+++ to be prettied up soon (forgive the minimalism of this) +++

CHARACTER SHEET

LANDSCAPE PIECES PAGE

LADDERS/BOXES/BLANK CHARACTERS PAGE

ITEMS PAGE

SUPER GAME LEVEL.  A make-it-yourself strategic arcade combat board game designed by George Dalphin.

First, using a long ruler or something, create a grid of inch-wide (and –high) squares on a sheet of posterboard.  Ideally, your game board should be at least 20 by 20 squares or so.  For smaller boards, adjust the number of landscape pieces each player gets to place during the creation phase by some appropriate amount.

Once the grid has been made, give one page of bricks, one page of ladders, boxes and blank characters and one character sheet to each player.  These can all be downloaded from the links above and then printed.  [Note: Printing these sheets on cardstock will make the pieces much easier to use than if they are printed on looser paper.]  Also, print off and cut out two item sheets, shuffle the items and place them in a little pile face down.  All players cut out their pieces and draw in each of their characters. 

Each player places their characters onto their character sheet and puts down three tokens (can be anything little like coins or big balls of lint) for each character to stand for their hit points.

Finally, determine some appropriately desolate place in the game area to be the Graveyard.  Also, some indicator such as a pencil may need to be kept beside the game board to indicate the current direction of gravity.

First comes the Creation Phase.

The youngest player is the first player, and turns move clockwise from there.  During the Creation Phase, each player in turn gets to place one landscape piece of any kind into any empty squares.  Landscape pieces cannot overlap.  On any player’s turn during the Creation Phase, if that player has already placed their black start square, that player may pass, not placing any pieces and moving on to the next player.  Though each player can place their black start square on any turn of the Creation Phase, it may be wise to wait until near the end to make that decision. Also, it should be noted that all players will be able to use any black start square. The Creation Phase continues until either all landscape pieces, including black start squares, have been placed on the gameboard or all players pass consecutively.

Now Play begins.

Unlike the Creation Phase, Play always begins with the oldest player, and then moves clockwise from there.

During each player’s turn, (s)he may have up to ten characters on the gameboard, and each character must be dealt with even if they have footing and choose not to move.

First, at the beginning of each player’s turn, (s)he may choose to bring a character into play by taking a character from their character sheet and placing it on any black start square.  If another character already occupies the square the player intends to use for this character’s entrance, the entry of the new character pushes the blocking character one square in any direction of the blocking player’s choice (so long as that square is not occupied by landscape or another player; if there are no such free squares adjacent, then the blocking character explodes, immediately dying, and the entering character takes one hit point of damage as well).  If at the beginning of the player’s turn they have no characters on the game board (such as on the first turn, or if all their other characters in play have been killed), they must place a character into play at this time.

Next, for each character the player has on the game board in turn (including the one they just brought in, if they chose to), the player takes a turn by first rolling a six-sided die, which will indicate that character’s movement points this turn.  For every movement point, that character first gets to either move one square left or right, assuming that square is not occupied by landscape, or to stay still, unless that character does not have “footing”, in which case that character must fall as well as move left or right or stay still.

HAVING “FOOTING”: A character is said the have “footing” if the square directly below them is occupied by anything other than an item.  Bricks, a box, a ladder square, or another character all count as footing.  Also, being directly on a ladder square counts as having footing.  For each movement point a character gets in a turn, it must be determined whether or not that character has footing.  With footing, a character can move one square left, right or stay still.  With footing, a character can also jump (described below).  However, if the square directly below the character is unoccupied or occupied by an item, then that character does not have footing, and must fall during the current movement point.

FALLING: For each movement point that the character does not have “footing”, that character must move down one square as well as left, right or steady.  If a character does not have footing, and the squares below and to the left and right are both occupied, for instance, that character can only fall straight downward for that movement point.

JUMPING:  For each movement point that a character does have “footing” (the square below them is occupied by anything), that character can decide to jump, in which case the player must say “I’m jumping,” or “Boing,” or something to that effect, and then, without spending an extra movement point or anything for it, their next three movement points in this turn they can move up one square as well as left, right or steady.  If at any point during their jump the character hits a ceiling (the square above them is occupied by a landscape piece – you can push other characters upward from below by jumping), that character’s jump ascent is over and if they do not have footing then their next movement point they will begin to fall.  A character may jump more than once per turn; a new jump can be instigated during any movement point when the player has footing.

Note on gravity: For the purposes of footing, falling and jumping, down is considered to be the direction of gravity (which can be switched).

PUSHING: If the square a character wants to move into is occupied by another character, the second character will be pushed one square in the direction of movement, unless that direction is blocked (even by another player; cannot push two players at once), in which case the second character cannot be pushed and the playing character can not move that direction. 

LADDERS: Ladders are one landscape piece that characters can overlap, and when they are overlapping a ladder square, they can use their movement point to move in any direction, left, right, up, down or diagonally.  Having a ladder square beneath you does count as having footing, as does being directly on a ladder square.

