On Every Turn

Each turn consists of several steps. The details of each step are given later, but this short reference list is all you will normally need.

• Flip: Flip one facedown card faceup, if you can. • Spin: Spin one faceup card 180°. If the board is open (with some facedown cards), you can spin whatever you like. If the board is closed (all faceup), you must make a spin that will pop something. If you can’t pop a card on a closed board, the board is frozen. In this case, shuffle the board and rebuild it facedown, then restart your turn. • Check: Check around the edges of the card you’ve spun. If any Welcome! symbols on that card match the neighboring cards, then you “pop” the Girl Genius is a web comic of adventure, romance, and mad card(s) with more symbols. (Popping is defined below.) If two edges science, created by Phil and Kaja Foglio. It has been running con- have the same symbols and the same length, then both cards pop. stantly since 2001, and has won many accolades and awards. • Replace: Replace the cards you’ve taken with cards from your The story follows the adventures of Agatha Heterodyne, hand, faceup. mad genius and heir to a mysterious and powerful bloodline. • Draw: If you have fewer than five cards in your hand, draw back Girl Genius: The Works is a strategy card game designed up to five from the top of the deck. Note: If you ever find yourself with by James Ernest, and was first released in 2001 right alongside no cards in your hand, you draw one card. the comic. In The Works, everything in the world is a cog in a • End: The turn passes to the left. giant machine. Cards flip, spin, and pop, and have diverse and interesting effects (not all of which are good). Winning The strategy can be complex, but the basic game is pretty simple. There are hundreds of different cards in the set, with in- The goal is to collect the winning score in your Score Pile. You can teresting effects and combinations at every turn. win at any time, not just on your turn. The target score varies with the number of players, as follows: Let’s Play! Number of Players: 2 3 4 5 6+ Target Score: 75 50 40 35 30 Game Contents Note: These scores are based on the limits of a 60-card deck. If you This edition ofThe Works has four different 60-card decks. Each want to play with more cards, you can also play to a higher target score. deck covers a different segment of the Girl Genius storyline: Some cards provide alternate ways to win. Deck 1: Castle Wulfenbach Steps in the Turn, Explained Deck 2: Master Payne’s Circus of Adventure Deck 3: Castle Heterodyne Below are details on the steps in the turn. Once you are familiar Deck 4: The Siege of Mechanicsburg with them, you can usually go by the shorter list above. Each deck contains a unique mix of cards. The decks can be played Flip: If there are any facedown cards, flip one of them faceup. If alone, or they can be mixed together for even more variety. You can there are no facedown cards, skip this step. even pick and choose your favorite cards to make a custom deck! The direction in which you flip the card will determine which way Each deck also comes with three “Lose a Turn” cards. These aren’t it points, and you must flip the card without looking. necessary, but they can be useful when tracking complex situations. You need no other equipment to play! Spin: Spin one faceup card 180°. “Spinning” a card means turn- ing it around, not flipping it over. You are spinning a card to see if Game Overview anything pops, as explained below. The cards you are allowed to spin will depend on whether the board is open or closed. The game takes place on a 12-card board, shown below. On each Open Board: The board isopen if there are still some facedown turn, you will flipa card, spin a card, and check to see if anything popped. cards. When the board is open, you may spin any faceup card, whether (All of this is defined below.) When cards pop, they can have special ef- it will pop something or not. fects, which might lead to popping more cards, losing turns, or many Closed Board: If all of the cards are faceup, then the board is other interesting things. closed. Now you must make a move which will result in something pop- After you pop a card it goes into your Score Pile, where it is worth ping. This means you might be forced to pop a card you don’t want. points. The first player to collect enough points wins the game. Frozen Board: If the board is closed and there are no legal The Works is, at its heart, a two-player game. There is a good deal moves, then the board is frozen. If this is true in the Spin step, then of strategy in setting up moves for yourself, and this can be a little instead of spinning a card, you must pick up all twelve cards, shuffle more chaotic when you add more players. them, and deal them back out facedown. You will then flip just one Nevertheless, these rules are designed to work for as many as six card, spin it, and (having popped nothing) finish your turn. players, so don’t be confused if some wording implies more opponents Starting with a frozen board can be annoying, because you don’t than you actually have. get to pop anything. However, things are nearly as bad for the next Teams: If you play with four or six players, we recommend that player. Try it and see! you play in teams. The target score for a team is equal to the total Note: You must get permission from your opponents before you shuf- of the target scores for the individual players. For example, with four fle a frozen board. They might be able to show you a move you don’t see! players, the winners are the first team to score a total of 80 points. Breaking the Rules: Many cards break the basic rules, and when Check: When symbols match, cards pop. “Popping” generally they do, the card text takes precedence. This rulebook does not have means that something interesting is happening between those cards. an answer for every weird situation, so you might have to be clever. Sometimes it’s good, and sometimes it’s bad! Every card has colored symbols around the edges, representing How to Begin different aspects of personality. They areLoyalty (Yellow), Knowledge (Purple), Heart (Red), Balance (Blue), and Nature (Green). Find the three “Lose a Turn” cards and set them aside. Shuffle the The number of symbols on each edge represents the amount of rest of the deck and deal a hand of five cards to each player. Then deal each trait that a card has. 12 more cards into the middle of the table and construct a “board” of cards, facedown, in one of the two patterns shown here. Point Value Card Name Deck Icon

