Topas
Topas Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 36 cards depicting four different precious gems
- 1 scorepad
Game Concept
Each player tries to form rows with the gem cards. Rows with up to seven gems of the same color will be scored. The more gems of the same color, the greater the points scored. The game ends after seven rounds, and the player with the most points wins.
Starting the Game
The cards are shuffled and placed in a face-down draw pile. In turn, each player draws one card at a time until they hold three cards in hand. The hand is kept secret from the other players. One card is dealt face-up in the center of the table to start the play area. Other cards will be placed adjacent to this card, so it should be placed far away from the draw pile.
Some player starts, followed by the others clockwise. The names of the players are entered on the score sheet in the same order.
Playing the Game
The player whose turn it is places a card from their hand on the table and then draws a card from the deck. Near the end of the game the draw pile will be exhausted if there are four players.
Placing and Scoring Cards
Each card must be placed so that it is orthogonally adjacent to at least one half of a previously-placed card. The colors of the gems do not matter for placement. [See placement examples.]
The adjacent colors do play a role in the scoring. Each newly-placed card may cause up to four scorings, namely the vertical and horizontal lines that run through the two halves of the card. A line will be scored if at least two gems in the line are of the same color. [Although the rules are not very clear, it seems apparent that half of the new card must be included, and also that at least two card halves must match, or in the Dieter example blue would score.] The score for a line is the sum of the gems of the same color that form a continuous group.
After each card is placed the player receives the sum of the points obtained from all scoring lines in one of the left-hand boxes under their name on the score sheet. The cumulative total is recorded in the right-hand box.
Note: Only lines with up to seven points count. Rows with more than seven [continuous] gems of the same color may not be formed.
Example: The card with the red and yellow gems may not be played because the yellow line then consists of eight stones. The red stones therefore cannot be scored.
End of the Game
The game ends after the seventh round. Each player will have played seven cards. The winner is the player with the most points.
Expert Variant
When several lines are scored at once, the values are multiplied together instead of added.
The Solitaire Game
The player shuffles the cards and place them face-down as a draw pile. They then draw the top card from the stack and place it as the first card. Now the player draws additional cards from the deck. Each card is played and scored as in the multiplayer game. After seven cards have been played (there will be eight on the table), the first column of the score sheet is full.
Now the player discards all eight cards on the table and starts again with a new card. After another seven cards the second column is full. Repeat until all four columns of the score sheet are full. The last four cards in the deck remain unused.
The lowest of the four scores is the player's final score. The higher, the better: 40 points is good, 50 points is fantastic!