Chickens 'n Aliens
Chickens 'n Aliens Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Set Up
Each player chooses a chicken character from the four choices – Henny Penny, Noodles, Paxo McGinty or Floella Cornflower – and places the character card to one side of their play area.
Each round you win will gain you one part of the UFO, and you can place them on this character so it sits inside the spaceship. The first player to gain all three parts of the UFO will win the game.
Place all the corn to one side, and this will be the 'Bank'.
Each player is given THREE pieces of corn from the Bank.
At the beginning of subsequent rounds, no more corn is given out from the Bank.
Choose how many of the five SPECIAL cards you want to add to the deck. These are the ones with a red background. If you are feeling crazy, add all five. They can really spice things up!
All UFO cards and rule cards, are removed from the deck and placed to one side. Any remaining character cards are returned to the bag.
A dealer is then chosen.
Each player is dealt FIVE cards face down. The players take their hands, and look at their cards, making sure they are kept hidden from the other players. The remaining cards are then placed in the middle of the table, and are referred to as the 'Deck'.
Once the game is running, there will be a 'Discard Pile' next to the deck, where played cards are placed.
The player to the left of the dealer goes first, and at the beginning of subsequent rounds, the deal moves clockwise around the table.
Object of the Game
The first player to get THREE Aliens laid down from their hand – wins the round, and gains part of the UFO. When all three parts of the UFO are gained, that player wins the game.
Turns
On each turn, a player may choose ONE action – from the following.
1 – Play a card to the discard pile, face up, and perform the action that is on the card. For example, if 'Hen Pecked' is played, the card is placed next to the deck, and the player then chooses who to pinch a corn from.
2 – Play an Alien. An alien is placed on the table close to the player who laid it down. HOWEVER… and this is the important part… a player MUST pay one corn into a middle of the table – referred to as the POOL. (The pool is created next to the discard pile, and is NOT the Bank – which remains separate at the side of the table).
If a player has no corn, they CANNOT place down an alien from their hand.
3 – Take a card from the deck. If a player has LESS THAN FIVE cards in their hand, they have the option to take a new card from the deck. This counts as their go.
There is a chance a player may accumulate more than five cards during the game, but if they have five or more in their hand, then talking a card from the deck is not an option. You can't just keep taking cards from the deck to build a 'mega hand', but playing Rooster Booster', or 'Tractor Beam' may well take your hand over five cards.
4 – In the unlucky circumstance that there is nothing useful you can do with the cards you have, and taking a new card isn't an option – you can elect to THROW AWAY a card, without performing its action.
At the End of a Round
When the first player has managed to get three aliens laid down – the round is over.
All hands, all Aliens, Broody cards and the discard pile are returned to the deck – which is then shuffled well – to make sure aliens are dispersed throughout the deck and not in one cluster.
All corn from the pool is returned to the bank, but any corn owned by the players is kept. (You might be going into the next round with none at all!)
Winning the Game
When a player has won all three parts of the UFO, they have won the game. The aliens have successfully prepared them to be launched into space, and to boldly go and save the universe!! Cluck cluck… kazooooom!!!
Card Descriptions
Wild Cards – There are three wild cards in the deck. Cluck Rogers, Eggs Machina and Chick Norris. These can be used to perform the actions of any of the cards that have a BLUE background. For instance, you could use Chick Norris to be a 'Pecking Order" card, and steal an alien with it – or you could use Eggs Machina as Twin Beaks, and take two corn from the bank with it.
HOWEVER… A wild card CANNOT be used as a Special card (red background) or as an Alien card. It also can't be used as a UFO part card.
A quick summary of the cards:
Broody – This card can be placed on top of one alien that the player has already laid down. This protects the alien from being stolen with 'Pecking Order'. A broody card will only protect one alien, but you could be lucky and get more broody cards as the round goes on.
Twin Beaks – When played, this allows the player to take two corn from the BANK (not the pool). Every day, once a day, give yourself a present!