Details Edge Symbols Art

Two board configurations (either is fine) Effect After building the board, flip up two cards at opposite corners, as indicated above. Place the deck where everyone can reach it. Determine randomly who will go first. Thereafter, play will pass The Deck Icon indicates which deck the card comes from. If you mix to the left. different decks together, this symbol helps you sort them out. When neighboring edges have the same symbols, those two cards Each time you are instructed to lose one turn, you take one lost have something in common, and they react to each other. turn card. When the normal turn order comes to you, you discard the Check the edges of the card you just spun, comparing them to the card and skip your turn. cards around it. If any adjacent pair of edges is the same color (same If you are instructed to “take another turn,” technically everyone symbols), then the card with more symbols pops. else takes one lost turn card. “Popping” means that you pick up the card, follow its instruc- If everyone (including you) has one lost turn card, they can all tions (if you can), and put it into your Score Pile. hand one back. Each deck comes with only three of these, but feel free If the matching edges are the same size as well as the same color, to improvise some extras if the game gets particularly weird. then both cards pop. When is the Board Frozen? It is possible that there will be a This step is theonly time that you will check the edges of the cards legal move on a board, and you just won’t see it. That’s the nature of in play. The board might be littered with matching edges, but you must this game. It’s also possible that you’ll pretend not to see a legal move check only the one card you spin in the second step of your turn. because you don’t want to take it. That’s also allowed. You will notice that if the colors line up right, it’s possible to pop However, before you shuffle the board, you must get permission several cards at once. You can also pop even more cards by following from everyone else. This gives them the chance to show you the move card instructions. you’re pretending to miss! You always follow instructions in the same order that you pop the It’s remotely possible for a board to reach absolute zero, meaning cards. However, if you pop several cards at the same time, then you read that no matter how many times the board is reshuffled, nothing can them in alphabetical order. If they have the same name, follow the card ever pop, or that the game is otherwise locked. If everyone agrees that effects in alphabetical order. this is the case, then shuffle the board back into the deck and deal a Note: When alphabetizing cards, read the letters exactly as written. new board facedown. (This hasn’t ever happened in real life, but it’s For example, The Red Cathedral starts with “The,” not “Red.” theoretically possible, so there’s a rule for it.) The effects of most cards are pretty simple. If you get confused, you can read through the terms and phrases section below, where Key Terms and Phrases we’ve done our best to cover every picky detail we can think of. Cards you have popped go into your Score Pile, where they are Any Player / Another Player: There is a difference: “any player” worth their point value. (The Score Pile is public knowledge.) can include you, while “another player” can’t. If you are playing on a A card does not go into your Score Pile until you are finished with team, “another player” can include your teammate, so certain cards all of its instructions, which might include popping other cards. become much more useful in a team game! Check: “Check” means to look around the edges of a card you Replace: You must now replace every card you took off the board. have just spun to see if any colors line up. You check only the edges of These new cards are played from your hand, faceup. the card you spin as a basic step of your turn. When you are instructed If you have popped more cards than you hold, you must play out to spin other cards, you never check them. your hand first, and then you may draw cards one at a time to fill the Draw: “Draw” means to put a card into your hand. This usually remaining spaces. means from the top of the deck, unless the instructions specifically If your opponent is responsible for replacing cards during your say otherwise, as in “Draw one card from your Score Pile.” Note: When turn, because he popped some cards or because of some other card drawing cards from an exposed set, like your Score Pile, you can decide what effect, you take turns replacing single cards, starting with you. to draw, unless you are directed to do it randomly. If you’re unclear whose responsibility a certain card is, just ask Flip: “Flip” means to flip over a card. It doesn’t imply that you’re yourself “who touched it?” It should be obvious in every case who flipping the card faceup or facedown, just that you’re flipping it over. touched the card. The player who touched the card is responsible for When you flip cardsup , you don’t get to look at them beforehand. replacing it. In Play: Only