How to Play Criss Cross

Game Objective

In Criss Cross, you and your friends roll dice and mark symbols on your score sheets. The goal is to achieve the highest score by strategically filling your score sheet to create combinations of matching symbols in your rows and columns. The player with the highest total score wins the game.

Preparation (Setup)

To start playing Criss Cross, follow these simple steps:

1. Each player receives a pencil and a score sheet. For now, ignore the highlighted diagonal line on the sheet.
2. Each player must record one of the six dice symbols in the highlighted space in the upper left corner of their score sheet. Make sure each player inserts a different symbol.

Game Flow

Criss Cross is played over 12 rounds. The game proceeds as follows:

1. At the beginning of each round, one player (the active player) rolls the two dice.
2. The player who rolled the dice announces the two symbols that were rolled.
3. Now, each player, simultaneously, must write these two symbols on their own score sheet.

Keep all score sheets visible so no one can cheat!

Actions and How to Play

The main action in Criss Cross is writing the rolled symbols on your score sheet. Here's how it works:

• After the dice are rolled and the two symbols announced, each player must insert these two symbols into two adjacent empty spaces on their score sheet.
• Adjacent spaces can be horizontal or vertical.
• The two symbols do not need to be placed next to existing symbols on the sheet (from a previous turn), but they must be placed next to each other.

Advanced Rules

Once players have mastered the basic game, they can choose to play the advanced version of Criss Cross. The game is played in the same way, with the following changes:

• A - Diagonal Line Scoring: The highlighted diagonal line in the middle of the score sheet also scores, in the same way as columns and rows. The score for this diagonal line is counted twice.
• B - Penalty for Empty Rows/Columns: Any row, column, or the diagonal line that does not score points receives -5 points.

End of Game and Scoring

The game ends when all spaces on all players' score sheets are filled or only individual empty spaces remain.

Scoring

After the game ends, each player looks at the 5 rows and 5 columns on their score sheet to calculate points:

• Each pair of matching symbols is worth: 2 points.
• Each trio of matching symbols is worth: 3 points.
• Each quartet of matching symbols is worth: 8 points.
• Each quintet of matching symbols is worth: 10 points.

Important: To score, the matching symbols must be adjacent, with no gaps between them.

The score for each row is entered to the right of each row, and the score for each column is entered below each column. The grand total is entered in the bottom right corner.

Winning Condition

The player with the highest grand total wins. In case of a tie, the tie-breaker is in favor of the highest score from a single row or column.

Solo Play

When playing solo, the goal is to score as many points as possible and see your progress in the ranking:

• 30+ points: Cross Master
• 25-29 points: X-tra Special
• 20-24 points: Symbol Simon
• 15-19 points: Line Sweeper
• 0-14 points: Column Counter

Tips for Winning

• Make sure not to leave empty spaces without another orthogonally adjacent empty space, otherwise your game will end prematurely with some empty spaces on your score sheet.
• Focus on creating combinations of 4 and 5 matching symbols (worth 8 and 10 points, respectively) and 2x2 sets of matching symbols (which yield 8 points for 4 pairs), as these achieve a higher score.