The Friend Dice are printed with combinations of the four symbols: EFFORT (orange triangle), FRIENDSHIP/BFF (red heart), TEAMWORK (green shield/trophy), and FUN (blue flower). Each face may show a single symbol or a double (2) version of a symbol, which counts as 2 of that icon. The four dice colors (yellow, red, green, blue) are each strongest in a different symbol, but every die carries a mix of all four symbol types across its faces.

Icon Key

• Time Counter — clock icon
• Theft Counter — orange starburst icon
• Spatula Token — spatula icon

Credits

Based on the RISING game mechanic previously created by USAopoly, Inc.

Special Thanks to: Emily Barnes (Product Management), Summer Furzer (Graphic Design and Illustrations), Rachel McIntyre (3D Sculptor), Pat Marino (Content Enhancement)

The Op logo and USAOPOLY are trademarks of USAopoly, Inc. © 2020 USAopoly, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Designed and manufactured by USAopoly, Inc. 5999 Avenida Encinas, Ste. 150, Carlsbad, CA 92008.

© 2020 Viacom International Inc. All Rights Reserved. Nickelodeon, SpongeBob SquarePants and all related titles, logos and characters are trademarks of Viacom International Inc. SpongeBob SquarePants created by Stephen Hillenburg.

Made in China. Colors & parts may vary from those pictured. Warning: Choking hazard — contains small parts. Not suitable for children under 36 months.

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