Scavenger Hunt is a game using the components of
Octiles, published by Kadon Enterprises. It is for two
players only.
This set of rules is published with the review and consent of the
trademark holder. If you wish to net.publish a variant for the
Octiles set, please respect his trademark and obtain his permission.
His contact address is dale.walton@alum.mit.edu.
Set-up
Turn the 18 tiles face down and carefully shuffle them so as not
to scratch them. Place 17 of them on the starting spaces on the
board, still face down. Once they are all placed, flip them all
over, face up. The easiest way to do this is from lucite stop to
opposite stop.
The eighteenth tile is kept aside, as a replacement tile.
One player takes a Teal runner and a Gold runner, and hides one in
each hand. The other player chooses one to be his piece. Gold
plays first.
The Gold player now takes the five Orange "runners" (as prizes), and
the Oranger marker (as a decoy). The Teal player takes the five Plum
runners and the Plum marker.
The Gold player now looks at the board. He decides which of the
four central stops his Gold piece will start on, and places it
there. The same player places the Teal runner on any one of the
three remaining central stops.
The Teal player now sets up the prizes, beginning on any circle he
wishes. These are placed on the "start" circles around the edges
of the board, one piece per circle. There must be one empty circle
between prizes, and prize colors must alternate. When complete,
the start circles would look like: Plum prize, blank circle,
Orange prize, blank circle, Plum prize, blank circle, Orange prize,
blank circle, etc.
The markers begin the game off board, accessible to both players.
Objective
Players collect their prizes by moving their runners onto the
circles with their color prizes. The Gold player can only collect
Orange prizes, and the Teal player can only collect Plum prizes.
The first player to collect all five of his prizes wins the game.
Play
Movement of runners, rotation of tiles, and replacement of tiles follow
the rules in the basic Octiles game. Any exceptions are
noted.
The Gold player now takes his first move, followed by the Teal
player. Players will alternate moves the rest of the game.
A move consists of one of the following choices:
- You may replace a tile with the eighteenth tile and move your
runner over that tile (the tile you removed becomes the new
eighteenth tile); or
- You may simply move your runner without changing a tile; or
- You may rotate or replace a tile without moving your runner.
You must move your runner at least every other turn, however. That
is, you may not choose Option Three two turns in a row.
If your opponent chooses Option Three, you may not, on your next
turn, replace or rotate the tile that your opponent has altered.
You may immediately change a tile he altered using Option One,
however.
Moves over a changed tile may also move a runner over additional
tiles, of course.
Start Circles
You may not move onto an empty start circle, nor onto a start
circle containing your opponent's prize. However, you may move
onto a start circle containing your own prize, and in doing so
collect the prize (remove it from the board).
The Decoys
When the first prize is collected, the other player (the one who
has not yet collected a prize), places the first player's marker
on one of the 15 unoccupied lucite/felt stops. So if the Teal
player collects the first prize, a Plum piece, the Gold player
places the Plum marker on any of the 15 vacant lucite stops he
chooses.
When a player's marker is on the board, he must move to the
marker before he is allowed to collect another prize. Once he
moves to the marker's space, he then removes the marker from the
board and places the other player's marker on any of the
other 15 lucite spaces he chooses (i.e., not on the space he
occupies). The other player must now move to his marker before he
is allowed to collect one of his prizes.
Players will alternate placing markers for the rest of the game -
once the first prize is collected, there will always be one marker
or the other on the board until the game ends.
A marker comes into effect as soon as it is placed. That is, even
if you are one move from collecting a prize, you may not do so if
the marker of your color is on the board.
You may never move onto a space occupied by your opponent, your
opponent's marker, or your opponent's prizes.
Optional Rule
It is possible that after a while, players will have developed long
paths capable of connecting any of the 16 stops quickly. This
occurs from runners dashing after their decoys regularly. In this
case, the game may bog down for a bit with both players being able
to get their decoys too quickly to allow the other player to progress
in his scavenger hunt.
To combat that situation, the following rule is recommended:
Each player may invoke a "scramble" option once per game.
After your move, you may remove any four tiles you wish from the
board, turn them upside down, spin them and shuffle them, and let
the opponent put them face down back on the four empty spaces.
They are then turned face up and the game proceeds.
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