Auf heißer Spur Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Overview
• Basic Game Without Special Cards
  • Setup
  • Start of the Game
  • Who Is Being Sought?
  • How the Trail Search Works
  • End of the Game
• Game With Special Cards
  • Setup
  • Course of the Game
  • End of the Game

Game Overview

Die schnelle Verfolgungsjagd mit Verwechslungsgefahr für 2–6 Spieler von 6–99 Jahren. (The fast chase game with a risk of mix-ups for 2–6 players, ages 6 and up.)

Contents

• 3 plastic houses in three colours (red, blue, green)
• 36 thief cards (Dieb-Kärtchen)
• 6 special cards (Sonderkärtchen): 3 underground-station cards (U-Bahn-Stationen) and 3 track-change cards (Spur-Wechsel)
• 3 symbol dice (Symbolwürfel)
• 6 stickers (Aufkleber)

Goal of the game

The goal is to be the first to find the wanted thieves and to collect the most thief cards.

Before the first game

Carefully peel the hand and footprint stickers off their backing sheet and stick them onto the plastic houses, on the triangular projections of the houses:

• The blue hand print and the blue foot print go on the blue house, the red prints on the red house, and the green prints on the green house.
• When you look at a house from the front, stick the hand print on its right side and the foot print on its left side.

Several versions of the game are available. First, play the basic game without special cards, described below. Once you have some experience, new challenges can be added with the special cards.

Basic Game Without Special Cards

Setup

Before the game, sort out the six special cards with gemstones on their backs and put them back in the box. You do not need them for this version of the game. Shuffle the remaining cards well.

Set up the three houses.

Lay out 18 cards face up in a circle. The feet of the thieves on the cards point toward the middle of the circle. Place the three houses at three arbitrary positions between two cards. Make sure the houses are not standing too close to each other.

The remaining thief cards are placed as a face-down stack next to the circle of cards. Now get the three dice ready.

Start of the Game

The youngest player begins. After that, play proceeds clockwise.

When it is your turn, roll all three dice at the same time. The dice give you three clues that will lead you onto the trail of the wanted thief.

Who Is Being Sought?

1. Start-location die (Startort-Würfel): This die shows at which house the thief begins his escape and in which direction he flees. The colour of the symbol (hand or foot print) matches the colour of the house. The symbol itself shows the direction.

Example: The thief begins his escape at the blue house and flees in the direction of the foot print.

2. Trail die (Spur-Würfel): During his escape the thief loses gemstones, which lead you onto his trail. The trail die shows which gemstones the wanted thief loses in each case: red, blue or green. So you only need to look for thief cards that show a gemstone in the chosen colour in the bottom right corner. Some cards show two gemstones; those cards count for both gemstone colours.

3. Feature die (Merkmal-Würfel): The third die shows a special feature of the wanted thief. There are three different features:

1. Peaked cap (Schirmmütze)
2. Striped T-shirt (gestreiftes T-Shirt)
3. Boots (Stiefel)

You are only looking for a suspect who has the rolled feature. All other thieves are, in this round, beyond suspicion.

How the Trail Search Works

Now it is a matter of combining the three dice clues and finding the thief as quickly as possible on whom all three clues apply.

As soon as a player has rolled, everyone searches for the house shown by the start-location die at the same time. Following the direction given by the hand or foot print, use your eyes to follow the cards in that direction. Where is the first thief who loses the wanted gemstones and has the rolled feature?

If you believe you have found the right thief, slap your hand on the corresponding card. Then everyone checks together whether it really is the right thief. If you were right, take the card and lay it in front of you. Then turn over a new thief card from the stack and place it face up in the vacated position. The next player rolls, and a new chase begins.

If you have caught a wrong thief, the chase continues until the right thief has been found, but unfortunately without you.

Example (illustration in the original rulebook): Several cards are shown with the dice results and the cards the players checked, and one card is marked as the right thief.

End of the Game

After the last thief card has been placed from the stack into the circle, one more chase takes place. Whoever then has the most thief cards in front of them wins. If several players have the same number of cards, they all win.

Game With Special Cards

Setup

Divide the cards by their backs into two stacks: the thief cards (thieves on the back) form one stack, and the special cards (gemstones on the back) form the other. Shuffle both stacks well, face down.

Again lay out the cards in a circle. Here, each special card is followed by two thief cards. The three buildings (houses) are treated like special cards and placed at three arbitrary positions in the row, instead of a special card. Make sure the three buildings are not standing too close to each other.

Keep adding cards until all special cards and houses have been put into the row. The circle then consists of 18 thief cards, 6 special cards and the 3 houses.

Course of the Game

The game proceeds in principle as described for the basic version. However, a few obstacles stand in your way when following the trail of the thief.

Track change (Spur-Wechsel): When your trail search reaches a track-change card that shows a gemstone of the wanted colour in the bottom right corner, the gemstone colour you are looking for changes from that point on. The gemstone colour can change several times in one round.

Example: You are tracking a thief who loses blue gemstones. When you reach this card, which shows a red gemstone, the thief from this point on loses red gemstones.

Underground station (U-Bahn-Station): If you reach an underground-station card that shows a gemstone of the wanted colour, the thief uses the underground during his escape. This means he disappears in the underground station and reappears only at the next station, in the same direction. The cards between the two stations are not considered during the search.

Example: The thief loses blue gemstones and you reach an underground-station card showing a blue gemstone; the thief disappears and the cards up to the next station are skipped.

Playing gradually: You can also ease into the game, playing first with only one kind of special card, either track changes or underground stations. In that case, place the cards as in the basic version and place the three special cards at three arbitrary positions in the circle.

Spurlos verschwunden (lost without trace): In rare cases it can happen that no thief card in the circle matches the dice combination. The first player who notices this calls out loudly "Spurlos verschwunden!" ("Vanished without trace!"). If they are right, they receive a thief card from the stack. Otherwise the search continues without them.

End of the Game

The game ends after the last thief card has been placed from the stack into the circle; then one more chase takes place. The player who has the most thief cards in front of them wins. If several players have the same number of cards, they all win.

If you do not want to play until all thief cards have been dealt: Before the game, agree on a number of cards with which a player wins. The first player to reach that number of thief cards wins.