The Game Makers
The Game Makers Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 1 Warehouse Base — the plastic base that holds the Wedges and Steering Wheel during setup.
- 1 Steering Wheel — sits on top of the Warehouse and exposes 4 of the 6 Wedges at a time. At the start of each turn it rotates to reveal a new set of available resources.
- 1 Brodie Knob — used to turn the Steering Wheel.
- 6 Wedges — arranged randomly around the Warehouse at the start of each game; each holds a spread of resources.
- 6 Plastic Trays — store components around the Warehouse during play.
- 12 Marketing Tiles (plus 2 for solo play) — each player takes the tile matching the current player count and places it below their Marketing area.
- 3 Tile Bags — one each for small, medium, and large tiles.
- 18 Forklifts — each player gets 3 forklifts in their color, used every turn to retrieve resources from the Warehouse.
- 6 Factories (player boards) — one per player, in a matching color scheme. This is where you store gathered components, sign contracts to produce new games, track marketing, and install machinery and structures.
- 6 Display Cases — one per player, with 12 slots. Filling all 12 slots with completed games ends the game.
- 46 Plastic pieces (20 small, 15 medium, 15 large) — used as game components or to build structures that enhance a Factory.
- 18 Dice (6 of each level) — used as game components, or rolled to advance a Marketing track.
- 54 Wood pieces (24 small, 15 medium, 15 large) — used as game components, or as workers providing short-term benefits in a Factory.
- 140 Punchboard tiles (60 small, 60 medium, 20 large) — used as components, or installed as machinery when arranged in matching sets of 3 in a row on the Assembly Line.
- 216 Cards — used as game components, or placed face up as Contracts in a Factory to be built into new games. Four game types are represented: Set Collection/Card, Co-op/Team, War/Fighting, and Engine Building/Strategy.
- 45 Structures — provide unique enhancements to a Factory once fully activated with matching Plastic buildings.
- 30 Marketing Cubes — each player gets 5, one per Marketing track column.
- 6 Reference Cards — one per player.
- 1 Scorepad (50 sheets) — for tallying final scores.
- 30 Trees — planted in a Factory's reforestation area.
- 72 Tweenies — each player gets a set of 12, each offering a unique one-time benefit.
Warehouse Setup
- Place the Warehouse Base in the middle of the table and randomly distribute the 6 Wedges on it.
- Place the Steering Wheel on top of the Warehouse Base and Wedges.
- Line up the "Reset to the Breakroom" mark on the "READY" edge of the Steering Wheel as shown in the diagram.
- Place the Brodie Knob on the Steering Wheel.
- Sort the punchboard tiles into their designated bags.
- Shuffle the cards face down and place them in their tray.
- Place the Trees in their tray next to the Wild Wedge.
- Place the Wood, Dice, and Plastic in their trays next to their respective Wedges.
- Each player chooses a color and places their 3 Forklifts on the Wild Wedge — the wedge marked with the yellow-and-black "READY" edge.
Tip: try changing the order of the Wedges on your next game for a slightly different experience each time you play.
Setup Your Player Area
- Each player takes a Factory and a Display Case and places both in front of them.
- Each player places their 5 Marketing Cubes on the "0" space of each column in their Marketing Department, and places the Marketing Tile matching the current player count below the Marketing Area.
- Each player places their set of Tweenies in the Tweenies area in the upper left of their Factory, in any order.
- Each player takes a Level 1 Wood piece and places it in their Break Room.
- Each player takes Structures (see Structure Drafting below) and places their 3 structure tiles on the corresponding A, B, and C spaces of their Factory.
- Each player draws 3 cards and places at least 1 face up in their Contract Area. Any remaining cards go face down in the Components section of their Factory.
Experienced players may instead place all 3 drawn cards face down in the Components section if they prefer.
Structure Drafting
First game — random: each player is randomly dealt one A, one B, and one C Structure tile to place in their Structure Area.
