Crooks
Players:
2-4 people Age: from 8 years upward Duration of game: approx. 30 minutes
BASIC CONCEPT OF GAME:
In the middle of the table
there are laid out three rows of cards with crooks.
If crooks of the same type (same colour) are lying next to each other within
any row, this counts as a group. A
single crook counts as a “group of one”.
There are seven different
types of crook. The numeral on the lower edge of the card indicates how many
cards of this type there are in total. The most frequently-occurring type is
the “yellow crook” (24 cards), the least frequently-occurring is the “grey
crook” (6 cards).
Group of 2 Group of 3
Group of 1 Group of 2 Group of 1
Group of 1
PREPARING THE GAME
The 105 “crook” cards are
shuffled. The player immediately to the left of the dealer gets three cards; the player next left,
moving clockwise, gets four cards;
all the other players get five cards.
Each player takes up his cards, which become his hand.
There are now laid face up in
the middle of the table three rows of
cards each consisting of 10 cards.
These cards are not sorted or
further shuffled. They are merely laid down, face upward, in the sequence in
which they happen to be drawn from the top of the pack.
The remaining cards are placed
in a pile at the edge of the table, as a pile
to be drawn on in the course of the game, the faces of whose constituent
cards remain hidden.
Please Note: Enough
space should be left at the edge of the table next to the pile of face-down
cards for the “jail” area that will also arise there in the course of the game.
Space for “Jail”
Area
Pile to be Drawn On in the Game
COURSE OF THE GAME
The player immediately to the
left of the dealer begins and performs one
after the other, and in the
following sequence, three actions:
1.)
Select a group (must be performed)
The player opts for any row,
chosen freely by him, and selects from this row either the entire group
lying on the extreme right end of this row or
the entire group lying on its
extreme left end, making these cards part of his hand.
Then, he must “put in jail”
the group which lies, in the same row, immediately next to the group which he
has just taken up into his hand.
He takes this complete group
and lays them, faces up, at the edge of the table, at just a little distance
from the pile of face-down cards that is to be drawn from during the game.
Taken up into
the player’s hand “Sent to jail”
Example: Sarah
begins, and decides to take up into her hand the group lying at the extreme
left end of the bottom row. That is to say, she takes up into her hand the two
red crooks. Then, she takes the group which is lying immediately next to this
group (the two purple crooks) and places these cards, face up, at the edge of
the table next to the pile which is to be drawn on during the game.
2.)
Lay a group face up on the table (can be performed, but doesn’t need to be)
The player can (but doesn’t
have to!) take just one type of
crook from the cards in his hand and lay some cards of this one type face
upward on the table in front of him. Which type of crook he chooses, and how
many cards of this type he lays down, is up to him (it can only be one, if he
wishes). The cards should be laid down in such a way that one can recognize how
many cards it is.
Example: Sarah
lays down two green crooks, face up, on the table in front of her.
Important: Once one has crooks of a
specific type lying on the table in front of one, one may not subsequently add
further cards to this type. Each type may only be laid out on the table one single time in total. If you want
to lay out cards of the same type as another player has already laid out cards
of, then one must lay out at least one
card more of this type than are currently lying in front of the other
player. If you are able to do this, then the cards that are laid out at that
point in front of the other player are removed and are placed, face down, off
to the side on a pile of cards not currently in the game. (The other player
concerned may, however, afterward lay out this type of card once again in the
manner described.)
3.)
Laying down a card face up (must be performed)
The player takes the uppermost
card from the pile that is to be drawn from in the course of the game and lays
it, face up, at the same extreme end of the row as he has just taken cards
from, directly next to the cards that are lying there.
Example: Sarah
takes the uppermost card from the pile (a green crook) and lays it at the far
left end of the bottom row, directly next to the yellow crooks that are already
lying there.
Please Note: All players should join in
seeing to it that the 3rd action here – that is to say, the
uncovering and laying down of the card, is not forgotten and left unperformed! If this is more convenient, this uncovering
and laying down of a card from the pile can be performed, throughout the whole
course of the game, by one and the same player.
Next
player: And
now it is the turn of the next player, moving clockwise, to carry out the three
actions just described, one after the other in sequence. The game then
continues to be played in this way, moving clockwise around the circle of
players.
