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A BoardGame under development by AlexChurchill. Flavour inspired by APocketfulOfClouds.

Intro


Ah, the life above the clouds. Retreating from the world, you have climbed the Long Ladder to come to live in Sky Town, a tiny hamlet of individuals who prefer the life in wooden huts in the air. You fly your zeppelin and glider from building to building, getting to know your neighbours and making plans. But others are arriving too, who also have an ambition to make a name for themselves in this curious community in the sky.

Overview


You will send your two workers around the growing Sky Town, taking actions to earn victory points. Building bridges to connect buildings allows you to get multiple effects from one worker, even making use of opponents' buildings - though the owners will get their cut. Study the sky around you, and build the most valuable and useful buildings, to score the most points.

Components:


A board, comprised of 37 identical hexagonal sky tiles
37 [building tiles]
A [building track]
A [study grid]
16 hats (4 each of Recluse, Cheeky, Trader, Scrounger)
Wood cubes (brown)
Silk cubes (blue)
Money in £1s and £5s
Victory point chips in 1s and 5s
Bridges
In each player colour:
- A glider worker and a zeppelin worker
- A two-sided "next worker" indicator
- Ownership markers (houses)
- A study marker (cylinder)

Setup:


Lay out the board, a 4-5-6-7-6-5-4 hexagon grid of empty sky tiles, on the table.
Put the starting "Building" disc in the centre, and the other six in the six corners. Put six bridges coming out from the Building tile, one in each direction; and one road coming out from each of the other six starting tiles, pointing towards the centre.

Put the study grid near the board, and put each player's study marker on the "0"'space, in the bottom left corner of the study  grid.

Lay out the building track above the board. Shuffle the Age II buildings and put them in a stack beside the building track. Shuffle the Age I buildings, deal one onto each space of the building track, and put the rest on top of the stack of Age II buildings.

Each player takes one wood cube (brown), one silk cube (blue), and £3 (except for the first player who takes £2).
Each player takes the two workers of one colour (the glider and the zeppelin), and puts a Recluse hat on the glider.
Each player takes the "Next worker" marker of their colour and puts it in front of them showing the glider side.

Turn sequence:


On your turn, you must move the worker indicated by your "Next worker" marker. You move the indicated worker onto any space on the board, as long as that space is:
(On your first turn, the "Next worker" marker shows the glider, so you must move your glider. Your workers start the game off the board, so you can place them on any space that doesn't have another worker in it.)

If the worker you're placing has a Recluse hat (as your glider does initially), the space must also not be owned by another player. It can be empty, a neutral building, or a building that belongs to you, but not one of your opponents.

When you place a worker on a space, you get the effect of the building in that space (if there is any); and you can also get the effect of all spaces which are directly  adjacent to that space and linked to it by a bridge. Each adjacent bridge-linked space you choose to activate in this way will cost you £1 to the building's owner. If the building is neutral, you pay £1 to the bank. If you own the adjacent building, you don't have to pay anything to activate it.

[Example:
 Astronomer             Builder
      \_              _/      \_ 
      Weaver  Watchmaker —— Tailor
                _/
            Café
          _/
      Bridger
Alice places a worker on the Watchmaker. She gets the effect of the Watchmaker, which is to gain two wood cubes. There are three other buildings which Alice could also activate as part of this action, since they have bridges linking to the building Alice placed in. She pays £1 to Bob and gets the effect of Bob's Café, which is to gain £3 from the bank. She pays £1 to the bank to get the effect of the neutral Builder, which is to build a new building. She decides not to pay £1 to Charlie because she doesn't want to use his Tailor.
She does not have the option of activating her own Weaver, because there is no bridge linking it to the Watchmaker where she placed. She also does not have the option of activating the neutral Bridger, because it is not directly connected to the Watchmaker where she placed.]

You do not get the effects of any buildings which are indirectly linked to the space you played in. At most you can gain seven effects from one worker: the effect of the building you played in, plus the six hexes that directly touch that building. This would only happen if all six of those hexes had buildings in, and also had bridges connecting them to the hex you played in.

You are allowed to place a worker in an empty space. This can be useful to allow you to activate buildings which have bridges extending into that empty space.

After you have placed a worker, flip your "Next worker" card to its other side. This indicates the end of your turn.

Building effects:


When you activate a building, by placing a worker in it or in an adjacent building, you get the effect of that building. Building effects are as follows:


Hats:


Each of your two workers can wear up to one hat. This represents a specialisation that worker has. One of the hats has a negative effect, Recluse: your glider starts off wearing this hat. When you activate a Hatter building, you can put a new hat on one of your workers, returning its existing hat to the supply if there was one.

The effects of the different hats are as follows:

The Study Grid:


When you activate a study building (Astronomer, Meteorologist or Teacher), you get to advance your study marker on the study grid, either one step vertically or one step horizontally. At the end of the game, you will score points equal to the number on the space where your study marker ends up.

When your study marker advances across one of the coloured lines, you gain the resources indicated by that line: some money, or one or more resource cubes. It's possible that making a single advance might cross two lines at once, in which case you get the resources corresponding to both lines.

The spaces close to the bottom-left corner (coloured green) have room for any number of player markers. However, all spaces across any of the lines (the spaces coloured white) only have room for one player's study marker. If another player's marker is on the study space you wish to move to, you can't.

Whenever you would advance to the right, you may choose to instead move to the left. This isn't normally beneficial as it may reduce your study score and you don't gain any resources for crossing lines in the reverse direction. However, it can allow you to go around another player's study marker that's blocking you.
Do you gain the resources for crossing the line a second time if you step right across a line, then left back to the first side, then right across it again? --CH
Yeah. Since you're using an action to step left, my hope is it won't normally be worth it. (That's the reason you can't just step left/down for free, though.) It might sometimes be worth it when you're crossing two lines at once. I don't think I mind that; we'll see if people get stuck using that rather than heading up to the top corner too much. --AC

Game End:


The game ends when ???
- when the last building is built? when there are only [4?] buildings left on the building track?
- when a player reaches [11?] study VP?

Your score is comprised of the following components:

The player with the most VP is the winner!



CategoryGames BoardGame

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