Cubosaurs
Cubosaurs Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Goal of the Game
Players compete for earning the most points each round, through their collection of dinosaurs.
Whoever totalizes the most points after 2 rounds is the winner.
Game Overview
Each type of dino has its own way of making you earn or lose points, depending on how many copies you have. You will get caught into a fierce competition with the other players to end each round with the highest value in your collection.
On each of your turns, you get cards and must decide to either add them to your collection or pass them along to the next player.
The round ends as soon as the draw pile is empty, then each player sums up the points earned for each species in their collection.
After 2 rounds, players compare their cumulated score to determine the winner of the game.
Anatomy of a Card
1. Card Type
There are 8 types of cards:
- T-Rex
- Stegosaurus
- Brontosaurus
- Pterodactyl
- Pentaceratops
- Grey Velociraptor
- Black Velociraptor
- Egg card (multicolored)
Each type of dinosaur comes in 7 copies.
There are only 6 Egg cards, and each of them is unique.
2. DNA Icon
Some of the cards feature a DNA icon. It only matters for the advanced game mode (pg. 10). Simply ignore that icon when playing the here explained base game mode.
3. Card Scoring
This area depicts how this type of card scores VPs at the end of the round.
Setup
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Shuffle the 55 cards, then randomly keep a total of 10 cards per player, without looking at them. Those kept cards form the game deck for the round.
Example: In a game with 4 players, keep a deck of 40 cards.
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Place that game deck face down at the center of the table. The remaining, unkept cards are put aside. They will not be used during that round.
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Each player draws 4 cards from the deck and reveals them in front of them to start their collection.
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Randomly determine a first player. The round is ready to begin.
Note: The 40 DNA tokens and the 10 DNA Evolution tiles are only used for the advanced game mode (pg 10). Leave them aside when playing the here explained base game mode.
First Round Gameflow
Players take successive turns, going clockwise, until BOTH the game deck is empty AND someone should draw.
Players then immediately proceed to the End of Round scoring phase, to score points based on the cards that they have in front of them.
On Your Turn
Your turn consists in two steps, in the following order:
1. Get cards into your hand
At the start of your turn, you sometimes just received a Hand of cards that the previous player refused. If (and only if) this was not the case, then draw one card from the game deck. The one or more cards that you now have in hand are considered your Hand.
Note: All players start a new round with no card in hand.
2. Keep OR refuse your Hand
You must now choose one of the two following options:
A) Add all the cards you have in hand to your collection, face up in front of you.
OR
B) Refuse that Hand and pass it along to the next player
Pass all the cards you have in hand along to the next player. To be allowed to do so, you must add one card from your collection to your Hand, before passing it along.
- You add exactly 1 card from your collection.
- That card must be from a type that you do not already have in your Hand.
If you can not respect those 2 conditions, you are then forced to choose option A and keep that Hand for your collection.
Once you have either kept your Hand or passed it along, your turn is over and it is up to the next player to start their turn.
Note: All the Egg cards are considered a same sole type. Grey and Black Velociraptors are two distinct types of cards.
IMPORTANT: your choice always applies to all the cards you have in Hand. You either add all those cards to your collection, or pass all of them along.
Game Flow Example
Fabien begins the round. As he has no card in Hand, he starts by drawing one.
He must now decide if he wants to keep his Hand (this T-Rex) for his collection or pass it along to the next player. He decides to pass it along. For that, he must add one card from his collection to it, of a type that his Hand does not include yet. He can get rid of either his Stegosaurus, his Pterodactyl or his Black Velociraptor, but not his T-Rex.
He opts for adding the Pterodactyl and passes his Hand (the drawn T-Rex + the Pterodactyl from his collection) to the next player, Kristiaan.
Kristiaan starts his turn with those two cards in hand, so he does not draw. He must directly decide what he wants to do with that Hand.
He could pass it along to the next player, by adding one non T-Rex nor Pterodactyl card from his collection, but he prefers adding those cards to his collection instead.
The next player, Gaëtan, starts by drawing a card from the game deck to form himself a Hand to deal with…
End of Round Scoring Phase
The round ends as soon as a player must draw a card but can not do so, because the game deck is empty. Players then count how many points they earn for the cards that they have in their collection, depending on their type.
Write down the score of each player for this round on a piece of paper.
Note: a player can end with a negative score.
Scoring for Dinosaurs (except Velociraptors)
The values indicate, from left to right, how many points your whole set of cards of this type is worth, whether you end the round with 1, 2, 3 or 4 (or more) copies in it.
Example: a set of T-Rex (orange) earns you 4 points if you end the round with exactly 1 T-Rex card. If you end with 4 or more T-Rex cards, you lose 5 points.
Scoring for Velociraptors
Black and Grey Velociraptors work differently from the other dinos. You must form a pair of one Black and one Grey for those two cards to earn you their indicated points. Each left alone Velociraptor makes you lose the points indicated on the card. You can decide at the end of the round how to pair your Velociraptors in the most advantageous way.
Example: if those two cards are associated within a pair, each of them earns you its points (2+3 here, for a total of 5 points). If you did not have a Grey Velociraptor to pair with this Black Velociraptor, the latter would lose you 2 points instead.
Scoring for Egg Cards
Each Egg card earns you points if you are the player with the most (or tied) dinosaurs of the indicated type. Otherwise it makes you lose points.
Example: This Egg card earns you 4 points if you are the player with the most (or tied) Stegosaurus cards in their collection. Otherwise it loses you 3 points.