Subsequent games — draft: prepare one set per letter containing one more Structure tile than there are players. Deal one full set face down to each player (in a 2-player game, one player gets the A and C sets, the other gets B; in 4-, 5-, and 6-player games, distribute the sets as evenly as possible). Each player picks one tile from their set and passes the rest to their left. Repeat until every player holds one A, one B, and one C tile, then return the unpicked tiles to the box.
Gameplay
Taking a Turn
The Game Makers has no turn order — everyone plays simultaneously. The goal is to gather resources, use them to manufacture board games, and fill your Display Case.
On your turn you move your Forklifts, collect the matching resources, and decide for each one whether it becomes a Component or a Company Asset. Components are used to manufacture games; Company Assets upgrade your Factory so it runs more efficiently.
Forklift Movement
Placing a Forklift on a Level 1 Wedge gets you a Level 1 resource, and that Forklift becomes available again next turn. A Level 2 Wedge gets you a Level 2 resource, with the Forklift returning in 2 turns. A Level 3 Wedge gets you a Level 3 resource, with the Forklift returning in 3 turns.
When you assign a Forklift to a Wedge, take the resource immediately and decide right away whether it becomes a Component or a Company Asset — once decided, you cannot change your mind. When a resource is used as a component, its level indicates the quantity and/or quality of what's needed for a game, depending on the game.
Rotating the Steering Wheel
At the start of every turn except the first, advance the Steering Wheel one Wedge clockwise. This covers up the previous Wedge and swaps in a new set of 3 available resources. Any Forklifts sitting on the "READY" Wedge may now be reassigned to one of the 3 newly exposed Wedges. This repeats until a player completely fills their Display Case, which ends the game.
- All of a player's Forklifts may sit on the same Wedge, and different players' Forklifts may share a Wedge too.
- A Forklift on the READY space must be reassigned to a different Wedge than the one it just left.
- On a turn where you have no Forklifts to place, you may still use previously gathered Components or Company Assets.
- Move and resolve one Forklift completely before placing your next one.
- Try to take all your actions before moving your last Forklift; once every Forklift has moved, announce that you're rotating the wheel.
Tip: in the rare case where two or more players refuse to act until they see each other's move, those players take turns clockwise starting from the Brodie Knob's current position.
Resource Guide
Components by Level
- Level 1 resource icons: a single card, a small tile, a small worker, a small die.
- Level 2 resource icons: two cards, a medium tile, a medium worker, a medium die.
- Level 3 resource icons: three cards, a large tile, a large worker, a large die.
- Any level resource icon: a stack of cards, any tile, any worker, any die — used on cards that accept a resource of any level.
Gaining Resources
Most resources come from your Forklifts, but some come from other sources — rewards on assembled Engine Building/Strategy games, Structure tile abilities, or the "Gain 1" area of your own Factory. The Gain 1 area lets you spend an existing resource (of the type shown) to immediately gain a different resource in exchange, at three tiers of exchange rate.
Components vs. Company Assets
Every resource you gain requires a decision: use it as a Component to help manufacture a game, or as a Company Asset to upgrade your Factory. Components go straight into the Component Area of your Factory. Company Assets go into other areas of the Factory and make your manufacturing more efficient. Once you decide, you can't change your mind later.
Non-component Company Assets fall into five types:
- Contract — cards placed face up become Contracts (see Cards & Contracts).
- Machinery — punchboard tiles installed in the Assembly Line (see Punchboard & Machinery).
- Worker — wood pieces placed in the Break Room, ready to be assigned (see Wood & Workers).
- Marketing Multiplier — dice used to advance a Marketing track (see Dice & Marketing).
- Building — plastic pieces placed on a Structure to help activate it (see Plastic & Structures).
Tip: it's tempting to spend your early turns purely building up your factory, meaning to switch to manufacturing games later — but remember the game ends the instant someone fills their Display Case. If you run out of a particular resource, feel free to use a substitute temporarily.
Cards & Contracts
Assigning Cards
If you want to use a card purely as a component, place it face down in the Component Area of your Factory.
If instead you place a card face up in the Contract Area of your Factory, it becomes a Contract. The top of a Contract shows the components required to build that game; the bottom shows the reward for adding it to your Display Case. Once you've gathered the components a Contract needs, return those components to the supply and place the card face up — it is now a completed game — into one of the 12 slots of your Display Case. You may do this the instant you have the components, or hold off if it's more advantageous to wait.
