Escape Pods Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• 2.0 - Game Set Up
• 3.0 - Turn Sequence
• 4.0 - Basic Actions
  • Embark / Disembark
  • Unmanned Pods
  • Crew Members, Refuges and Explosions
  • Accelerate
    • Pods Crash
  • Spy
  • Minipod
• 4.1 - Advanced Actions
  • Board
  • Pilot
  • Program
  • Refresh
  • Beacons
• 5.0 - End of the Game
• 6.0 - Scoring
• 7.0 - Special Refuges
• 8.0 - Solo Mode - Set Up and Rules
• Errata

2.0 - Game Set Up

• Place all Beacon tokens (from now on, beacons) that contain the colours of those players in the game, forming a reserve.
• Place the 3 one-person pods in the ship, on the bottom-right part of the board.
• Each player chooses one colour and places its components in front of them: 2 Control Panel cards and 9 Crew Member tokens (from now on, crew members). The crew members form that player's reserve.
• Place 4 Refuge cards (refuges, from now on) randomly on the 4 refuge spots. If this is your first game, we would suggest that you use the 4 refuges marked for the solo-version.
• Put the 6 Explosion cards for the solo-version back in the box. Shuffle the other 7 in a deck and reveal the first one. (See the Errata section: in 2-5 player games the deck is built from cards #4 to #10, both included.)
• Place 7 Debris tokens next to the deck.
• Place the board in the middle of the table with the two-people and three-people pods in their corresponding starting hangars. The three-people pod is not used in games with 2 players.

Placement of Explosion tokens on refuges

# of players	Side refuges	Central refuges
2	3	2
3	3	3
4	4	3
5	4	4

3.0 - Turn Sequence

One player picks up one crew member from each of the players, mixes them and shuffles them in his/her hands. The colour of the first pawn to fall off determines the initial player.

Players take their turns alternately, starting with the first player and continuing clockwise. In their turn, players are the active player. In each of his/her turns, the active player can take up to 2 actions (with several restrictions, see the text box below). In order to take an action, the active player must:

1. Place 1 of the crew members in his/her reserve, face down, on the corresponding activation space to the action that he/she wants to choose (on one of their Control Panel cards). An action may not be chosen if it doesn't have any activation space available.
2. Once the pawn is placed, the player applies the effect of the chosen action. The effect is carried out completely before taking a second action.

Action limits in the first turns

• Games with 2 Players: 1st player only takes 1 action in his/her 1st turn. Active player takes 2 actions in the rest of the turns.
• Games with 3-5 Players: 1st and 2nd players only take 1 action in their 1st turn. Active player takes 2 actions in the rest of the turns.

4.0 - Basic Actions

Retrieve all the crew members assigned to this card at the end of your turn.

The basic actions are shown on the basic Control Panel card: Embark/Disembark, Accelerate, Spy and Minipod.

Embark / Disembark

You can take this action twice per turn, in any combination that you want.

• Embark: Place 1 crew member from your reserve face down in 1 pod that has 1 free spot. Your crew member must be in your reserve (if the pod is in the hangar or adjacent to a hangar) or in a neighbouring pod (if the pod is in an outer space sector). If you place your crew member in 1 pod that is in 1 hangar, move that pod to the corresponding adjacent sector.
• Disembark: Move 1 crew member of any colour from 1 pod to 1 neighbouring refuge that has at least 1 free arrival space. If you disembark the last crew member in 1 pod, follow the rules for Unmanned Pods (see below).

Unmanned Pods

When 1 two-people or three-people pod is left unmanned, the active player places it immediately in one of the corresponding, empty hangars in the ship of his/her choice. When 1 one-person pod is left unmanned, place it immediately on the bottom-right part of the board.

Crew Members, Refuges and Explosions

Crew members are always face down, so no player may see what type they are. There are 3 different types of crew member: Commander, Scientist and Engineer. You may inspect your crew members at any moment without spending any actions.

Every time 1 crew member disembarks to 1 refuge, place it on the first arrival square of said refuge. If that square has 1 Explosion token on it, follow the next steps in order:

1. Move that token to the next arrival square. If there are no more squares, put it back in the box. This refuge cannot receive any more crew members.
2. Place 1 Debris token on the sector that corresponds to the revealed Explosion card. From now on, no pod may enter this sector. Put the revealed Explosion card back into the box and reveal 1 new card from the deck. If there is 1 pod in that sector, put any crew members it contains back into their owners reserves and follow the rules for Unmanned Pods.
3. Double check if the end of the game has been triggered, as described in End of the Game.

Accelerate

Accelerate: Move 1 pod to 1 neighbouring sector. You may only use this action on 1 pod that contains, at least, 1 crew member of your colour. This movement may cause a Pods Crash. You may never move 1 pod into 1 sector that contains 1 Debris token.

Pods Crash

You may never move 1 pod to 1 sector that contains 1 pod of equal or greater capacity. You may move 1 pod to 1 sector that contains 1 pod of less capacity. If that is the case, displace the pod that was in that sector to 1 neighbouring sector, but never to:

• A sector with 1 Debris token.
• The sector where the pod that caused the crash came from.
• A sector occupied by a pod of equal or greater capacity.

If the pod cannot be moved to any sector following these rules, then move it to the sector where the pod that caused the crash came from.

Spy

Spy: Look at all crew members of 1 pod or 1 refuge of your choice. You cannot reveal those crew members to any other players by showing them, but you may share any information you want about them (true or false) with other players.