Note: there is 1 Egg card for each type of dinosaurs, except for the Velociraptors (Black and Grey), which share one sole Egg card for the two types. For this card, players count all the velociraptors (Black + Grey) in front of them, whether they are duly paired or not.
End of Round Scoring Example
For that collection, Fabien scores a total of 3 points:
- +5 points for his Brontosaurus (purple) cards, because he has 3 copies;
- -3 points for his Pentaceratops (green) cards, because he has only 1 copy;
- -3 points for his Egg card, because it demands to be the player with the most Pentaceratops cards in their collection, and another player has two. Note that in such situation, if Fabien had also had 2 Pentaceratops cards, it would have been enough to score 3 points instead of losing 3;
- +4 points for his Velociraptors, because he can form a valid pair with one Black and one Grey for 5 points, but he still has one isolated Grey that costs him 1 point.
Second Round
The second Round sets up and plays exactly like the first one, with two exceptions:
- The player who just scored the least points starts the new round.
- Play now goes counterclockwise.
Note: a new game deck has to be made for this new round, following the setup rules.
Rules for 2 Players
In a two player game, we recommend that you play in 3 successive rounds instead of 2.
End of the Game
The game ends after players have scored their points for the second Round. Each player adds their score from the first and second round, to get their total score for the game.
Whoever has the highest total is the winner. In case of a tie, the player who scored the most points during the last round wins. If there is still a tie, tied players share victory.
Advanced Mode: DNA Evolutions
Experienced players, or ones already familiar with the base game, will likely want to include DNA Evolution tiles to the game. Those advanced elements bring in additional variations, interactions and subtleties.
Additional Setup
Shuffle the 10 DNA Evolution tiles into a facedown pile. Reveal at the center of the table as many tiles as there are players, plus 1 (3 tiles with 2 players, 4 tiles with 3 players,...)
Form a pool with the 40 DNA tokens, within reach of all players.
Anatomy of a DNA Evolution Tile
- Cost in DNA tokens for purchasing this ability
- End of round or Instant ability icon
- Tile ability text
This icon helps identify which DNA evolution tiles carry the most direct interactions. If you are not fond of this type of interaction, you can choose to remove all tiles with that icon from the game during setup.
Additional Rules
Earn DNA Tokens
Some of the cards in the game show a DNA icon. Each time you add a card with a DNA icon into your collection, you earn 1 DNA token from the pool. This also concerns the 4 starting cards that you are dealt during setup, each new round.
Keep those tokens in front of you. They can be spent to purchase DNA Evolution tiles.
Note: If you should earn 1 DNA token but there is no more available in the pool, you can then instead take it from the opponent of your choice.
Purchase 1 DNA Evolution Tile
Once during each of your turns, after getting cards into your hand, you may spend DNA tokens to purchase one of the face up DNA Evolution tiles that are still available at the center of the table.
- Discard as many DNA tokens as indicated on that DNA Evolution tile;
- Place that tile in front of you and apply its ability;
If there is no DNA Evolution tile left face up at the center of the table, this action is simply no longer available this round.
Note: you can not purchase 1 DNA Evolution tile without applying its ability.
Start of the Second Round
- Players keep all the DNA tokens they did not spend during the first round.
- DNA Evolution tiles that were not purchased through the previous round remain available at the center of the table. Shuffle all other tiles (those still in the draw pile and those that were purchased by players) into a new draw pile, then complete the market until there is the right amount of tiles revealed face up (number of players +1);
DNA Tokens Kept at the End of the Game
Each player adds 1 point to their final score for each complete set of 2 unspent DNA tokens that they have at the end of the game.
DNA Evolution Tiles
End of Round Abilities
1 — +1 POINT PER TYPE OF CARD You earn 1 additional point for each different Type icon you have in your collection. All Egg cards count as one sole type. Black and Grey Velociraptors count as 2 distinct types.
2 — +2 POINTS PER EGG CARD Each Egg card you have earns you 2 points, in addition to its normal scoring.
Keep those tiles face up in front of you after purchasing them: they will earn you additional points during the scoring phase, at the end of the round.
Instant Abilities
3 — DRAW 1 CARD Add the card you draw to your current Hand, even if it is from a type already shown. Refusing that hand still requires to add 1 extra card from your collection, exactly as normal.
4 — REFUSE YOUR HAND WITHOUT ADDING A CARD Purchase this when you want to pass your Hand along. This allows you to do so without having to add a card from your collection.
5 — ADD A FORBIDDEN TYPE OF CARD Purchase this when you want to pass your Hand along. This allows you to do so with adding a card from a type you already have in Hand.
6 — DESTROY 1 CARD IN YOUR COLLECTION You choose which card to destroy. Put that card back with the cards removed aside during setup.
7 — DESTROY 1 CARD FROM AN OPPONENT You choose which opponent and which card to destroy in their collection. Put that card back with the cards remove aside during setup.
8 — STEAL 1 CARD You choose which opponent and which card to steal in their collection. Take that card and add it to your collection.
9 — GIVE 1 CARD You choose one card in your collection and force any opponent to add it to their collection.
10 — SWAP 1 CARD You steal any card from the collection of the opponent of your choice, and give them one card of your choice from your collection in exchange.
Apply those abilities immediately when you purchase those tiles, then keep the tiles face down in front of you.
Credits
Cubosaurs is a game designed by Fabien Tanguy, illustrated by Kristiaan der Nederlanden, published by Catch Up Games and distributed by Blackrock Games.
Layout: Olivier Trocklé • Graphic design: Kristiaan der Nederlanden, Manoël Verdiel
Agent: Forgenext • Translation: Sébastien Kihm
2022 - Catch Up Games