Underground Panic Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Objective
• Game Components
• Setup
• Playing the Game
  • In Your Turn
  • Resting Gophers
• End of a Round
• End of the Game
• Colours & Symbols
  • The Colour Die
  • Card Icons
  • Tile Icons
  • Reward Cards

Game Objective

Your collective goal is to lead all the gophers through the tunnels to safety before the water floods their dwelling, and gather as many foodstuff as possible during the flight. Players have no pawns of their own; they can move any of the gophers in their turn. The game ends when all the gophers have escaped from the burrow. However, bear in mind that being the first is not enough to win! You will be rewarded for speed, but the game is continued until there are any gophers under the ground. The player who collects the most victory points wins the game.

Game Components

1. 1 game board
2. 4 gopher figures
3. 28 bonus tokens
4. 112 action cards – (28 of each colour: red, blue, green and yellow)
5. 64 injury cards
6. 12 water discs
7. 12 pebbles
8. 36 ability tiles
9. 12 reward cards
10. 1 starting player marker
11. 1 colour die
12. 1 direction die
13. 1 bag

Setup

1. Place the game board in the middle of the table.

2. Place 2-4 gophers (same as the number of players) on the starting space: the large, oval chamber in Zone 3.

3. Put all bonus tokens in the bag and shake it well. Draw a bonus token for each of the 25 holes and place them randomly on the circles in the centre of the holes.

4. Separate the action cards by colour into four decks and shuffle them each. Place the decks face down on the board, in the designated space of identical colour.

5. Shuffle the injury cards and place them in a face-down deck in the designated space in the bottom left corner of the board.

6. Place a water disc on space #1 of the numbered water level track. Put the rest of the discs in a stack beside the board.

7. Put the pebbles in a pile beside the board.

8. Shuffle the ability tiles (with a chest on the back) and put them face down in a stack. Draw 4 tiles from the top and place them face up in the spaces beside the chest.

9. Draw randomly the same number of reward cards as the number of players and place them face up in the designated spaces at the exit. The rest of the reward cards will not be used.

10. The player who last visited a cave will get the starting player marker.

11. Each player, in clockwise order, rolls the colour die 6 times; the starting player begins the roll.

    After each roll, the player draws an action card of the colour rolled. When all the six cards have been drawn, the player takes one additional card of any colour to have a total of 7 cards in hand.

    If the result of the roll is black or white, the player rerolls the die to obtain one of the four action card colours, as only these are taken into account at the setup phase.

Let's get started!

Playing the Game

The game lasts up to 11 rounds. The starting player has the first turn in each round, then every player has one turn in clockwise order.

In Your Turn

• Choose a gopher and tell the other players whether you want to move it towards the exit (to the next, one higher zone), or sideways (within the same zone). A move is always made to a neighbouring space along a tunnel. Gophers are never moved to a zone with a lower number than the one where the movement starts.
• Choose a tunnel and make your choice clear to the others too.

1. A move always has a cost to be paid, shown by small circular icons on the tunnel you want to use. To pay the cost, discard the matching cards face up to a discard pile created above the action card decks.
2. After making the move, you get the bonus cards displayed at the destination space, as well as the goodies yielded by the bonus token (if there is one on the space). Take all these bonuses and drop the token in the bag. If there was a pebble with the gopher, take the pebble too and keep it in your own stock.

• When done, check if you have any cards in your hand that you want to reserve for the end-game scoring. You may put aside up to 2 cards into your private deck called the cheek-pouch deck (stored face down in front of you). Only point-earning cards may be collected here (acorn = 1p, berry = 2p). This is an optional action which you can do at the end of your turn only. Cards in the cheek-pouch deck are no longer used until the end of the game.
• Finally, check how many cards are left in your hand. There is a hand limit of 7 cards; if you have more, you must discard any cards in excess of 7.

