Flash Point (2010) Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Objective
• Setup
  • Components List
  • Two Ways to Play
  • Summary of Components
  • Before Playing for the First Time
  • Setting Up the Basic Game
• Turn Order and Phases
• Detect POI Phase
• Player Action Phase
  • Starting Location
  • Actions
• Advance Fire Phase
  • Advance Fire Outcomes
  • Explosions
  • Getting Knocked Down
  • Secondary Effects
  • Flashovers
  • Running Out of Fire Discs?
• Search and Rescue
  • Searching for Victims
  • Rescuing Victims
• End of Game
• Intro to the Advanced Game
• Advanced Game Setup
• Vehicles
  • Assembly
  • The Ambulance
  • The Fire Engine
  • Vehicle Placement at Start
  • Vehicle Actions
• Specialists
  • Paramedic
  • Fire Captain
  • Rescue Specialist
  • Driver/Operator
• Hazardous Materials
  • Disposing of Hazmat

Objective

Flash Point is a fully cooperative game, meaning that players win or lose together. To win, players must rescue the victims trapped inside a burning home. The players fail if three or more people die, or if the house collapses from structural failure.

Setup

Components List

All of the following should be contained within the Flash Point box:

• 1 rules
• 2 10"x16" halves of game board
• 1 6-sided die
• 1 8-sided die
• 36 orange discs
• 8 white discs
• 19 black discs
• 3 blue discs
• 126 round stickers (for the discs)
• 30 translucent white winks
• 6 player pawns
• 16 cards

Two Ways to Play

Flash Point is by no means a simulation. It is complicated enough, however, that learning all the rules in one sitting might present a challenge. For this reason, these rules are broken up into a Basic and Advanced Game. The Advanced Game follows all of the same conventions as the Basic Game, but incorporates advanced features like specialist roles, drivable vehicles, hazardous materials, and the fire engine's deck gun. For this reason, we recommend players start with the Basic Game. Once all players understand the basics, they will be prepared for the extra challenges of the Advanced Game.

If playing the Basic Game, read only up to the End of Game section. The remainder of the rules describe Advanced Game concepts.

Summary of Components

Below you will find a brief description of the major components and their uses in the game.

The Dice. Many elements of the game are random or semi-random. These include the way that fire advances, and how new POI are discovered and added to the board. Two dice, one six and one eight-sided, are rolled together to generate a coordinate. Each space inside (not outside) the house corresponds to a particular dice roll. The dice are always rolled together.

Game Board. The board in Flash Point is composed of two 10"x16" cardboard panels. Placed side-by-side, these align to create the house which is the setting of the game. Each panel is two-sided. Flip both panels over to reveal a completely different floor plan!

Blue Discs. The blue discs are used in tandem with the Paramedic, a specialist role that may be used in the Advanced Game. They have no use in the Basic Game. Leave these alone for now.

White Winks. The white winks (7/8" translucent discs) are damage tokens. Walls may take damage from the fire, or by player action. At least 30 damage tokens should be included. Throw away excess winks, or keep them separate. Once all 30 damage tokens have been played to the board, the house suffers a structural collapse and the roof caves in. This is one way the game may end in defeat for all players.

White Discs. The white discs are doors. These go atop each doorway in the house, but not the entrances on each of the four sides of the house. Doors have two sides: open and closed. The players may open and close doors, but at the start of the game all doors are closed.

Orange Discs. The orange discs are smoke and fire discs. One side is smoke; the other is fire. These are added to the board as the fire advances, and removed as fire and smoke is extinguished by the players.

Black Discs. The black discs are "points of interest", or POI for short. These are places inside the house where something important may or may not be found. Until players MOVE to a POI, or they are otherwise acted upon, the nature of a POI is a mystery. There are three types of POI in Flash Point:

• Victims - look like people; must be rescued.
• False Alarm - a firefighter's shadow cast upon a vacant wall. Nothing here!
• Hazardous Materials (hazmat) - have triangular yellow warning symbols.

Player Pawns. These pieces are the players themselves. Typically, each player controls only one pawn. For a solitaire game, it is acceptable for a player to play as two or more characters.

The Cards. There are three types of cards: AP surplus cards, specialists, and vehicles. Only the AP surplus cards are used in the Basic Game. Take a good look at all the cards anyway - some particularly useful information is printed on the back of each.

