Pyramid Arcade — Rules Manual

Martian Whist
2
MEDIUM
Designed by Fogus Version 1.0 MEDIUM

EQUIPMENT
● The Color Die
● Two Trios each of every color on the Color Die
● The purple Pyramid Arcade bag

OVERVIEW
Martian Whist is a minimal luck pyramid drafting and
Tree-based trick-taking game. Can you draft a set to score the
most points in tricks at the end of the game?

GOAL
Score the most points by building as many solid color Trees as
possible from the pyramids won in tricks.

TERMINOLOGY
● Trick: A trick is a comparison between the colors
contained in two Trees to determine if one player’s Tree
beats the other’s.
● Color rank: The order, from left to right, of the ranking
of colors in the game: Trump > Purple > Red > Yellow >
Green > Blue
● Trump: A color that beats all other colors regardless of
where it’s normally ranked.

SETUP
Place all of the Trios into an opaque sack. Draw from the sack
one small, one medium, and one large to make a Tree.
Continue this until all of the pyramids have been used to make
a row of 10 Trees. At this point, trump may be determined by
rolling the Color Die -- if the atomic symbol is rolled there
will be no trump.

WHO STARTS
The player who most recently played a card game goes first.

HOW TO PLAY
Martian Whist is played in two rounds: the first is meant to
build a mixed stash of pyramids via drafting, and the second
consists of a series of tricks used to build a set of final
pyramids for scoring.

STAGE ONE: DRAFTING TREES
There are two ways that you can draft pyramids and which one
you use should be agreed on by both players.

Method #1: Drafting whole Trees
Players take turns taking whole Trees from those available.
Players will receive five Trees each.

Method #2: Drafting Tree layers
Players take turns taking single pyramids from the highest
layer still containing pyramids, or may pass choosing any
single pyramid in a layer as long as two or more still remain
on that layer. If a player passes on a choice then the other
player chooses which pyramid to give them. The player who
passes last on a layer gets to go first on the next layer. Again,
players will receive five Trees each.

STAGE TWO: PLAYING TRICKS
Using the pyramids in their drafted stashes, the players will
play tricks to build a final scoring set. Starting with the person
who drafted last, a player will present a tree and the other will
follow with one of their own. These trees can be built from
any of the pyramids in their personal stash.

The following player must present a tree containing at least
one pyramid of the same color as any of the pyramids in the
leading tree if they are able. If they do not have a color to
follow the tree led then they can follow with a tree containing
any colors that they choose.

The player winning the trick will reserve their tree for final
scoring, while the losing tree will be discarded. The player
who won the trick leads the next trick. Play will continue like
this until all of the players' pyramids have been used, after
which final scoring will begin.

Resolving Tricks:

To resolve tricks the color of the pyramids used determines
the higher-ranking Tree. The ranking of the pyramid colors
are:

Trump > Purple > Red > Yellow > Green > Blue:
Martian Whist is ©2016 by Fogus
http://www.fogus.me

---

Solid color trees will resolve according to the color
rankings or trump:

Trees of a single color will always beat Trees of mixed colors,
even those containing trumps:

Trees of mixed colors will resolve from bottom to top
according to color. That is, players compare the base of the
Trees first:

Then the middle of the Tree is compared:

Finally, the top of the tree is compared:

The player who won the majority of the Tree segments wins
the trick; in the example above, the left-side player wins by
winning 1 segment vs. 0 for right. However, if the two Trees
played are identical or they result in a tie segment score then
the player who placed first wins the trick.
HOW TO WIN
When all of the Trees have been played to tricks then the
player with the highest score wins.
SCORING
From the pyramids won in tricks the players can rearrange the
colors to form as many solid Trees as possible. Solid Trees are
worth 3 points each while the remaining mixed Trees are
worth 1 point each. The player with the most valuable set of
Trees wins the game.

Martian Whist is ©2016 by Fogus
http://www.fogus.me

---