COMBAT: At any point, before or after a movement point is spent (including before and after all movement) a character may attack another character or use an item that it possesses.  However, each character can only do one activity (either attack or use an item) per turn.  Once the player has moved on to moving another character, however, characters already played cannot attack or use items, nor can characters not yet being played.  Also, each character can only attack once per round.

To attack, a player need only say “I’m attacking…” and then indicate the character who (s)he intends to attack, who must be adjacent to the attacking character.  Each player then rolls a six-sided die.  If one character has higher ground (is in a square above the other character – gravity considered), then that player adds one to their die roll.  Whoever rolls highest wins the fight, and the low-roller removes one hit point from the appropriate character’s character sheet.  If it is that character’s last hit point, that character dies and is removed from the game board and placed in the Graveyard.  If the results of a battle are a tie, then the battle was a stalemate and neither player is wounded.  Either way, the attacker cannot attack again until next turn. 

To use an item, consult the specific item’s rules.

Once all characters the player has on the game board have been moved appropriately (or left still, if they have footing and just want to hang tight), that player once again has the choice to bring one more character on their character sheet into play through any of the black start squares.  If so, however, that character does not get a move this turn, but remains on the start square, and play moves to the next player.

BOXES: Boxes function largely just like other brick squares, in that they cannot be passed through, however if the square below a box is ever entered by jumping (which is to say, from a square below it), then the box has been “bumped”, and the bumping player gets to pick an item at random from the little shuffled pile of items and place it in the square directly above the bumped box.  If anything is occupying the square above the box, including another character, then no item appears and bumping the box was for naught.

ITEMS: Once an item has appeared above a box due to bumping, that item must be grabbed in order to be possessed and usable by a character.  Any character who enters a square with an item puts the item (s)he’s just grabbed in that character’s place on the character sheet.  If that character already had an item, the player shuffles the previously held item back into the deck of items.  Now, that character can use the new item at any time between moves during their turn.  Refer to specific items rules for more information on how to use them.

FALLING TO YOUR DEATH: Any character who moves into a square at the very bottom edge of the game board and still lacks footing dies and is placed in the Graveyard (bottom determined based on the direction of gravity).

FAKE CEILING: Players cannot jump above the top edge of the gameboard.  Any player entering the top row of squares is considered to have hit a ceiling, their jump ends and they will begin to fall if they do not have footing (top determined based on gravity).

When a character dies, any item they possessed at that time is placed in the square where they died.

ITEMS:

BRICK: A character in possession of a Brick item can place that Brick in any square adjacent to them that is unoccupied.  You cannot push by placing a Brick.  The Brick from then on acts as landscape.

BOMB: A character in possession of a Bomb item can place that Bomb in any unoccupied adjacent square.  At the end of that player’s turn (all character movement finished), the Bomb goes off, doing two hit points of damage to all adjacent characters.

CHARM: A Charm, rather than being an item that a character possesses, allows the player to return one of their dead characters from the Graveyard to their character sheet.  If the player has no characters in the Graveyard, that player may choose to return another player’s dead character from the Graveyard to that character’s player’s character sheet (an act either or beneficence or strategy?).  However, a character need not make that choice, and can feel free simply to reshuffle the Charm into the pile of items.  When grabbed, a character need not switch out their previously possessed item.

FREEZE GUN: A character in possession of a Freeze Gun item can fire the Freeze Gun up, down, left or right, once per turn.  The first other character in that direction who is not blocked by landscape becomes frozen, losing their next turn.  Frozen characters fight as normal, but deal no damage if they win.  Frozen characters should be marked and remembered, as they only lose one turn and are considered frozen from the moment they are shot until they next move.

GRAVITY SWITCH: The Gravity Switch item, rather than being an item that a character possesses, reverses the direction of gravity (when considering jumping and falling, footing and ceilings) when grabbed.  When grabbed, a character need not switch out their previously possessed item, but rather shuffles the Gravity Switch item back into the pile of items.

HAMMER: The Hammer item gives its possessor a +1 to battle die rolls when attacking (not, however, when being attacked).

HEART: A Heart, rather than being an item that a character possesses, simply returns one hit point to the character who grabs it, to a maximum of three.  When grabbed, a character need not switch out their previously possessed item, but rather shuffles the Heart item back into the pile of items.  A character with full health who grabs a Heart does nothing, but simply returns the Heart to the Items deck. 

HELMET: The Helmet item gives its possessor a +1 to battle die rolls when being attacked (but not when doing the attacking).  Also, a character in possession of a Helmet takes only one hit point of damage from Bombs.

SUPER BOOTS: A character in possession of Super Boots gets to continue moving upward for up to six spaces when jumping instead of only three, if unimpeded by landscape.

The last player with any remaining characters outside the Graveyard has won the day!