Cheeky Chicken – choose another player to reveal their hand to you. You can keep this information secret, or… you might feel like telling the other players what they have. If you are a devious chicken (like my cousin Richard) you could just make up what they have, and try to get other players to target them!
Fowl Play – Choose a player to steal a card from. You can only take from their hand, not cards laid down already. You don't get to look at their hand, and you take one 'blind'. You might give them time to shuffle their cards if you are feeling kind…
Pecking Order – Use this card to steal an alien that has already been laid down by another player. You aren't going to win any friends when you are doing this, but the universe needs saving, so it's probably best just to get on with it! The stolen alien goes straight down (not back into your hand) and also, it doesn't cost you anything. No corn is paid to the pool.
Rooster Booster – A nice simple card. Take two cards from the deck. You can do this even if you already have more than five cards in your hand. (Just remember that you can't take any new cards from the deck on your go if you have five or more in your hand on a normal turn)
Scramble – Grab all of the corn from the pool. Happy days!
Wings of Desire – play this card, and swap it for the top card on the discard pile. It can give you a good chance to get revenge, and play a card back at someone. Once you have swapped the card, it goes into your hand, and that's your go over (you can't play the card you swapped it for on this go)
Hen Pecked – pinch a corn from another player.
Hypno-chicken – Stun a player for a go. When it gets to their turn, instead of playing a card, they have to throw one away to the discard pile. Particularly funny if they have a hand full of aliens!
Special Cards
Easily spotted by their red backgrounds. These cards are optional in the game, and can make the game play last longer. They are more brutal than any of the other cards. There is only one of each of these cards in the deck, and there are five in total.
Tractor Beam – Take two cards from the hand of one player, or take one card from each player (the second option is good in a four player game, as you'd get three new cards)
Alien Flu – an absolutely brutal card! All aliens including any broody cards protecting them, or wild cards used as broody cards, are placed on the discard pile. This includes any aliens that the player laying down the alien flu card might have as well.
Corn Star – Take everyone's corn… yes, all of it! Not the pool of corn, and of course not the bank. Congratulations… now everybody is going to have no mercy towards you!
Armed to the Hen's Teeth – Starting with the player who lays the card, and going clockwise, all players take three cards from the deck (regardless of how many cards they already have). It's now the next player's turn… and things are about to get crazy!
All Out War – All players dump their entire hand to the discard pile. You'll all have to start taking from the deck now. This is a great card to play if you are having a lousy round, and have a handful of nothing much.
Glossary
BANK – the store of corn that's kept at the side of the table (not the pool)
POOL – the pile of corn in the middle of the table, built up by players paying for aliens (not the bank)
DECK – The facedown pile of cards kept in the middle of the table, used for dealing and taking new cards from
DISCARD PILE – The place where cards are played face up in the middle of the table next to the deck
Variant: Rules for a Faster Game
Official quick-game sheet from the same publisher site, useful to speed up 4 player games.
Deal out 5 cards to each player, and give 3 corn as usual.
Then take 2 or 4 (depending on how fast you want the game to go) of the cards that depict the bottom left and bottom right sections of the UFO.
Shuffle these into the deck.
These cards are the same both sides, so you will be able to see where they are, and when they are coming up in the deck.
Just like any other card taken from the deck, these cards will go into a player's hand. This gives the others a chance to steal them, or get the player to discard it. On the next go, if the player has it still, they can lay it down on their character – and there it will stay!
If 'Fowl Play' is played, there will be no way a player selected will be able to hide which one is the UFO card.
The usual rules for everything else still apply, and 3 aliens laid down will still win you a part of the UFO. However, the canopy or dome part of the UFO must be the LAST part that is placed on a chicken character to complete the UFO and win the game.
The canopy can only be gained by laying down 3 aliens.
It is possible – (with some very good luck) that a player could win the game in a single round, if they gained two different UFO bottom parts from the deck, and also were the first to lay down 3 aliens – thus gaining the canopy piece.