Gamehelppuzzlestriketwo

SETUP

• Pick a bank deck.
• Each player picks a character.
• Each player grabs a 7-card starting deck then adds their character’s three cards to it to create a 10-card deck. Everyone draws 5 cards for their opening hand.
• Everyone gets a player board. Set up the community bank board and put your chosen bank deck on it.
• Everyone adds 2 gem-tokens to their incoming zone.
• Deal out 5 bank cards on the board then add the 2 Ante Up cards to the bank deck. (4X cards, then Ante Up, then 4X more, then Ante Up, then the rest of the deck. X = number of players).
• Randomly determine who goes first and give that player the scepter and give all OTHER players a diamond. (Players take turns in clockwise order.)

THE SCEPTER

• The scepter player attacks everyone simultaneously. Other players only attack the scepter holder.
• The scepter player must drop their incoming gems at the start of their action phase.
• The scepter player cannot gain block from block cards, but they can play cards with block on them in order to gain their other effects.
• The scepter player must make a command decision at the end of each other player’s turn (see below).

TURN STRUCTURE

Ante Phase

Add 2 gems on top of your gem pile. (The same color as the card in slot 5 in the bank.)

Action Phase

You have 3 action points to spend playing cards from your hand.

• If you have the scepter: drunk on power and without regard to defense, your incoming gems must fall into your gem pile at the start of this phase (costs 0 actions).
• Any time during this phase (even multiple times), if you have incoming gems you may drop them into your gem pile (costs 0 actions).
• If you have any incoming gems at the end of your action phase, you MUST drop them then.
• Whenever gems drop, drop as many as you can. The colors they become are determined by the Drop Pattern order of cards in the bank.

Buy Phase

Put one card (and only one) from the bank into your discard pile. This is mandatory each turn. You receive incoming gems equal to the “buy cost” listed on the bank board below the card you bought. Afterwards, remember to slide all bank cards to the left and deal out more until all 5 slots are filled.

Draw Phase

Discard your hand, then draw 5 cards plus any bonus cards from your gem pile’s current height bonus.

Command Decision

Every time a player who doesn’t have the scepter ends their turn, the scepter holder must make a command decision:

• Power Up: The scepter player adds one gem to each of their four super meters.

—OR—

• Yield: The scepter player gives the scepter to the player who just ended their turn.

OTHER NOTES

• Crash the top gem only, unless it’s a deep crash.
• Swap adjacent gems only, unless it’s a deep swap.
• The height bonus for crashing only applies if you crash a run of TWO or more same-color gems.
• Block to negate incoming gems that will later fall into your gem pile.
• Only one creature at a time per player. Playing a new one replaces the old and sends the old one to the discard pile.
• Break the number and color of gems shown in the lower right corner of an opponent’s creature to destroy it.
• Remember to put the physical gems from your crashes into your super meter.
• Remember to add height bonus gems to the amount you send to the opponent’s incoming zone whenever you crash two or more gems of the same color

Grand Finale (Final turns after someone busts in 3p/4p)

• No one has the scepter.
• Set everyone’s incoming gems equal to whoever has the most, but with a minimum of 10 more + 5 more per Ante Up card.
• Track how many gems you send to the scepter as your final score (plus any gems you make it ante).
• Skip the Buy Phase, Command Decision, and ignore new Ante Up cards during final turns.

SOLO PLAY

In this mode, 1 player can play against an automated AI opponent named Puzzle Dragon.

• The Dragon always has the scepter and can’t lose it.
• The Dragon does track its own incoming gem-tokens, but does not use a deck, colored gems, or a gem pile.
• The Dragon uses a stack of cards to track its “Power.” The Dragon's Power starts at 1 and increases by 1 during its buy phase each turn.

Difficulty Settings Easier: Players start with a diamond. Harder: The Dragon’s Power starts at 2. Or 3 if you dare! Or 4 if you double dare!

Setup

The player follows the standard game setup, except players start without a diamond.. You can use either bank deck.

When inserting the two Ante Up cards into the bank deck as mentioned in step 7 on page 8, the “number of players” is the number of human players.

The Dragon starts with an empty incoming zone and a single wound card (or any spare card) to denote its starting Power of 1.

Dragon's Turn

Each time the Dragon takes its turn, it does the following:

• 1) Ante 2 gem-tokens to its incoming zone (or 3 or 4 if Ante Ups are in effect).
• 2) Block. Remove (Power) gem-tokens from the Dragon’s incoming zone. For example, if there are 4 cards in the Dragon’s Power stack, it blocks 4.
• 3) Send (Power) gem-tokens to the human player’s incoming zone. Then send an additional number equal to the largest run of adjacent same-color cards in the bank (minimum 1). (This step doesn’t remove any gem-tokens from the AI’s incoming zone.)
• 4a) Action. Look at the color of the 5th card in the bank, destroy all creatures of that color, then do the action below of that color:
  • Purple: Crash X where X = (Power).
  • Blue: Block X where X = the highest block value shown on any card in the bank, or block 3, whichever is higher.
  • Pink: Crash X where X = the highest action cost of any card in the bank.
  • Green: The human player discards 2 random cards.

Crashing means removing that many gem-tokens from the AI’s incoming zone, then adding that many to the human player’s incoming zone.

• 4b) If the first Ante Up is in effect, also look at the color of the 4th card in the bank, destroy all creatures of that color, then do the action above of that color.
• 4c) If the second Ante Up is in effect, also look at the color of the 3rd card in the bank, destroy all creatures of that color, then do the action above of that color.
• 5) Buy. The Dragon buys the left-most card in the bank, adding it to its own stack of cards which track its Power. Slide the rest of the bank cards left and deal out a new card into slot 5 as usual. The Dragon doesn’t use the bought cards for anything other than tracking its Power (the number of cards in its stack)

Whenever humans send the Puzzle Dragon unblockable gems or make it ante, it just gets that number of gem-tokens in its incoming zone. (It’s too mighty to be bothered by your feeble tricks.)

Winning the Game

Like in the competitive mode, the game ends after either the player busts (ends their turn with more than 10 gems) or the Dragon busts (if it ends its turn with more than 10 gem-tokens).