First Contact
First Contact Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Content
- Alien language pad — 24 pcs.
- Alien assignment cards — 24 pcs.
- Alien drawing pad — 1 pc.
- Benevolence tokens — 45 pcs., 3 colours.
- Alien screen — 1 pc.
- Earthling note pad — 4 pcs.
- Earthling voting pad — 4 pcs.
- Human screens — 4 pcs.
- Marker — 5 pcs.
- Item cards — 128 pcs.
- Rulebook.
Preparing for the game
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Divide all players into 2 teams: aliens and earthlings.
Note: the maximum number of aliens is 3, earthlings — 4.
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After the players are divided into earthlings and aliens, the teams sit down opposite each other.
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Shuffle the deck of item cards and place 25 cards in the centre of the table to form a square measuring 5 x 5. This is the field.
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The alien team receive: 1 random alien language pad, 1 random assignment card, 1 drawing pads, an alien screen, and a marker; place all of these as shown in the picture (an illustration of the aliens' work place).
Note: for players' convenience, the backs of alien components are painted blue.
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Each alien must choose a colour and take benevolence tokens of the respective colour.
Note: The Red player will have the first turn.
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Each player in the team receives: a note pad, a voting pad, a human screen, a marker.
Note: for players' convenience, the backs of earthling components are painted yellow.
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The player from the earthling team who knows the most languages will have the first turn in the earthling phase.
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The player from the alien team who last met with aliens takes red tokens and will have the first turn in the alien phase until the end of the game; the player who chose green as his color will have the last turn in the aliens phase until the end of the game.
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The players take the zero turn (see "The zero turn").
You are ready to play!
Goal of the Game
The players' goals differ depending on the team they are playing for. At the end of the game, each of the two teams will have a winner.
In the alien team, the winner is the first player to obtain three items they need from the earthlings.
In the earthling team, the winner is the player who has obtained the most benevolence tokens granted by the aliens if you offer them an item they need.
The game stops as soon as one of the aliens collects three items they need.
Which Items Aliens Have to Get from Earthlings?
The aliens have an assignment card; on it by colors, marked objects necessary for each alien. The card is a field map, while the bottom row of squares on the card corresponds to the row of objects closest to the aliens on the field.
Gameplay
The game consists of a series of rounds, each of which is divided into phases — the earthling phase and the alien phase.
The Earthling Phase
During this phase, the earthlings take turns learning the alien language, starting with the first player and continuing clockwise. For this purpose, an earthling, in their turn, rotates the item cards by 90 degrees, which, in their opinion, are related to each other by one of the common characteristics specified on the player's note pad.
Example: John wants to know what is the alien word for "Big", so he rotates all the cards on the field which match that characteristic: the Pyramid, the Hippo, the Horse, the House and the Elephant. Aliens show him a symbol drew on their drawing pad and he draw it into his note pad near the requested characteristic.
You can rotate from 1 to 5 cards. After the earthling has rotated the card(s), the aliens try to figure out which characteristic exactly the earthling meant, and then in response draw on their pad a symbol representing the characteristic, which they think was offered. All the actions described above can be seen by all players, including the symbol proposed by the aliens. To facilitate this process, all earthlings can conveniently write all symbols received from the aliens into the empty cells of their personal note pads. The aliens, in their turn, have their own pads for recording symbols that have been already shown to the humans. Later on, this information will come in useful for them at their own phase.
Important! An earthling's note pad must always be hidden from other earthlings behind the screen.
The Alien Phase
During this phase, the aliens take turns writing to the humans in their own language, using symbols on the language pad and starting with the first player and continuing clockwise, which item exactly they need.
Therefore, they draw one or several symbols representing the characteristics that they think the item they need possesses.
Example: Michael wants the earthlings to bring him the Hammer, so he draws symbols of the following characteristics on the drawing pad: Tool, Dangerous and Metal.
It is possible that some of the symbols are not yet known to the earthlings, but they may come in useful later.
After that, all earthlings secretly behind their screens mark with a dot on their voting pads the item on the field, which, in their opinion, this alien needs.
When everyone is ready, the earthlings lay out their voting pads with marks in front of their screens. If either of them has offered the required item, the alien gives them a benevolence token and covers that item on the field with a second token, thus indicating that he or she has already received the item. If several earthlings have offered the required item at the same time, then the alien gives each one a benevolence token. If earthlings have unknowingly offered the alien an item wanted by another alien, then nothing happens: the item has to be offered in the turn of the alien who wants it: the other aliens are not interested in it.
After each alien completes their turn at this phase, the next phase takes place — the earthling phase — and so forth, until one of the aliens collects all three items they need.
End of the Game
The game stops as soon as one of the aliens collects three items they need. This alien is declared the winner in their team. After that, all earthling team members count how many benevolence tokens each one of them has received for the game. The player who has collected the largest number of tokens is declared the second winner. If there are several players like this, they all become winners.
The Zero Turn
Before starting the game, each earthling asks to draw the symbol of the characteristic chosen by him or her. For example, the first earthling asks to show how to write Tool, the second one - how to write Living, and the third one — Valuable. In response, the aliens have to draw in turns the symbol of each characteristic, thus providing starting symbols for the game; otherwise, the game would take much longer.
The Rules for Two or Three Players
If only 2 or 3 players participate in the game, then the game is played by special rules. One of the players becomes an alien and one or two remaining players become earthlings. Players prepare for the game according to the basic rules, except that the alien takes only 10 red tokens and 15 green tokens.
The alien's goal is to explain any 5 of the 15 color (red, green, or blue) words indicated on the alien assignment card before he will run out of red tokens.
The red alien tokens lay out in front of their screen after each round and an additional one counter if one or several earthlings offered him an item marked in black on the alien assignment card.
Green tokens are considered as ordinary tokens of benevolence, alien use them to reward earthlings and to cover item cards on the field.
The goal of earthlings, as in the usual rules, is to get as many tokens of benevolence as possible.
The game ends either as soon as the alien receives 5 necessary items from earthlings and wins, or as soon as he lays out his last red token in front of the screen and loses. In both cases, among the earthlings, the winner is the player with the most benevolence tokens.