Affinity
Affinity Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Aim of the Game
Affinity is a team game in which victory and defeat are shared by all the team. In order to win, the blue Harmony token has to reach the red Discord zone before the red Discord token reaches the blue Harmony zone.
Players: 3-8. Age: 8+. Time: 20 min.
Setup
- Place the board with the Harmony track (blue) and Discord track (red), with 1 Discord token and 1 Harmony token on their starting spaces.
- Place the emotion board (Beautiful, Fun, Creepy, Sad) next to it.
- Place the box with the 3x60 sentence cards (beginning / middle / end) so that all players can see the discard area.
- Shuffle the 32 emotion cards.
- Place the 3 joker tokens within reach.
- One player receives the "leader" token (decision totem).
- Each player draws 10 cards: 3 sentence cards of each color and 1 emotion card. They can look at them secretly.
A Round
All the players secretly and simultaneously create a sentence to match the emotion they have drawn (beautiful, fun, creepy or sad) using one of each sentence cards in their hand. Each player then hands the sentence (the 3 cards) to the person on their right (the emotion card remains secret).
One player takes the decision totem and reads aloud the sentence he or she has received. He or she then places the cards in the discard areas so that everyone can read them. The players then discuss the meaning to try and guess the emotion expressed by the person who created the sentence.
Caution: the person who created the sentence should remain silent and neutral!
After discussion, the player with the totem chooses what he or she thinks is the right emotion by placing it on the emotion board (this person has the last word). The player who created the sentence then shows the others his or her emotion card.
If the right emotion is guessed, the Harmony token is moved one square forward. Otherwise, the Discord token is moved one square forward.
End of the Round
The next player then takes the decision totem and reads his/her sentence. The gameplay goes on until all the sentences have been read, and the emotions guessed. The emotion cards are then re-shuffled to create a new pile. Each player draws an emotion card as well as one of each sentence card. A new round can now begin.
End of the Game
At the end of a round, if the blue token is in the red zone and/or the red token is in the blue zone, the game is over.
Victory & Defeat
At the end of the game, if...
- Only the blue token has reached the opposite zone: Well done, you've won! Harmony reigns in your team!
- Both tokens have reached the opposite zone: Your team is on the right track. Try again to attain harmony!
- Only the red token has reached the opposite zone: Your team has had problems understanding each other and Discord has set in. OK, it's a defeat, but you can start again and do better next time!
Joker Tokens
At any time in the game, a player can use a joker token to discard as many sentence cards as he or she wants and draw new ones. But, be careful, you only have three joker tokens for the entire team and the entire game.
Tips
- Place the game box so that all the players can see the discard area and are able to read the discarded sentence.
- When you read a sentence, ask yourself: "Is this sentence beautiful? Sad? Creepy? Or fun?" And try to think like the person who created the sentence.
- If your sentence cards don't match your emotion, you can always use a joker token. That's what they're there for!
Family Variation
Take the "creepy" cards out of the emotion deck, and flip the emotion board on the side with only 3 emotion icons. Children are free to discard sentence cards they don't understand and to draw other ones.
Expert Variation
At the start of the game, spice things up a bit by moving the Discord token one square forward if:
- all the players have known each other for more than 5 years.
- at least two players have known each other for more than 20 years.
- at least two players are in a relationship.
- all the players belong to the same family or the same generation.
- all the players have already played together at least once.
- all the players want to spice things up a bit.