Before Playing for the First Time

One of the things you will notice the first time you open the box is the abundance of colored wooden discs. Each color represents a class of object. Orange discs are fire or smoke. White discs are open or closed doors. Black discs are "points of interest" (POI) - mystery spaces that must be investigated before they can be identified. Blue discs mark treated victims, and have no function in the Basic Game. Before playing this game for the first time, you must place the included stickers on the right color of disc. The edge of each sticker is color-coded to make this simple. Here is the process for getting your game ready to play:

1. The fire stickers go on the orange discs. There are 36 of these.
2. The smoke stickers go on the opposite side of each orange disc.
3. The open door stickers go on the white discs. There are eight of these.
4. The closed door stickers go on the opposite side of each white disc.
5. The mystery "?" stickers go on the black discs. There are 19 of these.
6. All remaining stickers go on the opposite side of the black discs.

Setting Up the Basic Game

1. Put the two halves of the game board together. Use the floor plan pictured on page 2 (Game Board).
2. Place the doors (white discs) closed-side-up on each of the eight doorways marked with an "X". The four doorways already marked with an open door symbol are entrances. These are always open, and do not need a door disc.
3. Of the POI (black discs), remove two of the ten victim and one of the false alarms. Remove all of the hazardous materials. They are not used in the Basic Game.
4. In the center of the board is a 2x4 room. Fill it with fire discs (orange, fire-side-up).
5. Take three POI discs and place them ("?"-side-up!) on the spaces 15, 51, and 67.
6. Players must determine the start player and turn order. The game is ready to begin.

Turn Order and Phases

Flash Point is played in turns, with three phases to each turn. These are:

1. Detect POI - If there are fewer than three POI on the board at the start of a player's turn, that player rolls to locate POI until there are three.
2. Player Action - The active player has 4 action points (AP) to spend however he pleases. See section E.1 for more detail.
3. Advance Fire - The active player rolls once to advance the flame, which can have a variety of effects. See section F.1 for a description of this phase.

When one turn ends the next begins, with turn order going clockwise around the table.

Detect POI Phase

At the start of each player's turn, he should check to see if there are fewer than three POIs (black discs) on the board. This includes POIs that have been identified (flipped over), such as a victim. If there are fewer than three POIs, he rolls the dice to detect new POIs. The result is a coordinate - a particular space on the board.

Valid locations for a POI are empty spaces and smoke clouds (orange discs, smoke-side-up). Invalid locations are spaces on fire and spaces where one or more firefighters are already standing. If the result for a "detect POI" roll is invalid, the active player must use the arrows at the corner of each square as a guide for locating POIs. The arrows trace a spiral that starts at 33 and spirals outwards to 61 before jumping back to 33 and completing the circuit. If your first result is invalid, continue to follow the arrows until you find a valid space to place the POI.

Example: For this Detect POI attempt, a 11 is rolled. This result is invalid, as there is a fire in this space. Following the arrows, 11 becomes 12 (invalid; fire) becomes 13 (invalid; already occupied by another POI) becomes 14, which is empty and a valid space.

Player Action Phase

Starting Location

On a player's first turn, that player may enter the board standing on any space outside the house.

Actions

A player may perform any of the following actions on his Player Action phase. Actions are written in ALL CAPS for emphasis.

NOTE: "Adjacent" in this game always means up, down, left, or right. Diagonal spaces are never considered adjacent, for any purpose.

MOVE - players may move their player pawns to an adjacent space. Each step is a MOVE. Movement costs vary based on the situation.

• Moving to an open/smoke-filled space: 1AP
• Entering a space on fire: 2AP
• Moving while carrying a victim: 2AP

OPEN/CLOSE DOOR - Any player may spend 1AP to flip an adjacent door disc to either its open or closed side. Open doors may be passed through freely by players, but are likewise no obstacle to fire.

EXTINGUISH - Players may EXTINGUISH smoke and fire in their own space, or any adjacent space. A fire or smoke disc that is extinguished is removed from the board. It costs 1AP to EXTINGUISH smoke, and 1AP to convert fire to smoke. Usually it is best to completely EXTINGUISH fire (2AP), as smoke is liable to ignite and become fire again anyway.

