Tricky Treats
Tricky Treats Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 72x transparent costume cards
- 10x "nice neighbor" house cards
- 3x "mean neighbor" house cards
- 6x street bonus tokens
- 12x pumpkin tokens
- 9x trick tiles
- 9x house treat tokens (3x3 types of treat)
- 1st player marker
- 4x player boards (with 5 kids and 3 resource tracks)
- 32x footprint tokens (8x4 colours)
- 12x treat markers (4x3 types of treat)
Objective
The goal of the game is to score the most victory points (pumpkins). You score points by visiting houses in the neighborhood, either "tricking" or "treating" and by completing your kids' costumes.
Setup
- Shuffle the 10 "nice neighbor" house cards and make a 3x3 grid with 9 of them in the center of the table. The 10th card won't be used and can be returned to the box.
- Place a random house treat token face up in the top-right corner of each of the houses.
- Place a random street bonus token at the end of each row and column, making sure the side with 2 treats is facing up.
- Place the 3 "mean neighbor" house cards on the table, then place a random trick tile face up in the designated space of each of the houses (the main entrance).
- Place one pumpkin token on each of the 12 house cards.
- Shuffle the transparent costume cards and reveal 5 of them, forming the "market". The others are kept face down next to the market.
- Each player takes 1 player board, 3 treat markers and 8 footprint tokens of the same color, and places them in their play area. Place the treat markers on the space "0" of each track. Each player also gets one random trick tile. That will be their secret objective from the start of the game.
- The last player to have eaten something sweet gets the 1st player marker.
Gameplay Overview
Beginning with the 1st player and proceeding clockwise around the table, players will do one of these two following actions in their turn:
A - Take a costume card
B - Visit a house (either "trick" or "treat")
A - Take a Costume Card
Select one of the five transparent costume cards available in the market and place it on a kid on your player board. The card must always be placed on top of any other costume card you might already have on that kid. The order in which costume cards are placed can't be changed during the game.
Then reveal a new costume card, so that there are always 5 cards available.
Note: A kid can't wear more than one piece of the same type of costume. For example, if a kid is already wearing a hat, you can't get a second hat on top of that.
If the 5 costume cards revealed are all either the same type or theme or color, you can, in your turn, discard all of them and reveal 5 new cards (put the discarded cards away).
Example: You can take the red space hat and place it on any kid except the third one who already has a hat. For the same rule, you can't place any new body costume on the first and on the third kid, neither the leg costume on the second kid.
Tip: You can take the green space legs costume and place it on the third kid to complete a green costume, or the red horror body costume and place it on the second kid and try to complete a costume with the same color and theme!
Structure of the Costume Cards
Every costume card shows a costume icon on the upper left part of the card and a trick icon on the lower left part.
The costume icon indicates the color, the theme, and the type of costume of that card.
The trick icon indicates the trick.
Each kid can wear up to three pieces of costume simultaneously, but they must be of different types. That means that every kid on your player board can give you up to 3 costume icons in many different combinations. However, the trick icons are always in the same position, so only the icon present on the last card you placed on a kid will be visible!
Color
Costume cards can be of one of three possible colors: purple, red, green.
Type
There are three types of costume cards: things to wear on the head, on the body and on the legs.
head, body, legs
The specific position of the upper icon on the card indicates the type of costume.
Theme
Costume cards have one of four possible themes: animal, horror, fable, space.
Trick
Each piece of costume also has a trick icon: spiderweb, toilet paper roll, crashed egg.
B - Visit a House
When you visit a house, either a nice or a mean neighbor, place one of your footprint tokens on top of that card. If you're the first player to visit that house, also collect the pumpkin token on it and keep it next to your player board.
Note: Each player may only visit a house once, but a house may be visited by more than one player.
B1. Visit a Nice Neighbor: Treats
When the kids in your group are wearing the costumes that a nice neighbor prefers to see, you can visit their house to get treats!
Each house requires a specific theme, color or type of costume to give you treats.
Remember that the "type" icon is not present on the costume cards: you can check the costume type by the position of the upper icon on the card.
The type of treats you get is determined by the house treat token on the top right corner in that house. The number of treats you get depends on the number of costume cards of that feature you have in total, among all the kids in your group. Mark the treats you get on your resource tracks, by moving the corresponding treat marker accordingly.
Note: You must have the minimum number of icons requested by a house you want to visit, i.e. you can't visit a house without getting treats.
B2. Visit a Mean Neighbor: Trick
When the kids in your group are carrying 3 of the same trick icon, you can trick one of the mean neighbor houses!
When you trick a house, place one of your footprint tokens on that card.
At the end of the game, you'll have access to the scoring condition on the trick tile on the mean neighbor house you visited.
Example: If you decide to visit the nice neighbor who likes green costumes you get 2 treats, because you have 4 green costumes.
Since you have 3 trick icons, you can visit the mean neighbor with the same icon.
You decide to visit the nice neighbor who likes hat costumes and you get 1 treat, because you have only 2 hat costumes.
In addition, since you are the first to visit all the houses on that row of the grid, you also get 2 treats for the street bonus token; then, you flip the token.
Street Bonus
If you're the first player to visit all 3 houses in the same row or column in the main nice neighbors grid, take the bonus indicated in the correspondent street bonus token (2 treats). Then flip that token to the other side. Other players that complete that row or column afterwards will take the bonus showing on the flipped token instead (1 treat).
End Game
The end game is triggered:
- when a player places their last footprint token, or
- when a player has all 5 kids with a complete costume (i.e. all 3 pieces), or
- when the deck runs out of costume cards.
When that happens, finish the round so that everyone has had the same number of turns, then calculate your scoring.
Scoring
Mark your scoring on the scoring track inside the box. Use one of your footprint tokens, taking it from one of the nice neighbor houses.
You score points for:
- 2VP x each pumpkin token you have collected
- VP for every kid with a complete costume (i.e. all 3 pieces), according to the following table:
- 2VP x different colors and themes
- 4VP x same color, different themes
- 6VP x same theme, different color
- 8VP x same color, same theme
- Collected treats, according to the trick tiles you have access to (your personal trick tile and all the mean neighbor houses you tricked).
Each trick tile is worth VP for specific sets of treats you have collected during the game.
Tally up your points. The player with the most points is the winner! In the case of a tie, the player with the most points for treats is the winner. If the tie persists, the players share the sweet victory!
Example: You score a total of 42 VP:
8 VP because you have collected 4 pumpkin tokens
2 VP for the first kid who has a complete costume with different themes and colors
6 VP for the second kid who has a complete costume with different colors but the same theme
8 VP for the third kid who has a complete costume with the same color and the same theme
0 VP for the fourth kid who doesn't have a complete costume
4 VP for the fifth kid who has a complete costume with the same color but different themes.
8 VP for your personal trick tile because you have 2 sets of candy and lollipop.
6 VP for the trick tile on the mean house you visited because you have 4 candy.