Anatomy of a Card
Each card shows:
- Components Required — the resources (cards, tiles, workers, dice, in the levels shown) needed to build the game.
- Game Type — one of the four categories described below.
- Game Cover — the box art of the game being built.
- Reward for Building — what you receive once the game is placed in your Display Case. Some rewards are immediate; others are only counted during final scoring.
Game Types
The many ways real board games could be classified are simplified here into four types for gameplay purposes:
- Set Collection/Card (blue) — games where collecting sets of items or playing cards is the focus.
- War/Fighting (red) — games with direct conflict between players. They don't all literally involve fighting, but they do all pit players against each other to win.
- Co-operative/Team (purple) — games where players work together as a single group or on teams.
- Engine-building/Strategy (yellow) — games where players build up their abilities and plan several turns ahead. The Game Makers itself belongs to this category.
Engine Building/Strategy Rewards
Every Engine-building/Strategy game grants at least one item to enhance your Factory, plus some scoring opportunity, shown as icons at the bottom of the card: gaining a set number of cards; gaining a tile of a given level; gaining wood of a given level; gaining a die of a given level; gaining plastic of a given level; moving a set number of spaces on a Marketing track; scoring victory points; or planting a tree.
Game Manufacturing
You may manufacture any number of games at any time on your turn, even mid-action while you're still collecting resources. For example, if all three of your Contract spaces are full and you're building a game that needs cards, you could move a Forklift to the Cards Wedge, take 3 cards, use 2 of them to complete the Contract, and place the 3rd card into the space the finished Contract just vacated. You could also send a Forklift to the Wood Wedge for a worker, then use that worker together with another one to collect cards that go straight toward manufacturing a game.
Components spent to manufacture a game return to the supply. Spent cards and tiles go into face-up discard piles, which can be shuffled back into the supply if it runs out.
Reminder: move one ready Forklift at a time, completing all of its actions before moving the next. As soon as the READY Wedge is empty of all Forklifts, the Steering Wheel turns immediately — the player turning it should announce it.
Contract Over-Paying
You may pay a Contract's cost using higher-level components than required — for example, using a Level 3 tile to satisfy a Level 2 tile requirement — but you may never substitute a lower-level component for one that's required at a higher level.
Wood & Workers
Enhancements
Two enhancement icons appear in your Factory's Enhancements area:
- View additional cards/tiles — for each worker placed here, you may draw one extra card or tile whenever you'd otherwise draw one. You may only keep the number of cards or tiles your action actually entitles you to.
- Add to your Marketing Track movement — boosts all of your Dice actions and Marketing advancements until reset. Add 1–3 to your marketing total depending on how many workers are placed here (you may add workers to these spaces immediately after rolling a die, if you wish). This applies to every action that lets you advance a Marketing track. You're still limited to a single column, and any movement beyond the top of that column's track is lost.
Gain 1
If you want to use wood as a component, place it in the Component Area of your Factory.
If you want to use wood as a Company Asset, place it in your Break Room instead — you've hired a worker. You may then assign a worker from the Break Room to a specific space in your Factory to perform a task. Each worker can only be used once until all workers reset by returning to the Break Room, after which they may be assigned again. Several worker spaces require the same thing from different worker levels — you'll need a worker of the matching level for each such space. You may move any number of workers onto spaces each turn, even ones you obtained that same turn.
The Gain 1 area lets workers exchange for resources:
- Take a Level 1 Resource — requires 2 Level 1 workers placed simultaneously; gain any Level 1 resource (a card, a tile, a die, or plastic).
- Take a Level 2 Resource — requires 1 Level 1 and 1 Level 2 worker placed simultaneously; gain any Level 2 resource.
- Take a Level 3 Resource — requires 2 Level 3 workers placed simultaneously (per the diagram, a panda-marked and a Level 3 worker); gain any Level 3 resource.
