Virus & Co Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Object of the Game
• Idea of the Game
• Sequence of Play
  • 1. Take a virus card (virus or syringe) and keep it
  • 2. Put a virus card (virus or syringe) into circulation
  • 3. Put a risk card into circulation
• End of a Round
• Scoring
• Winner

Components

• 38 virus cards, of which 10 are syringe cards and 8 carry the "XXX" mark. Translator's note: the printed material list calls this mark "XXX"; the rules below call the mark the cross symbol (Kreuz). The count of 8 is taken as printed.
• 20 risk cards
• 1 pharmacy card
• 1 referral slip (Überweisungsschein)
• 49 pills in three colours: 21 blue, 14 yellow, 14 red
• This rulebook

Pill values: Blue = 1 point, Yellow = 2 points, Red = 3 points. The same values are printed on the pharmacy card.

Setup

First, place the pharmacy card in the middle of the table.

Then shuffle the virus cards and form two face-down stacks. Turn over the top card of each stack.

Shuffle the risk cards well, then deal them out completely so that each player receives the same number of cards. When playing with three or six players, two cards remain; return these to the box without looking at them.

Each player receives 3 blue, 2 yellow and 2 red pills. The same pills are placed next to the pharmacy card as the pharmacy supply. Surplus pills are not needed and are returned to the box immediately.

Get paper and pencils ready to record the scores, and then begin.

Object of the Game

Each player tries to end each round with as few viruses (minus points) and as many (valuable) pills as possible. The player with the best total after three rounds wins the game.

Idea of the Game

Viruses are infectious and weaken health. Pills can be used to ward off viruses. Syringes can be used to weaken and kill viruses.

Players who have no pills are defenceless against viruses. Players who reach for the syringe too often, or who catch too many viruses, end up in the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. This ends the round.

Sequence of Play

Play proceeds in turn order. Whoever most recently had a cold receives the referral slip and begins the game. Every following player must always first take the referral slip before carrying out their turn. A player who forgets this must always hand one pill to the pharmacy and then receives the referral slip.

On his or her turn, the active player chooses one of three possible actions:

1. Take a virus card (virus or syringe) and keep it, or
2. Put a virus card (virus or syringe) into circulation, or
3. Play a risk card (only allowed once you have 4 illness points).

1. Take a virus card (virus or syringe) and keep it

• A player who chooses this action takes one of the face-up cards from either of the two stacks, places it in front of him or her, and then turns over the next card of that stack.
• If the card taken is a virus, the player immediately becomes ill to the value of the virus card. As a small compensation, the player receives from the pharmacy the pills depicted on the card, as far as they are in stock there.

Example 1: Clemens takes this friendly virus. It shows one blue, one yellow and one red pill, so he would receive all three from the pharmacy. However, only blue pills are currently in stock at the pharmacy. Clemens therefore receives only one blue pill. He thereby forgoes pills worth 5 points, because the pharmacy never exchanges, swaps or refunds pills.

...Hähä, swapping pills... you'd like that, wouldn't you?...

• Viruses are always placed side by side, never on top of one another.
• A player who places a syringe card in front of him or her is (usually) behaving very anti-viral (shame!), because he or she can use it to weaken his or her own viruses. To do so, the player places the syringe on one of his or her viruses in such a way that the value of the virus card remains visible. If the player does not yet have a virus, he or she must still place the syringe card in front of him or her. However, this syringe may not later be placed on a virus acquired afterwards.
• It is also forbidden to move a syringe from one virus to another.

Translator's note: the source adds here, "Schade, ich würde gerne mal eine Spritze umlegen!" ("Too bad, I'd like to move a syringe!"). This is character speech and is omitted; the prohibition above stands.

The effect of syringes

• The first syringe on a virus halves its value, rounding up.

• The second syringe on a virus kills it. The value of that virus is then ZERO.

• A third syringe in the player's own display leads straight to the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT.

• Placing a virus card in your own display ends your turn. The next player takes the referral slip and is then on turn.

2. Put a virus card (virus or syringe) into circulation

• A player who chooses this action takes one of the face-up cards from either of the two stacks, passes it to a fellow player, and then turns over the next card of that stack.
• Viruses without the cross symbol and syringes may only ever be passed to your left or right neighbour, but never straight back to the player from whom you received them.
• Viruses with the cross symbol may be passed across the table to any fellow player.
• A player who has received a card or a syringe from a fellow player may keep it if he or she wishes. However, he or she must keep the card if he or she does not have enough pills to ward it off.
• A player who does not want to keep the circulating card must put up enough pills to ward it off in order to be allowed to pass it on.

This works as follows:

• The player who puts the card into circulation uses no pills for this.
• The first player who takes the card and passes it on must use a pill of value 1. He or she places this pill face-up in front of him or her, visibly separate from his or her supply.
• The second player, if he or she also wants to pass the card on, must place pills of value 2 from his or her supply.
• The third player must place pills of value 3, and so on. Each passing of the card is therefore one pill value more expensive than the passing before.
• A player who put the card into circulation must also use pills if he or she receives the card again and does not want to keep it.
• A player who takes a circulating virus does not receive pills from the pharmacy.
• A player who has to ward off a card several times (because it reaches him or her several times) only needs to top up his or her existing stake by the difference to the required amount (see Example 2).

Example 2: Clemens has already used one blue pill to ward off the circulating card. When the card reaches him again some time later, he must now place pills of value 5 to ward it off again. Since he has already put in one blue pill, he only needs to add pills of value 4.