Minipod

Minipod: Place 1 one-person pod in 1 empty sector of your choice, neighbouring to the ship, and place 1 crew member from your reserve, face down, in it. You cannot take this action if there are no one-person pods in the ship.

4.1 - Advanced Actions

The advanced actions are shown on the advanced Control Panel card: Board, Pilot, Program and Refresh.

Retrieve all the crew members assigned to this card at the end of your turn ONLY if the Board, Pilot AND Program actions each have 1 crew member assigned.

Board

Board: Swap 1 crew member of your colour, from your reserve or from 1 pod, with 1 crew member of another colour that is in 1 adjacent pod. You may swap 1 crew member from your reserve with 1 crew member that is in an adjacent pod to the hangar; in that case, put the swapped crew member back into its owner's reserve.

Pilot

Pilot: Move any 1 manned pod to 1 neighbouring sector (you do not need to have 1 crew member of your colour in that pod). This movement follows every rule of the basic action Accelerate.

Program

Program: Choose ONE of the following options:

• Place the revealed Explosion card at the bottom of the deck and reveal 1 new card, or
• Place 1 beacon of your choice from the reserve on a free beacon space on the board (If you can, you must choose a beacon that includes the colour of another player taking part in the game), or
• Move one beacon on the board to another empty beacon space, or
• Swap two of the beacons on the board.

Refresh

Refresh: Retrieve all your crew members from your advanced Control Panel card.

Beacons

The beacon spaces on the board are the limits of the sectors marked in light blue.

At any moment of their turn the active player may, without spending any action, move 1 pod in which they have at least 1 crew member of their colour if said pod is adjacent to 1 beacon of their colour. If they decide to do so, that player moves said pod to the neighbouring sector through the beacon, following all rules that apply for the basic action Accelerate. The active player may activate each of the beacons of their colour in 1 turn as many times as they want.

5.0 - End of the Game

When the 3rd Debris token is placed in the same sector row, it forms an impassable barrier for the pods, thus starting the end of the game. From that moment onwards, only the players that have crew members of their colour in pods that are located between the barrier and the refuges, may play ONE LAST TURN following the regular rules.

The game finishes automatically when one of the following conditions is met:

• Each one of those players have played their turn, or
• There are no free arrival space in refuges, or
• There are no pods located between the barrier and the refuges.

6.0 - Scoring

For each of the refuges, follow these steps:

• Assign: Turn all the crew members in the arrival spaces face up and assign each of them to 1 free space, accordingly to their crew member type (Any crew member can be assigned to a space marked with an X). Crew members are assigned in arrival order. If there is more than 1 free possible space, the crew member's owner chooses to which space that crew member is assigned. If there are no available corresponding spaces, that crew member stays where it is.
• Score: Each space indicates the number of points that the owner of the crew member that occupies it receives. Some refuges have special rules that may modify scoring (see the Special Refuges section).

Once each refuge has been scored, the player with the most points is the winner of the game. In the case of a tie, the player with the most crew members in refuges wins. If the tie still persists, the player with the most correctly assigned crew members wins. If the tie still persists, the player that has assigned crew members to the biggest number of different refuges wins. If the tie still persists, the tied players share victory.

7.0 - Special Refuges

• The refuge with the green spaces: EACH crew member in this refuge scores 1 additional point if both green spaces have crew members assigned to them.
• The refuge with the red spaces: EACH crew member in this refuge scores 0 points unless both red spaces have crew members assigned to them.
• The refuge with the orange space: EACH crew member in this refuge scores 1 point less unless the orange space has a crew member assigned to it.
• The refuge with the green-and-player icon: EACH crew member in this refuge scores 1 additional point for each player that has crew members in this refuge.

8.0 - Solo Mode - Set Up and Rules

Follow the same steps as in the 2-5 players set up, but with these modifications:

• Use the 4 refuges marked for solo-version (the solo icon). Once you are more experienced, you may choose whichever refuges you like, or pick them randomly.
• When assembling the Explosion card deck, use all 13 cards (instead of only 7) and place 13 Debris tokens on the side (instead of only 7). Additionally, reveal the first 2 cards of the deck (instead of only 1) and place them to the right of the deck.

Once the game is set up according to what was previously explained, play with the regular rules but introduce the following modifications:

• Your goal is to achieve the highest possible scoring.
• When you carry out the action Program, you may put in the bottom of the deck any of the 2 revealed Explosion cards. Afterwards, reveal a new card and move the other revealed card, if necessary.
• At the end of each of your turns, the Explosion card furthest to the right of the deck activates following the rules indicated in the Crew Members, Refuges and Explosions text box. Then, move the other revealed card to the right, reveal the first card of the deck and put it immediately to the right of the deck.
• At the end of each of your turns, put every crew member on both of your Control Panel cards back to your reserve.

Once you have added all the scoring up, following the regular rules, compare your scoring with the following guide to know how you have fared:

• Over 15 points - GALAXY LORD
• Between 13 & 15 points - CONQUEROR
• 12 points or less - SURVIVOR

Errata

The following official 2Tomatoes errata sheet applies to this rulebook. The English block is reproduced below; the sheet also carries the same correction in Spanish, French and German.

BEWARE - ERRATA IN GAME SETUP

To prepare the explosion card deck in a 2-5 player game, create the deck by shuffling face down the cards numbered #4 to #10, both included. Then reveal the first card.