CHOP - All firefighters carry an axe. This can be used to demolish walls, creating openings a firefighter can use to reach a trapped victim. It costs 2AP to CHOP an adjacent wall segment. This adds a damage token to the wall segment. A wall segment with two damage tokens is destroyed, and firefighters can pass through destroyed wall segments as if they were not even there. Be forewarned - all walls are load-bearing. Reckless demolition will only guarantee an early game over!

All of the actions described above may be performed in any order and combination, so long as they do not exceed a player's available AP. Unspent AP may be saved for next turn. The AP surplus cards record unspent AP from one turn to the next. These cards have four facings: +1, +2, +3, and +4. This indicates a number of unspent AP. Simply rotate these cards so that the correct number of unspent AP faces up. Each player should have an AP surplus card in his own color. No more than 4AP may be saved in this fashion. Once a player has finished his Player Action phase, the Advance Fire phase begins.

Advance Fire Phase

The fire is the unthinking, unfeeling antagonist of this game. At the end of each player's turn, he rolls the dice once to advance the fire. Although the fire spreads randomly and mechanically, certain outcomes are inherently more likely. Players should plan accordingly.

Advance Fire Outcomes

The potential outcomes of an Advance Fire roll are:

1. smoke will spread to an open space
2. fire will spread to an adjacent space
3. smoke will ignite and become fire
4. an explosion will happen in a space already on fire

"Contiguous" in this game means "adjacent and not separated by a wall or closed door." As the fire can not pass through an obstacle, walls and closed doors slow the spread of fire.

Once one of these four outcomes is resolved, players should check to see if any secondary effects occur.

Explosions

Whenever the fire advances into a space that is already on fire, an explosion occurs. Explosions spread outwards in all four directions. Not only can this spread the fire, it also damages nearby walls and doors.

An explosion radiates from its target space outwards in all four directions. Each "shock wave" will continue to travel in its respective direction, "rolling over" and skipping spaces on fire already, until it

1. hits something - a wall or closed door (damages/destroys what it hits)
2. encounters a space free of smoke or fire (spreads fire to that space)
3. vents harmlessly outside (no effect)

If a shock wave passes through an open door, that door is destroyed as well. This does not contain the shock wave, which continues unimpeded through the doorway until it hits something solid, spreads fire, or vents out of the house. Players, likewise, are no impediment to fire, although in the unhappy event that a player gets in the way of the shock wave he is knocked down. See Getting Knocked Down, below.

Example: 11 is rolled for the Advance Fire result. As this space is already on fire, an explosion occurs. Shock waves radiate from 11 in all four directions.

• Up - shock wave travels through the destroyed wall and vents harmlessly outside.
• Down - shock wave rolls over fire at 21 and spreads fire to 31.
• Left - shock wave hits a wall. Add a damage token to this wall segment.
• Right - shock wave rolls over two fires before hitting a closed door. The door is destroyed. Remove it from the board.

Getting Knocked Down

Despite their protective gear, firefighters are not fireproof. If fire spreads to a firefighter's location, that firefighter also catches fire and must "stop, drop, and roll" to put it out. Immediately turn the player pawn on its back to reflect this. Remove the fire disc from his space - it can't hurt that player again. On his next turn, that player returns his pawn to an upright position, and forfeits the rest of his turn. If the fire spreads to our player's space after he has gotten up, he is knocked down again. However, if this happened while he was already down there would be no further effect. Assuming he makes it to his next turn without incident, our player may take his next turn as normal. Although the players can't die in this game, firefighters who take stupid risks may become a liability to the team.

Victims completely helpless. If the fire spreads into a space occupied by a victim, he is literally toast. Remove dead victims from the board and keep them separate from rescued victims. Three dead victims is an instant game over!

Secondary Effects

Once the immediate effects of an Advance Fire roll have been resolved, secondary effects may occur. These are the incidental results of the advancing fire. Secondary effects include flashovers, deaths, knock-downs, and total building collapse. Use the chart below to determine what secondary effects have been triggered.

Flowchart "Check for secondary effects":

1. Are the damage tokens exhausted? Yes: The roof collapses on everyone. Game over! No: continue to step 2 (the building still stands, for now).
2. Is anyone in a space on fire? No: go to step 3. Yes: if it is a player, the player is knocked down; if it is a victim, the victim perishes (remove his POI from the board). Then continue to step 3.
3. Is smoke contiguous to fire? Yes: Flashover! Smoke becomes fire. No: no effect. All secondary effects have been resolved.