Return Workers
When the Wild Wedge aligns to read "Reset to the Break Room," you may return all of your assigned workers to the Break Room before taking any other action that turn. Those workers are then available to be assigned again, even on that same turn.
Dice & Marketing
Dice
When you gain a die, roll it immediately. If you'd rather use a die as a component, place it in your Component Area instead — the rolled number no longer matters in that case.
Dice represent how successfully you're marketing your factory to potential customers. To use a die as a Company Asset, move one Marketing Cube up your Marketing track a number of spaces equal to the value rolled. You may not split the movement from a single die across different Marketing columns. After use, return the die to the supply.
There are many ways to advance your Marketing Cubes, but dice and Enhancements are the primary ones.
Marketing
Each Marketing track has:
- Threshold Number — multiplies your initial marketing score for that column. Every track except Trees maxes out at 5; the Tree track maxes out at 4.
- Marketing Tile — used to calculate your initial marketing score; there are two double-sided tiles included.
- Player Count — noted in the bottom-right corner of the Marketing Tile, so you use the side matching the current game's player count.
Tip: make sure you advance a Marketing column to at least 1 for that column to score anything at all.
Dice come in three levels, distinguished by their pip color: Level 1 dice show yellow pips, Level 2 dice show orange pips, and Level 3 dice show red pips.
Punchboard & Machinery
If you want to use a punchboard tile as a component, place it in the Component Area of your Factory.
When you use a punchboard tile as a Company Asset, it becomes machinery. Machinery installed in your Assembly Line lets you produce more of your components in-house, so you need less from the Warehouse. The goal is to install machinery tiles so that you form sets of 3 contiguous, matching tiles in a horizontal row of the Assembly Line.
For instance, placing 3 die-icon tiles horizontally adjacent to each other earns a 1-level discount on dice when manufacturing games — for each such set of 3 matching tiles, you may use a component one level lower than normal to manufacture any game.
If you have 2 full sets of 3 matching tiles of the same component type, you get a 2-level discount for every game you manufacture that uses that component — potentially letting you skip needing that component type at all.
Tweenies (Thermal Working Engine Extraction Node Interface Elements)
Each Tweenie may be used once, at the moment it's placed. To place a Tweenie in your Assembly Line, there must be a square-shaped gap available to hold it. The Tweenie effects are:
- +2 Cards — gain 2 cards from the supply.
- +1 Level 1 wood — gain a Level 1 wood from the supply.
- +1 Level 1 die — gain a Level 1 die from the supply.
- +1 Tile — gain a Level 1 tile from the supply.
- +1 Level 1 plastic — gain a Level 1 plastic from the supply.
- Tree — place 1 tree on the corresponding tree space.
- +1 Market Advancement — move up 1 space on any one Marketing track.
- Move Forklift back 1 space — do not take a resource where the Forklift lands when doing this.
- Move cards — reorganize your entire game shelf (Display Case) for optimal scoring.
- Reset 1 Worker — choose any one deployed worker and move it back to the Break Room; it may be used again before the normal worker reset.
- Promote 1 Worker — choose any Level 1 or 2 worker in the worker area and exchange it for a worker one level higher.
- Duplicate an existing Tweenie — gain the benefit of a Tweenie you've already used.
Plastic & Structures
When you use a plastic piece as a Company Asset, it becomes a building. Placing a plastic piece in the Structure Area of your Factory turns it into a building used to activate a Structure — place it on the matching space of one of your Structure tiles. You may not use a building of a different level than the space requires.
Placing all of the required buildings on a Structure represents a new factory expansion that unlocks its ability. A Structure only activates once every required building has been placed on it — placing some but not all of the required buildings has no effect until the last one is placed.
Once a Structure becomes active, its player receives its benefit immediately. If the Structure allows advancement on a Marketing track, Enhancement bonuses still apply to that movement.
Structures come in three letters, each with a different kind of effect:
- A Structures grant end-game victory points for having certain items in your Display Case.
- B Structures have a recessed worker-placement space that activates the structure, granting the resource it indicates.
- C Structures grant an additional resource whenever you gain a specified resource.
