Bucket Brigade Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Idea
• Components
• Game Objective
• Game Preparation
• Playing the Game
  • Players' Turns
  • End of a Heat
• Scoring
  • Example
• Game End

Game Idea

The bears have stolen some honey from the bees and are running with it back to their cave. The faster they run, the more honey they'll use up on their way back home. Each player expends cards to advance the bears. However, players' remaining cards score points in the end. Therefore you want both to play a good card and to keep it. Only one of these is possible!

Components

• 1 board
• 4 bears (in different colors)
• 55 playing cards (six walk-cards of value 1 and five run-cards of value 2 each in the four bear colors, and in a joker set)

Game Objective

Players try to have the most points at the end of the game. Points are awarded after each heat.

Game Preparation

Play as many heats as there are players in the game. For the first heat, the oldest player shuffles and deals the cards. In subsequent heats the dealership moves one player to the left. Each player is the dealer once.

At the beginning of each heat the four bears are placed on the start space - the beehives.

The dealer thoroughly shuffles the cards. With three players he discards ten cards from this heat; with four players three cards are discarded. The remaining are dealt out evenly to all players. Each player takes his cards to form a hand. The player to the left of the dealer begins; then play progresses clockwise.

Playing the Game

Players' Turns

On his turn a player expends one of the cards from his hand and places it face-up onto a pile beside the board. Then he advances a bear:

• If he played a walk-card of one color, the respective bear advances one space.
• If he played a run-card of one color, the respective bear advances two spaces.
• If he played a joker card, the player advances any color bear the appropriate number of spaces.

This concludes a player's turn.

End of a Heat

A heat ends as soon as one bear reaches the last space - the bears' cave.

Scoring

The player who finished the heat scores 6 bonus points.

Now the players score points for all their remaining cards.

All joker cards count 0 points.

The score of all color cards is linked to the space-value which their respective bear reached.

• Each pair of walk-cards scores five times the space-value.
• Each remaining walk-card scores the space-value.
• Each run-card scores double the space-value.

All players' points are totaled and recorded. If a player's total is negative he scores 0 points.

Example

The four bears have reached space-values -1, 0, 1 and 3 (the goal). The player holds: one walk-card for the bear on -1; a pair of walk-cards for the bear on 0; a pair of walk-cards plus one remaining walk-card for the bear on 1; and one run-card for the bear on 3.

Points scored: -1, 0, 6, 6

The player scores 11 points. A possible bonus for finishing the heat is not taken into account.

Game End

The game ends when all the heats have been played. Each player adds his results from the individual heats. The player with the highest overall total is the winner. If several players have the same overall total, the one with the better result in the final heat wins.