Bargain Basement Bathysphere Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• What You Need to Play
• Moving and Marking
  • Spaces
• Scenarios
• Starting a Round
• Resources
• Scenario 1 – Rescue Party
  • Goal
  • Setup
  • To Win (or to Lose)
  • Special Action Spaces
  • Ignore These Spaces

What You Need to Play

• 1 Rescue Party Map Board (check out the last page for a simplified version)
• 1 token to track your Bathysphere's progress (any token will do)
• 1 dry-erase marker or 1 pen or pencil
• 8 dice (just 4 for now)

Moving and Marking

The game uses the term MARKED a lot. This means you have crossed out an icon or space, or something on a map or mini-game sheet. When you mark something, it shows that it is not available anymore, whether it is a valuable resource keeping you alive, an action that you have triggered, or a space that you have landed on.

Spaces

What happens on a space depends on whether you land on it or pass it.

It also depends if it has been marked off previously or not. (Don't worry about this sucker until you get the real game.)

Gray spaces can be empty, have an Action, or even have two Actions on them. Typical Actions found on these spaces require you to mark off precious resources, like Oxygen, Stress, and Damage. These spaces are marked and activated as follows:

When you stop on any unmarked gray spaces, you mark off the space completely and do nothing else (even if there are Actions present).

When you pass a gray space with an Action on it, activate the Action and then mark off the space completely.

When you pass a gray space with two Actions on it, choose to activate one of the Actions and then mark off that Action. If you pass this space a second time, you must activate the second, unmarked Action, then mark off the space completely.

You do these Actions after you have finished moving your Bathysphere: look back at all the spaces you passed and activate the Actions, and then mark them off. You can do these Actions in any order.

White spaces contain a wacky potpourri of unusual Actions. These are activated only when you stop on them. After activating the white space, mark it off completely. Note: passing a white space does not allow you to collect what's on that space.

Important: If you stop on a space that has been previously marked in any way, you must mark off 1 Stress. This includes spaces with two Actions and one had been marked off: you will mark off the second Action without activating that Action, and take 1 Stress.

EXAMPLE: Having chosen a die with a "6", you move to the Ocean Floor. On the way, you will lose 1 Oxygen and 4 Stress (you could have chosen to lose another Oxygen instead of the Stress on that last gray space). Finally, you have succeeded in exploring the Ocean Floor for a point!

If you reach a dead end on a path, you must stop on that final space, and you mark Stress equal to the amount of remaining spaces you should've moved, but couldn't. So don't go barreling on a path that ends...yanking the leash on your bathysphere can be costly!

The Start/End space is a little different. You do not mark Stress for unused movement on the Start/End; however, you do need to go back and check for Actions that you passed over on this final movement.

If your bathysphere has still survived after this final marking of Actions, then you have escaped the watery depths!

There are more wacky Action spaces that you will learn about as you go... and buy the game.

Scenarios

Each scenario in the campaign will describe the activities you need to perform and what it will take to move on to the next scenario. You must reach the surface in order to be considered eligible to move on: if you can't make it back in any scenario, that is considered losing.

Some of the other important things a scenario will tell you include:

• Which map to play.
• Which path to take within the map.
• The goal of the map.
• How to win (or lose), including directions for replaying a losing scenario.
• Your starting dice pool that must be rolled after you finish setup.

Each scenario slowly builds new rules from the previous scenarios. So start with Scenario 1 and as the campaign moves forward, you will learn more about various carry-over features and mini-games that can unlock power ups and bonuses.

Starting a Round

At the start of each round, you pick one active die out of your pool, which determines how far IN A SINGLE DIRECTION you move on the map. You are free to decide if you want to go up or down, but once you start moving, you must continue moving in that direction the full length of the move.

The die you selected is then put aside. That die becomes unusable (inactive) until it is rerolled back into your pool.

You then move on the map, perform Actions based on where you moved to and what Actions you've passed. (See MOVING AND MARKING for details.)