• If a player cannot put up the pill value required to pass a card on exactly, he or she must use more valuable pills. For subsequent players, the required stake does not increase by the surplus value "paid" in this way (see Example 3).
• A player who takes the circulating card places it in his or her display and pays nothing; he or she takes back the pills he or she put in to his or her supply. All other players must hand their put-up stakes over to the pharmacy.
• Placing the virus card in a player's display ends the turn. The next player takes the referral slip from his or her right neighbour and is then on turn.

Hi, hi! Just help yourselves to each other's pills!

Example 3: Clemens puts a virus of value 6 into circulation. He passes it to his left-hand neighbour Beatrix, who does not like the virus. She places one blue pill and passes the virus to her left, to Eva. Eva must now put up pills of value 2, but she has no yellow pill, only one blue pill and several red pills. She "sacrifices" one red pill in order to pass the virus on to Alfons. He must now put up pills of value 3, and also places one red pill in front of him. The card returns to Clemens, who now has to put up pills of value 4 to keep the virus away from him. Beatrix still does not want the virus. Since she has already placed one blue pill, she now adds two yellow pills to reach the total of 5. Eva now only has to add one more red pill to meet the required 6 points. Alfons could still afford it, but prefers to place the virus in front of himself. He receives his stake back, while the other three players must hand their stakes over to the pharmacy.

Example 4: Eva puts a syringe into circulation and passes it to Beatrix. Beatrix pays one blue pill and passes the syringe joyfully to Clemens, who already has two syringes and, lacking a yellow pill, must now use a red pill to ward it off. The card reaches the "seriously ill" Alfons, who gladly takes the syringe, since he has many viruses in need of treatment.

I don't need any treatment at all!!!

3. Put a risk card into circulation

• The prerequisite for choosing this action is that the player already has an illness value of 4. A player who is not yet sick enough, or who (thanks to syringe(s)) is no longer sick enough, must choose action 1 or 2.
• A player who puts a risk card into circulation selects the desired card from his or her own risk cards and places it face-down in front of any fellow player (never in front of himself or herself). That player may not look at it either.
• If one does not want to keep a risk card, one always pays exactly one pill to the player who put it into circulation, and then passes the card face-down to any fellow player. WARNING: a player who looks at the card must keep it.
• If the risk card returns to the player who put it into circulation, that player (the "issuer") pays pills of value 2 to the pharmacy, if he or she wishes to pass the card on (see Example 5).
• A player who wants to keep (or must keep) a risk card turns it over, reads it aloud, and carries out its effect immediately.

Example 5: Alfons places one of his risk cards face-down in front of Beatrix, who does not want it. She gives Alfons one blue pill and passes the card to Clemens. Clemens fears a possible injection (it would be his third syringe). So he likewise gives one blue pill to Alfons, and passes the card back to him. Alfons, as the issuer of the card, pays two blue pills to the pharmacy in order to pass the card on to Eva. Since Eva has neither a blue nor a yellow pill, she would have to give Alfons a red pill to pass the card on. That is too expensive for her. She keeps the card and turns it over. It turns out to be the card "Infection", so Eva takes, as the card instructs, one virus from a fellow player. She chooses a "frail" virus of value 1 from Beatrix.

Yes, have sympathy for us tender, sensitive beings!!!

Explanation of the risk cards

The risk cards explain themselves through their text. In addition, the following rules apply to the cards NURSE, DIAGNOSIS and MR. DOCTOR (German: KRANKENSCHWESTER, DIAGNOSE, HERR DOKTOR):

• NURSE (KRANKENSCHWESTER): The NURSE may not "nurse" herself. If the NURSE lands in the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT, her bonus points are lost.
• DIAGNOSIS (DIAGNOSE): Like the NURSE, the card is placed in front of the player who turns it over. When making a diagnosis, one may not nominate oneself as a candidate for the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. If the player who made the diagnosis lands in the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT himself or herself, the minus points that his or her "misdiagnosis" would normally bring are lost.
• MR. DOCTOR (HERR DOKTOR): Whoever turns over this card places it in front of himself or herself. The card remains in effect until a player lands in the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. During scoring there is therefore no MR. DOCTOR any more.

End of a Round

If a player has more than 12 illness points, or 3 syringes (including injections), he or she lands immediately in the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT, and thereby ends the round as the loser.

Scoring

A player who lands in the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT always receives 13 minus points.

All other players add up their remaining pills as plus points and subtract their current illness value from that. A player who has become a NURSE, or who has carried out a DIAGNOSIS, additionally receives the plus or minus points stated on the card.

Scoring example: The scoring example in the German rules is a picture of four players' displays with the results printed beneath (Clemens -3, Beatrix +1, Eva +2, Alfons -13). The picture itself is not reproduced; the worked figures are given in the text below.

Clemens's syringes halve the 4 and the 5 viruses. The halved value 5 (=2.5) is rounded up to 3. His illness value is therefore -6. The red pill brings Clemens 3 plus points, so that his result is -3 points.

Beatrix has an illness value of 7 and a pill value of 12. Her result would therefore be +5. But she has diagnosed that Clemens lands in the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. For this MISDIAGNOSIS she receives 4 minus points. Her result is +1.

Eva has an illness value and a pill value of 7 each. However, she proved to be a good NURSE while caring for Beatrix, which brings her 2 plus points.

Alfons has laid three syringes in front of himself. Badly dosed! A clear case for the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. For that reason his many pills are not credited to him. As the loser of the round he receives 13 minus points.

After scoring is complete, all players return all pills, virus cards, and separately all risk cards. For the next round the cards are shuffled again and the pills are dealt anew. The player in front of whom the referral slip lies is now the starting player.

Winner

The player who, after three rounds, has the best total score is the supreme health apostle and the unrivalled star physician.