The Abandons Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Objective
• Components & Setup
• How to Play
• Miscellaneous Rules & Notes
• Special Cards
• Game End
• For More of a Challenge

Objective

In The Abandons, you start at the entrance to the abandoned, yet living labyrinth and hope to make it to the final card, the exit, by drawing a card each turn and navigating your way to the end, the exit. Along the way you may encounter surprises or items to help you. But don't run into a dead end, because you might just end up dead!

As you draw passages, you are often presented with a choice of which path to take. While it may be a natural choice to hurry through the cards as soon as you can, it doesn't always end well. In addition, you should try to beat your high score by pressing-your-luck and intentionally exploring more passage cards than you need to. The more passages you explore and fewer item cards you use, the more points you're awarded! Are you ready?

Are you ready? The labyrinth is waiting...

Components & Setup

• This rulebook
• 50 cards (38 passages, 1 entrance, 1 exit, 2 stairs, 2 collapse, 6 item)

Setup

1. Set aside the entrance and exit cards.
2. Shuffle the remainder 48 cards and place them face-down, within easy reach, to form a draw deck.
3. Turn the exit card face-down and place it at the bottom of the draw deck.
4. Place the entrance card in front of you, face-up, with the stairs closest to you and the doorway farthest from you.
5. You're ready to begin your descent into the labyrinth! Begin by drawing your first card. If the card is a passage, place the opening with the pointing hand, adjacent to the open door of the entrance card. If the card is not a passage card, see the section, Special Cards.

How to Play

Decide on an open path to move forward

• Draw the number of cards as indicated by the number of card icons (the card-count symbol shown at the open door) you wish to take.

• As you are drawing, do not look at the cards; discard the cards face-down as you draw them.

• When you draw your last card, reveal it.

• If the card is a passage, place it adjacent to the opening that you decided to take.

• Once a card is played, it cannot be moved unless by the use of special cards.

• If the card is not a passage, see the section, Special Cards.

• In the following example, you chose to go right (the card-count symbol shows 2). You drew 2 cards. The first card you did not look at and immediately discarded. The second card you looked at - it was a passage card; you laid it down so the pointing finger that indicates the forward direction is adjacent to the open door you left from.

• In the following example, you chose to move left (the card-count symbol shows 1). You drew 1 card and immediately played it down with the finger indicating the forward direction. You now choose which direction you go, north or west.

• Always move forward, the pointing finger will guide you. The exception to the rule is if you've run into a dead end (see Dead Ends).

Dead Ends

As you lay down passage cards, eventually you're going to run into a dead end, or a path will run into itself, creating a dead end. When you hit a dead end, you may attempt to go back to the most recent intersection. If there's an opening at the intersection, you may use one of the intersection's open paths and continue on your way. However, if your last played intersection does not give you a way to continue moving forward, you lose.

• Exceptions: If you hit a dead end before you draw your first intersection, just discard that dead end card and keep drawing.
• If you draw a dead end after you used the Stairs but before your first intersection has been played, you lose!

Miscellaneous Rules & Notes

• It's the last played intersection that's important, even if it has all closed paths. An Intersection is defined as enough openings that gives the player a choice of paths to take.
• If you create a loop, you move forward as normal but you go out an entrance of your choosing at the first intersection you come to that has an open door. An open door is defined as being adjacent to an undiscovered area.

Special Cards

Item Cards - An Item card aids you along your journey. As you draw cards from the draw deck, some may be item cards. It's up to you to hold onto the item card or use it right away. Some of the items require more than 1 item card to be used.

Any used item cards are immediately discarded.

• Map - Use at any intersection to look at the top 3 cards of the draw deck. Put them back in the same order.
• Bomb (2 item cards) - If you're stuck at a dead end or a wall, you can use a bomb to proceed as if the wall is not there.
  • If you use the bomb to escape a dead end, the next passage card you draw will cover up the already played dead end card that you are blowing a hole through. Proceed forward as usual. Non-passage cards may get set aside or played as they are revealed.
• Magical Mirror (3 item cards) - Use at any time to return to the entrance and follow a new, open path.

Stairs - If you draw a stairs card, you must stop and make a decision. You can either continue on the path you're on (discard this card), or you go to a new level and start a new path (place this card over the entrance and wipe out all the passage cards in play). Continue to move forward as you were starting over.

Collapse - If you draw a Collapse card, stop what you're doing and you must wipe out all the passage cards in play (except for the entrance), and discard this card. Continue to draw cards as normal. This is similar to if you were starting a new game.

• If you draw a Stairs or Collapse card, you don't lose any held item cards.

Game End

The game ends when you draw the exit card - you managed to escape! If you need to draw more cards than the number of cards remaining, just flip over that last card, it's the exit card.

If you come to a dead end or a wall and there's no way forward or your latest played intersection doesn't have an opening for you to continue on (or you don't have a special item card to help you proceed), game over - you've become a permanent fixture in, The Abandons!

For More of a Challenge

If you want to challenge yourself even further, combine multiple sets of the game into one! Just remove the extra...

• Entrance cards
• Exit cards

Everything else stays the same. Combine and shuffle the cards from all your sets and you're ready to go!

And to make your experience even more interesting, try to beat your hi-score! To do this, if you successfully make it to the exit, you'll receive points for...

• Entrance, exit and passage cards in play - 1 point each
• Unused item cards - 3 points each

Try to beat your hi-score along with hi-scores of other players! If you really want to get a hi-score, combine multiple sets and share your scores with us, we may post them!