Check the back of your Structure tile for the exact wording of its ability — for example, one A Structure grants 2 VP for every set of 3 matching adjacent tiles in your Machinery area (no tile counted more than once); one B Structure lets you place a Level 3 worker there to move up to 2 Forklifts back 1 space each; one C Structure moves you up 1 space on the Set Collection Marketing column whenever you build a blue (Set Collection/Card) game.
Plant a Tree
As a responsible board game manufacturer, you'll get chances to plant trees — either by producing a game whose reward is a tree, or by fulfilling the requirement of one of the circular tree spaces in your Factory. To plant a tree earned from a produced game, place it on any available tree space in your Factory (it can't be moved later, so choose carefully). Every set of trees you've planted becomes victory points when multiplied by your Tree Marketing track (which tops out at 4).
Tree Space Requirements
Each circular tree space in your Factory has its own unlock condition, such as:
- Advance the Tree Marketing track all the way to level 4 (the top of that column).
- Have at least 6 Set Collection/Card games in your Display Case.
- Have at least 6 War/Fighting games in your Display Case.
- Have at least 6 Co-operative/Team games in your Display Case.
- Have at least 6 Engine-building/Strategy games in your Display Case.
- Have at least 1 of each of the 4 game types in your Display Case.
- Plant a second tree in any space of your choice (a "tree structure" reward).
- Completely fill your Display Case with 12 games.
- Place the Tree Tweenie.
- Discard any 5 components in any combination of plastic, tile, wood, or dice.
- Discard any 2 plastic.
- Discard any 3 wood.
- Discard any 3 dice.
- Discard any 7 cards.
- Discard any 4 tiles.
Remember, planted trees earn no points on their own — you only score for them once you've moved your Tree Marketing Cube up that track.
Game End
The game ends the moment any player manufactures their 12th game, completely filling their Display Case. All players finish their current turn, the Steering Wheel is rotated one more Wedge, and then every player gets one final turn before scoring begins.
Final Scoring
The winner is whoever has the most Victory Points (VP). Each player uses a scoresheet to calculate their total.
Write down the score for each individual game in your Display Case in its corresponding grid location, then total each row. Some game cards simply grant flat VP; others grant VP based on how the components or types needed to build that game line up with a Display Case scoring pattern — for example, scoring 1 VP for each game in your largest orthogonally-adjacent group of a given type (up to 5 VP), 1 VP for each row containing at least one game/component of that type (up to 3 VP), 1 VP for each column containing at least one game/component of that type (up to 4 VP), or 1 VP for each game/component of that type in the two leftmost or two rightmost columns (up to 6 VP).
Marketing and Additional Scoring
Beyond your individual games, marketing them matters too. Your total for each of the four game-type categories is multiplied by wherever your Marketing Cube sits on that column's track. If a Marketing Cube is still at 0 for a category, that whole category scores 0 regardless of how many games of that type you have.
The four Marketing categories score as follows:
- Start Your Engines! (yellow, Engine-building/Strategy) — 1 VP per column of your Display Case containing at least one yellow game, multiplied by your track marker.
- Card Collecting Champion (blue, Set Collection/Card) — 1 VP for every 2 blue games (rounded down), multiplied by your track marker.
- Teamwork Makes the Dream Work (purple, Co-operative/Team) — 1 VP for each other player who has at least one purple game, as long as you have at least 1 purple game yourself; plus 2 additional VP if you have at least 3 purple games yourself. This total is then multiplied by your track marker.
- Battle for Military Supremacy (red, War/Fighting) — 2 VP for each other player you "beat" by having more red games than them, multiplied by your track marker.
- An Environmentally Friendly Factory (trees) — 3 VP for every 3 planted trees (rounded down), multiplied by your Tree track marker.
Finally, add any end-game VP granted by an activated A Structure tile (see Plastic & Structures above).
The player with the highest final score wins.
Tie Breaker
If tied, use the QR code on the scoresheet to look up the current BoardGameGeek ranking of one game from each tied player's Display Case. The tied player with the highest-ranked game (lowest rank number) on BoardGameGeek wins.