Diamonsters Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Card Rules
• Setup
• Gameplay
• Round End (It's Feeding Time!)
• Game End

Card Rules

• Ichi (1) - Lowest value, except if bid against a Go (5). It beats Go (5).
• Ni (2) - Low value but it's worth 2 diamonds.
• San (3) - No special ability.
• Shi (4) - High value, but it costs you 2 diamonds if you win it.
• Go (5) - Highest value, but it loses to an Ichi (1).

Setup

Now that we're acquainted, let me explain how things work around here. Each player starts with the same five-card hand.

Ichi (1), Ni (2), San (3), Shi (4), Go (5)

The remaining cards are shuffled together to form a facedown draw deck.

Gameplay

Each round starts by flipping the top card of the deck face-up. Players then place a facedown bid for the card. When all bids have been made, flip them up. The highest card wins!

The winning player (highest bidder) adds both the face-up card being bid on AND their card played (bidding card) face-up in front of them. This will form that player's "monster collection".

Sound easy? Well, here's where things get HAIRY:

If players bid the same amount, their bids cancel out and they return the card they bid to their hand.

If the bid ends with someone playing an Ichi (1) vs. a Go (5), the Ichi (1) beats the Go (5) and the player adds the monster and the Ichi (1) card to their collection. Using an Ichi (1) card is a gamble because if more than one player plays a Go (5) they are returned to the bidders' hands and poor Ichi is left in defeat!

Diagram caption: A & B take their cards back, C wins.

• Any player who bids the same card as another player takes their card back in their hand, they are removed from bidding this round. You can only win if you are the only player to use your monster!
• Any player who didn't win the round takes their bid card back into their hand.
• If there is no winner, discard the monster next to the deck.
• After the winner adds to their monster collection, all players draw cards back to a hand limit of 5 cards if necessary.
• If the draw deck is ever empty, shuffle the discarded cards and form a new draw deck. If there are no discarded cards to form a new deck the game ends immediately and the player with the most diamonds in their monster collection wins.

Example 1: B & C take their cards back. D wins because Ichi beats Go.

Example 2: C wins because A & B played the same card and took their cards back into hand. Poor Ichi!

Round End (It's Feeding Time!)

The round ends as soon as any of the following occurs:

• A player has 3 of the same monster in their "monster collection" (Remember, your hand is not part of your "monster collection").
• A player has a total of 5 diamonds in their "monster collection" (Remember, for every Shi (4) you have in your collection you subtract 2 diamonds).

The player who collects enough cards to win the round receives one plastic diamond piece.

Game End

Depending on how many people are playing, the game ends when the first person collects the following number of plastic diamond pieces:

• 2 players: 5 pieces
• 3 players: 4 pieces
• 4+ player: 3 pieces

Illustrations accompany the game end rules, labelled DIAMOND WIN and MONSTER MATCH WIN.

Happy hunting!

We'll see ya at meal time!