the twelve cards on the board are considered “in When playing your cards, it’s usually a good idea to leave no good play.” Your Score Pile, your hand, the cards you have just popped, and moves for your opponent. On the other hand, if you’re going to take the cards in the deck aren’t in play, no matter what’s going on. Unless the next turn, this is your chance to set up the perfect move. they explicitly say otherwise, cards refer only to other cards that are in play, whether they use the phrase “in play” or not. Draw: If you get to this step with fewer than five cards in your Move (something) into your Score Pile: This isn’t the same as hand, draw cards from the deck until you have five. popping. If you are instructed to put a card into your Score Pile, you If you hold more than five cards, then you don’t draw in this step. just do it. You don’t follow its instructions, because you didn’t pop it. But you don’t have to discard anything, either. Plurals: Singular and plural details are treated as the same word. Unless you’re instructed otherwise, or unless your hand is empty, For example, some “Soldier” cards are labeled as “Soldiers” (plural) this is the only time when you draw cards. However, if your hand is ever simply because they depict multiple soldiers on the same card. “Pop empty, you do immediately draw one card. one Soldier” can pop this card. If the deck runs out of cards, the game ends immediately, and the Pointing: A card can only be “pointing” at another card if they player with the highest score wins. are both in play. (This is a rule for exactly one card,Jorgi .) Pop: To “pop” a card means to pick it up, follow its instructions, End: Once you’re done with your turn, tell the next player to go and put it into your Score Pile. If the card tells you to pop another card, ahead. This is a good time to check your score. you pick up and follow the directions on the next card before you put Your score is equal to the total point values of the cards in your the first one down. In a sense, those instructions become an extension Score Pile. It helps to track your score if you stack your cards in piles of of the instructions on the first card, and the first card is still “in the ten points, or if you “spell” your score by using two cards. air” while you execute the second one. For example, if you have 53 points, you can stack most of your Replace: This means to put a new card in the space that this card cards under a “5,” to mean “50” and then put a “3” next to the stack, to left in the board. “Replace this card” instructions are not valid if the spell “53.” card did not start in play and get removed. You cannot replace a card You can win at any time, but it’s good to get into the habit of that popped from your hand, your Score Pile, etc. checking your score after your turn. Spin: “Spinning” a card means keeping it flat and spinning it around, not flipping the card over. On every turn, you spin one card More Stuff to Know 180°. You may also be instructed to spin other cards at other times. This Card: If a card says “this card” it is always referring to itself, Card Name and Details: This area contains words that describe not a different card, and not another copy of the same card. the card. For example, Agatha’s First Clank has the details “Giant” and “Machine.” If a card says “Pop one Giant card” or “Pop one Clank,” Strategy then it can pop Agatha’s First Clank. As long as the word you’re looking for appears anywhere in this The most important decision in this game is how to replace the area, this card counts as that type of card. Technically, this means that cards you pop. It’s probably obvious that the first few cards you take “Mamma’s Jäger Girls” count as “Jägers” because they have that word will be fairly random. But as soon as you start to play replacements in their name, even though we know they secretly are not. (Mostly.) onto the board, you are choosing how the game will unfold. Facedown Cards: Facedown cards are in play, and count as Remember that once the board is closed, players will be forced “cards,” but they are otherwise blank. They have no knowledge of what to take a move if there is one. While it may be tempting to freeze the they are. Even if you know exactly what a facedown card is, it only board, it’s actually much more effective to give your opponent a single counts as a “card.” (If you pop it, you do follow its instructions.) bad move, or create one move that sets you up for a better one. Instructions: Instructions on a card are directed at the player There’s plenty more where that came from, but this rules sheet is who popped it, so “you” means the player who popped the card. out of room. Learn more about the game at cheapass.com. If an instruction contains the phrase “you may,” that instruction is optional. Otherwise, you must follow it if you are able. Girl Genius: The Works is a product of Cheapass Games and Studio If you are unable to follow an instruction, you ignore it. If you are Foglio, © and ™ 2001-2018 Cheapass Games LLC. Girl Genius® is a given an instruction you are only partially able to follow, do the best registered trademark of Studio Foglio. Game design by James Ernest. you can. For example, if you are directed to “Pop two Pests” and there Illustrations by Phil Foglio and Nate Taylor. Character designs by Phil is only one Pest in play, then you pop one Pest. and Kaja Foglio. Graphic design by James Ernest, Kaja Foglio, and Losing Turns: Extra turns and lost turns are some of the most Cheyenne Wright. Edited by Carol Monahan, Cathy Saxton, Cassidy important turning points in this game. But if lots of extra turns pile Werner, and Mike Selinker. Special research by Jensen Bohren. up at once it can be a little confusing. That’s why we’ve included the Playtesting by the Cheapass Games Guinea Pigs. “Lose a Turn” tracking cards.