At the end of marking off the space you've landed on and/or passed, and marking off any Actions you have collected or triggered, you may begin a new round by doing one of the following:

• A. Select another die from your dice pool to move, or...
• B. Reroll ALL of your dice (both in the pool and set aside) equal to your maximum dice pool. When you do this, you must mark off 1 Oxygen.

Note: Any dice above your maximum dice pool are removed from the scenario.

Resources

On each dive, there are three main "resources" that your bathysphere has: Stress, Damage, and Oxygen.

When marking these tracks, or "meters" as we sometimes call them, always start by marking the top symbol in the line, and work your way downward.

If you mark off all of the icons on one resource before you return to the surface, you've immediately lost the scenario.

Generally, as your bathysphere takes Stress, you will occasionally take Damage. As your bathysphere takes Damage, you will start to lose dice that you can roll. When you mark Damage, you circle the die next to that Damage. This indicates that you are aware of your new "maximum dice pool" going forward in the game.

In this example, the player has a dice pool of "4".

Sometimes, scenarios start with a lot of dice...the first time you take Damage will reduce the amount of dice down to 5 back into your active pool.

There are also Reroll icons: these are not resources per se, but can come in useful in important situations.

Scenario 1 – Rescue Party

Goal

Go down into the depths of Beachside Bay, explore the ocean floor a bit, and then make your escape to the sweet, breathable, fish-tainted air of the Bay.

Setup

(Setup is already taken care of!)

You start your adventure with 4 dice.

The first thing you need to do is mark ALL of the REROLL ICONS on the bathysphere. For this first scenario, we won't bother with rerolling...BECAUSE THIS LEVEL IS SO EASY!!!

Next, mark off those Oxygen tanks at the top of the Oxygen meter. The first Oxygen you mark will be the top of this meter, working your way downward.

Because it's not diving season right now, you won't have to worry about the Helpless Diver icons on the Oxygen meter for this scenario.

To Win (or to Lose)

You must... must return to the surface with a certain number of points.

• If you score 0-1 points, replay this scenario.
• If you score 2-8 points, play scenario 2. (Or, just keep playing this one until you get the full game!)
• If you score 9 or more points, play scenario 2 or 3. (Scenario 2 is pretty similar to this scenario.)

Special Action Spaces

Remember we said there would be wacky action spaces (see page 2 if you don't believe us!) well, this scenario has a few right out of the gate.

WHIRLPOOLS! These are crazy spinning water elements that may possibly stress your bathysphere. When you land on it, reroll ALL of your active dice (the die that you just used to land here is not considered active, as it would have been put aside after being chosen).

For every die that matches one of the displayed 2 values on that space, you must mark 2 stress.

EXAMPLE: Your bathysphere landed on a 1/2 Whirlpool space. Your rerolled dice show 1, 1, and 3. Two dice match the space, so you must mark 4 stress total.

Since you rerolled all of your active dice, this results in a new set of active dice for your next turn.

And as always with white spaces, after you activate its actions, it gets marked.

SALVAGE! There's a lot of people who really shouldn't own boats in Beachside Bay...but what are you going to do about that? Why...SCORE POINTS OFF OF THEM!!!

When you land on a SALVAGE space, you may select any amount of dice in your active dice pool and put them aside.... then you score the amount of points based on the dice you set aside! Write in the points scored in the box and circle the number to remind you. Then, mark off the Salvage bubble space.

EXAMPLE: You remove two dice from your active pool, totalling "8". That's how many points you will score for this salvage. Not a bad haul!

OCEAN FLOORS are white spaces you mark, but then circle their points when you land on them. They are otherwise pretty boring and simple. You land there, mark it, and circle those points.

Ignore These Spaces

Pay no attention to the RESCUE and HEAT VENT spaces for now. Treat these as blank grey spaces if you happen to land on them. That Rescue space is just a mannequin from Helberts Department Emporium that some punk kids stole and threw in the ocean as a prank, and you really don't want to learn about the volcanic vents around the Bay quite yet.

So, go dive deep and get the heck back up to sunlight!!!