Comparity: Кино
Comparity: Кино Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Setting up the Game
The first thing you need to do is agree on the order you want to play the cards in: chronologically (by year) or financially (by box-office draw). In the first case you will have to determine which films were released in which order, and in the second you'll have to figure out which movie made the most at the box office. The rules describe the first option, which is recommended for beginner movie buffs. To play in "financial" mode, just use the the movies' box-office draws rather than their release years.
Shuffle the cards and deal 7 cards to each player. The players do not pick their cards up, but rather place them face-down on the table in front of them. Don't look at the face sides of the cards — that includes your cards, other players' cards, and the cards in the deck.
Now you need to make a game deck. The number of cards in the deck will vary depending on the number of players:
- 2 players — 15 cards
- 3 players — 20 cards
- 4 players — 35 cards
- 5 players — 40 cards
Count off the required number of cards from the deck and place them face-down in a pile at the edge of the table where all the players can reach them. Return the remaining cards to the deck. You won't need them for the rest of the game. Place the top card from the game deck face-down in the middle of the table. The first player is whoever went to movies most recently.
Game Idea
Comparity contains 100 cards with world-famous movies on them, from classic black-and-white flicks to modern 3D blockbusters. All cards are double-sided. The back of each card has an illustration and the name of a film, while the front or "face" side has its release year and box-office draw (in US dollars). When shuffling and dealing the cards, hold them face-down. Don't look at the faces of the cards until a player checks them on his or her turn (see below).
Back side and front side are shown as an illustration of a card's back and face in the rulebook.
Please note: to make sure you don't see the faces of the cards before it's time, the examples in these rules use cards that aren't actually part of the game.
Titles and box-office draws
It's no secret that the titles of many films aren't unique. A lot of movies are sequels or remakes, while others just have titles that have been used before. To help you tell the movies we have in mind from others with the same or similar titles, we give you the movie's full title (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) or provide an explanation (King Kong [the original]). If there's no explanation, assume we're thinking of the first movie in the series (Back to the Future, Rocky) or the most famous American version of the picture.
As a rule, we use global box-office figures. However, for some famous movies (usually classic films) there is no reliable information about their international box-office draws. In this case we give the US box-office draw and leave a corresponding note on both sides of the card.
On the cards, an international box-office draw is marked with a money-bag icon, and a US box-office draw is marked with a US-flag icon.
How to Play
Players take turns going clockwise from the first player. During your turn you can either play one of your cards to the game area or check any card lying face-down in the game area. The player to your left then takes their turn. The first player to get rid of all their cards wins.
For the sake of simplicity we will call the cards lying face-down in the game area "closed cards" and the cards lying face-up "open cards". To "reveal a card" means to turn it face-up. Two cards that touch at the edges (whether horizontally or vertically) are called "adjacent cards". If cards touch only at the corners (diagonally) they are not considered to be adjacent cards.
A) Playing a card
Select one of your cards and place it face-down next to any of the cards in the game area (to the left, to the right, above, or below). You can play a card in such a way that it ends up being next to several cards (see the rules for Duet and Trio below). When choosing a spot for the card, try to make sure the release years increase moving left to right and bottom to top. In other words, cards with earlier films must be to the left and below yours, while later films must be to the right and above. Cards in the game area cannot be moved or swapped.
The diagram shows the game area with the vertical axis labelled "higher" (top) and "lower" (bottom), and the horizontal axis labelled "lower" (left) and "higher" (right).
Example: you want to play the Beetlejuice card. The game area already has The Sting, Toy Story (in one row), and Terminator 2 (under Toy Story). You're sure that Beetlejuice came out after The Sting and before Toy Story, but you can't shove a card in between them. You could play your card to the right of Terminator 2, but you aren't certain that Beetlejuice came out after it. So you play Beetlejuice above The Sting.
The Duet rules: if you play a card in such a way that it ends up being adjacent to two cards in the game area, the next player must immediately either draw one card from the game deck or check any card in the game area (see below). The player then takes their turn as usual.
The Trio rules: if you play a card in such a way that it ends up being adjacent to three cards in the playing area, the Duet rules immediately comes into effect as described above. However, if the next player decides not to check a card (or checks one and doesn't find a violation), you get to immediately play another card (the Duet or Trio rules are not in effect in this case).
On extremely rare occasions you can play a card in such a way that it ends up being adjacent to four cards in the game area. There are no rules for this, so regular Trio rules comes into effect.
B) Checking a card
Reveal one of the closed cards in the game area. If there are no open cards next to this card you will have to reveal one of its adjacent cards. If there is an open card next to it you are not obligated to reveal a adjacent card, although you can if you want to. In other words, you have to reveal the card you are checking and can reveal one adjacent card, after which at least one card next to the checked card has to be open.
Then check to make sure the years are still increasing from left to right and bottom to top in the game area. Do this by comparing the release years on all the open adjacent cards in the game area. It doesn't matter who revealed the cards and when. If two open cards aren't next to each other (for example, if they are separated by another card or only touch at the corners) you don't have to compare their release years.
Example: there's only one violation in this example: Megamind came out after Iron Man and should be further to the right. American Beauty and Groundhog Day are only touching at the corners, so their release years don't have to be compared. Groundhog Day is also not compared to Once Upon a Time in America, nor is American Beauty compared to Terminator, since these pairs of cards aren't adjacent. Once Upon a Time in America and Indiana Jones came out in the same year, so they can be in any order. Revenge of the Sith and The Game came out after Once Upon a Time in America, but they are closed and don't need to be compared.
If you don't find any violations in the chronological arrangement of the movies, draw two cards from the game deck as a penalty for mistrust.
If you find at least one violation in the chronological order of the cards the previous player (your neighbor to the right) must draw three cards from the game deck as a fine even if that player wasn't the one who broke the rules. Then swap the open cards that are in violation of the rules.
Example: to fix the violation just swap Megamind and Iron Man.
If you can't swap cards without creating new violations you should simply discard one of the cards that was played incorrectly.
Example: if you swap Star Wars Episode 3 and Once Upon a Time in America a new violation appears, since Revenge of the Sith came out after Indiana Jones. So you just discard Star Wars.
If discarding a card causes the game area to be divided, immediately use one of your cards to reconnect the two sides. The card is played face-down and the Duet and Trio rules do not come into effect.
Example: if you swap The Game and Once Upon a Time in America a new violation appears, since Once Upon a Time in America came out before Groundhog Day and Indiana Jones came out before The Game. So discard Once Upon a Time in America, thereby dividing the playing area. To reconnect the two sides, play Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone between The Professional and Iron Man.
If the game deck runs out of cards
If you need to draw cards and the game deck is empty you should get the cards you need from other players. First your neighbor to the left selects one of their cards and gives it to you, then the next player moving clockwise does the same, and so on until you have the required number of cards.
The End of the Game
The first player to play their last card to the game area immediately wins.
As you play the game, you will end up seeing many of the cards facing upward and are likely to remember the draws and release dates for those particular movies. Your next game will be more fun if you exclude the cards you are already familiar with. If at the end of the game there are still cards that have not been revealed, do not turn them over. Instead, shuffle them with the cards that weren't used in the game and use this deck of unused cards the next time you play. Set all the cards that were used in the game aside. Do not return them to the deck until there are no more cards that have never been revealed in a game.