Resting Gophers

It may happen that you are unable to move any of the gophers in lack of the cards required for crossing the relevant tunnels. The same happens when you don't have a card matching the colour rolled with the die. Or, you may just decide to make a gopher stay on the same space for the rest of the round to have a breather and collect some more crops, despite the water threat. Whatever the case, the procedure is the same:

3. Choose a gopher and lay it on its side to indicate this gopher will stay there resting.

• When you choose this action, draw one card less than the card bonus otherwise applicable at the space where the gopher stays (e.g. if there is a bonus of 3 cards, you take only 2). You are NOT entitled to take the pebble and/or the bonus token, if any, from this space.
• Apart from these, the same applies to this action as to a normal move: you have the option to move up to 2 cards in your cheek-pouch deck, then discard any cards remaining in your hand in excess of 7.

Further specific rules for resting gophers:

• Other players are not allowed to choose resting gophers for movement or rest actions.
• If you lay down a gopher to rest on the starting space (in Zone 3, where no bonuses are due), you may replace up to 3 of your cards in hand with 3 new action cards of the colour of your choice.
• You must use the rest action and lay down the gopher automatically if you are unable to access the selected tunnel (failed to roll a required colour). You cannot choose another direction instead.

Once your turn is finished, the player on your left will follow. The round ends when all players had their turn.

End of a Round

• The water intrudes into another zone: place a water disc on the next uncovered level number. Water levels #1 and #2 will not affect any of the spaces in the burrow yet, but from level #3 on, a new zone is flooded every round, filling all the spaces – tunnels and holes – within the zone.

4. At the end of the round, if there are any gophers in a flooded zone (marked with a water disc), players get injured. If this happens, each player draws the same number of injury cards as the number of gophers in such zone. Injury cards are put face down in the players' cheek-pouch decks and will decrease their victory points at the end of the game by the values shown on the cards (0, 1, 2 or 3p).

   IMPORTANT! You have the option to skip drawing an injury card (or cards) if you discard a nutshell per injury. Nutshells are acquired on action cards and ability tiles.

• When an injury occurs, players drawing one or more injury cards will also draw an equal number of action cards of the colour of their choice (but they must observe the hand limit of 7 cards).

  IMPORTANT! In this action no cards can be added to the reserve in the cheek-pouch deck.

• Gophers will not remain in the flooded zones. The water washes the poor things forward to one of the spaces in the next dry zone. Determine the space where they land by rolling the die: for each gopher in a flooded zone, roll the direction die and move the gopher accordingly (L or R tunnel) to the next dry space. If there is a bonus token at the destination, leave it there and nobody gets the bonus. Those gophers flushed out by the flood will now start the new round from a dry space in the next zone.

• Any remaining bonus tokens and pebbles are removed from the spaces in a flooded zone.

5. Finally, identify which is the zone where the gophers in the rearmost position are and place a pebble beside each gopher in that zone. Only one pebble can be left with a gopher, and gophers which have made their way out to the surface are ignored when determining the positions. In your turn, when moving a gopher which has a pebble, take the pebble and keep it in your own stock in front of you. By discarding 1 pebble from your stock you may reroll the colour die (one roll for a pebble, and you can discard more pebbles to roll again); or, for 2 pebbles discarded simultaneously, you can ignore a cube card condition and skip the roll.

• All resting gophers stand up.
• The starting player marker is passed to the next player on the left; this player will start the new round.

End of the Game

When you move a gopher out to the surface (from Zone 12) you can take a reward card still available on the board. However, you will be entitled to the reward itself only if, at the time of taking the card, you can meet the conditions shown on it. If you do, add the card face down to your cheek-pouch deck. It is sufficient to possess the required items, no need to discard them. The victory points shown on the card will increase your cheek-pouch-deck score at the end of the game. (Other reward cards will be ignored even if you meet the conditions later.) But the game has not yet come to an end! It is continued until the last gopher leaves the burrow. This happens either if the players rescue them all, or after the 11th round when the flood thrusts the last gophers out to the surface.

