Puzzle Strike by David Sirlin Games in One Page by Steve Lewis

Puzzle Strike by David Sirlin Games In One Page by Steve Lewis Published by Sirlin Games, 2010 v1.0 pub12/14/17 In Puzzle Strike, you’ll be building a “deck” of chips, similar to a deckbuilding game. If your gem pile becomes too large, you’ll be knocked out of the game, so you’ll need to combine and crash your gem pile into your opponents’ piles to stay alive. To set up, each player takes a bag and fills it with six $1 gem chips, one Crash Gem chip, and three character-specific chips. Create a supply of the remaining $1, $2, $3, and $4 gem chips, Combine, Crash, Double Crash, and Wound chips. Select ten action chip piles (five chips each) and place them in the supply; the other action chips won’t be used in the game. For the first round, shake your bag and draw a hand of five chips. On your turn, you perform the following four phases in order: 1. Ante - Place a $1 gem chip from the supply in your gem pool. 2. Action - You may play one action chip (with a banner) from your hand; follow the instructions on that chip. If the chip you played has a black arrow, you may play another action chip of any kind; if the chip has a colored arrow, you may play an action chip that has that color in its banner. 3. Buy - First, check your gem pile. If the sum of the chips in your gem pile is 10 or greater, you are eliminated from the game; send any chips in excess of 10 to the next player’s gem pile. You must buy at least one chip from the supply using any gem chips in your hand or money generated from action chips played. If you have the funds to do so, you may buy multiple chips. If you cannot buy any chips, you must buy a Wound chip (which costs $0). Purchased chips are placed in your discard pile. 4. Cleanup - Place all chips played in this round (action chips, gem chips used in purchases) and any unused chips in your hand into the discard pile. Any unused actions or money are lost. Count the current sum of the chips in your gem pile, and draw the corresponding number of cards for that sum (five to eight chips). Play passes to the next player. If, at any time, you need to draw chips from your bag but don’t have any, put the chips in your discard pile into your bag, shake, and draw the required chips. When all but one player has been eliminated from play, the remaining player wins.

Much of the play will rely on use of the Combine, Crash Gem, and Double Crash chips. The Combine chip allows you to take two chips in your gem pile and combine them into one chip with their combined value (the maximum value is 4). You receive an additional action. When you play a Crash Gem chip, choose one of the chips in your gem pile and return it to the supply. The next player must add that many $1 gem chips to their gem pile, unless they counter by playing a Crash Gem chip from their own hand. If they do, they choose a chip from their gem pile and return it to the supply. Whoever crashed the smaller gem receives the difference between the two gems in $1 gem chips added to their gem pile. (In a tie, neither players gain chips). You may counter an opponent’s counter with another Crash Gem chip of your own, and vise versa. After all Crash gems are resolved, you receive $1 for each Crash Gem chip played on your turn; your opponent doesn’t receive any money for their chips used to counter. Chips used by your opponents to counter are discarded. A Double Crash Gem chip works like a Crash Gem chip, except you choose two chips to attack your opponents with at the same time. Crashing a $4 gem from your gem pile cannot be countered; the crash must be resolved.

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