Procedure
when the pile of cards to be drawn from during the game is exhausted: Should
the pile of face-down cards to be drawn from be at any point in the game
entirely used up, all the cards piled up on the pile of cards not currently
part of the game should be shuffled and set down as a new face-down pile to be
drawn from.
Empty
rows and filling of rows: In the case where there remains, at some point in the
course of the game, only one group in a specific row, or no group at all in
said row, then the row in question should stay, provisionally, “empty”. Cards
may no longer be taken from this row. The players must, from this point on,
take crooks from another row. Only when all three rows have become “empty”
in this way (that is to say, only
when they consist either of just one group or of none) are all three rows
immediately filled up again by drawing new cards from the drawing pile, so that
there are once again 10 cards lying in each row. If there is
still one group present in an “empty” row, this group is pushed entirely
outside it before the row is filled up again.
Not
enough cards: In
the very unlikely event that it proves impossible to form a drawing pile – that
is to say, if there are no longer enough cards available to fill up all 3 empty
rows or to uncover a card in the course of the 3rd action, the
following procedure should be followed: Each player should give up a number of
random cards from his hand such that the number of cards he still has in his
hand amounts to no more than 12. The pile of cards created in this way should
then be shuffled and set down on the edge of the table as the new drawing pile.
If no sufficient drawing pile can be created even by this procedure, then each
player must give up so many cards that his hand is reduced to 6 random cards.
JAIL FULL: 6-2 OR 2-6
NOW FOR SCORING!
In the course of the game more
and more crooks go to jail.
These crooks are always laid
down, face up and separated by type, in the jail, so that it is always easily
recognizable how many crooks of each type are present there.
The jail is full when either six different sorts of crook are represented
there by two or more crooks respectively or two different sorts of crook are represented there by six or more
crooks respectively.
Please Note: The player who already fills
the jail simply by the performing of his 1st action may not then go
on to perform actions 2 and 3. These are now simply dropped.
All the crooks who
now find themselves in jail are now distributed colour by colour to the
players (first the yellow crooks, then the orange, then the red etc. etc.). Points are only given for
these crooks. The crooks that the players have laid out in front of themselves
in the course of the game generate no points.
Lying in the
jail are 6 types of crook represented by at least 2 crooks respectively:
therefore proceed to scoring!
That player who, at the time
of proceeding to scoring, has the yellow crooks lying in front of him receives
all the yellow crooks from the jail. He should lay the yellow crooks that he
has received from the jail out in front of him in a fan pattern.
The yellow crooks that he has
lying in front of him at the time of proceeding to scoring are transferred
immediately to the pile of cards not currently being used in the game.
In the same way deals
can be made to swap colour for colour.
Please Note: In the case where there happen
to be lying in the jail crooks of a type to which none of the cards that are
lying in front of the players correspond, then these crooks are transferred
directly and immediately to the not-in-play pile.
-
Each player
adds up the number of all the crook
cards that he has received from the jail and multiplies this number by the number
of different types of crook that he has received from the jail. The result
of this calculation is noted down on a piece of paper.
-
yellow + red +
green = 3 types
4+2+ 1=7 cards
7x3 =21 points
Example: Sarah
has received from the jail four yellow crooks, two red crooks, and a green
crook. For these she gets 21 points noted down (7 cards and 3 types, so: 7 x 3 = 21).
FURTHER COURSE OF GAME, AND THE PLAYERS
After the scoring, all the
crooks that the players have received from the jail are transferred onto the
not-in-play pile. There are no more cards lying in front of any player!
The jail is now likewise
completely empty! The only cards which the players are allowed to keep are
those which they actually have in their respective hands.
The game is now continued,
quite normally, in the manner already described, beginning with the player
sitting to the left of the player whose move had prompted the proceeding to the
scoring. The game is then pursued in this way, moving around clockwise from
player to player, until a second scoring takes place.
This second scoring, the
subsequent further course of the game, and finally a third scoring, are all
conducted in the manner already described in the paragraphs above.
The game ends after the third scoring.
Whoever has, at this point, the most points in total is the winner.
You can purchase Gauner from Advent Games.
You can purchase Gauner from Advent Games.