IMPORTANT! All players keep playing until the end of the game. Any player can rescue more than one gopher and collect multiple reward cards. However, if the ending is that the slowest gophers are washed out of the burrow from the last zone, all players get injured (and draw an injury card for each of these gophers), except players who defend themselves by discarding nutshells (1 nutshell per injury); in this event, nobody collects a reward card.

At the end of the game, add the point values of the acorns and berries in your cheek-pouch deck, plus the values on your reward cards, if any. From this total, subtract the values of your injury cards. Compare the results: the player with the highest score wins.

Colours & Symbols

The colour icons on spaces and tunnels show the colours of action cards to be discarded/drawn. A black card means you can draw (as a bonus) or discard (as a cost) a card of any colour; a white cube means you must roll the die to define the colour of the card to be discarded/drawn. (You can reroll for 1 pebble or ignore the cube card for 2 pebbles.)

The pinecone, leaf or nutshell icons indicate what cards are to be played, irrespective of colour.

Below each action card deck, 3 icons show the items featured on the cards in the given deck. The order indicates their occurrence: the first item is the most frequent, while there are less of the second and even less of the third one.

If you pick up a bonus token with a chest symbol, drop it in the bag and choose one of the four faceup ability tiles in the bottom right corner of the board. Place the tile face up in front of you and replenish the space from the stack. Use your ability tiles as the items depicted on them.

The Colour Die

• Red, yellow, green or blue: draw as a reward or discard as payment a card of the colour rolled.
• White: neither draw nor discard any card as reward or payment.
• Black: draw as a reward or discard as payment a card of your choice.

Card Icons

• LEAF / PINECONE: May be required for movement.
• ACORN / BERRY: Worth 1 and 2 points, respectively, in your cheek-pouch deck.
• NUTSHELL: discard a nutshell instead of drawing an injury card.
• BLUE/GREEN and RED/YELLOW two-way cards: play it as either of the displayed colours.
• PINECONE/LEAF two-way card: play it either as a leaf or a pinecone.
• NUTSHELL converter: play this card with another card to convert it into a nutshell.
• LEAF converter: play this card with another card to convert it into a leaf.
• TRIPLE converter: play this card with another card to convert it into either a leaf, a pinecone or a nutshell.

Tile Icons

• LEAF or NUTSHELL: play the tile instead of the respective card. Not counted in the hand limit.
• RED/YELLOW and BLUE/GREEN converters: play the tile with a red or blue card to convert it into yellow or green, respectively, or vice versa.
• PINECONE and LEAF converters: play the tile with any card to convert it into a pinecone/leaf.
• PEBBLE: use this tile as a pebble.
• PEBBLE-to-NUTSHELL converter: discard this tile to convert a pebble into a nutshell.
• STRIKETHROUGH colour die: discard this tile to skip a mandatory roll with the colour die.
• SLEEPING GOPHER: get all the bonuses of the space when you lay down a gopher.
• PINECONE/LEAF two-way tile: play it either as a pinecone or as a leaf (instead of a card).
• COLOUR CARD tiles: use them to substitute cards of identical colour.
• BLACK CARD tile: use it to substitute a card of any colour.

Reward Cards

• Earn exactly 2 points, free of conditions.
• Earn 3 points if you have no cards in your hand.
• Earn 3 points if you have at least 2 leaf cards in your hand.
• Earn 3 points if you have at least 2 pinecone cards in your hand.
• Earn 3 points if you have at least 2 acorn cards in your hand.
• Earn 3 points if you have at least 2 pebbles.
• Earn 4 points if you have at least 1 ability tile.
• Roll the colour die; earn 3 points if you have at least 1 card of the colour rolled.
• Earn the points shown if you have only and exactly the same set of colour cards in your hand.
• Earn 1 point for each card in your hand at the end of the game.
• Earn 1 point for every 2 injury cards you have at the end of the game.