Flashovers

Flashovers are a secondary effect. A flashover happens whenever a fire disc is contiguous with one or more smoke discs. After resolving the immediate effects of an Advance Fire roll, check to see if any smoke is contiguous with any fire. If so, flip the smoke discs over to transform smoke to fire. A single fire can ignite a whole mass of smoke at one time. Be very careful whenever venturing into a large smoke cloud, as any smoke disc that self-ignites (as the result of an Advance Fire roll) will also convert contiguous smoke to fire.

Example: A fire ignites two smoke clouds. Flip these over to turn them into fire. A third smoke is insulated by a wall, and does not "flash over".

Running Out of Fire Discs?

It is possible, although very unlikely, that your supply of fire discs will be nearly or completely used up at some point in the game. At the end of any Advance Fire phase where four or fewer fire discs remain, the fire is considered "oxygen-starved." Roll the dice once again, but this time remove any fire or smoke discs in the target space and/or all adjacent spaces. Roll again if you still have fewer than four fire discs in reserve. Then continue with the game.

Search and Rescue

The objective of each game of Flash Point is not to contain the fire, but to rescue trapped victims.

Searching for Victims

You can't rescue what you can't find. When they're not fighting fire, players should be making steady progress towards the POIs.

When a player pawn enters the space occupied by an unidentified POI, it is immediately identified (flip over to reveal). If the POI turns out to be a false alarm, remove it from the board and the game. If it is a victim, congratulations! But your work is not over yet.

Rescuing Victims

To rescue a victim, you must carry him outside. This slows you down. It costs 2AP to carry a victim along with you while you move, and you can't move through fire while carrying a victim.

The moment you step outside with a victim, he is immediately rescued. Remove your victim from the board, but keep rescued victims separate from dead victims. The moment all victims have been rescued and/or have perished, the game ends in victory or defeat.

End of Game

There are two ways that a game of Flash Point can end in defeat, and only one way that it can end in victory.

DEFEAT - Three Dead Victims. The game ends in defeat for all players the moment three or more victims are killed.

DEFEAT - Building Collapse. The game ends in defeat for all players the moment all 30 damage tokens are exhausted. All walls (internal and external) support the roof. Doors do not. Walls segments can only take two damage tokens before they are completely destroyed - no further damage is possible. Walls may be destroyed incidentally by explosions or purposely by players. Don't punch more holes in the building than you can afford.

VICTORY - All Victims Accounted For. The game ends in victory for all players the moment that all victims are rescued or have perished, unless there have been three or more deaths. With eight victims, you must rescue at least six to win. In the Advanced Game, players may tweak the difficulty by having more or fewer victims to save.

(End of Basic Game Rules)

Intro to the Advanced Game

The Advanced Game builds on the Basic Game. Every element of the Basic Game is retained in the Advanced game, with little or no modification. From this point, prior knowledge of the Basic Game rules is assumed. If a rule is not specifically mentioned or clarified in the Advanced Game rules, then the Basic Game rules still apply.

Advanced Game Setup

Setup has been modified to accommodate new game concepts, to allow multiple difficulty levels, and to make every game different with randomized opening conditions.

1. • 2. (No change from Basic Game)
2. Multiple difficulty levels are available. They differ in the initial size of the fire, and in the starting distribution of POIs. Choose your poison:
   • One-Alarm Fire (EASY): [2 explosions] 6 victims, 3 false alarms, 2 hazmats
   • Two-Alarm Fire (MEDIUM): [3 explosions] 8 victims, 4 false alarms, 3 hazmats
   • Three-Alarm Fire (HARD): [4 explosions] 10 victims, 5 false alarms, 4 hazmats
3. Roll the dice. Place a fire disc on the resulting space. Explode that same space. This will almost certainly damage walls and doors.
4. Repeat step 4 as many times as your chosen difficulty calls for. If your dice result is a space already on fire, it explodes once only!
5. Roll three times for the first three POI.
6. Players must determine the start player and turn order. They also must choose a specialist card to represent their player.

Vehicles

The Advanced Game introduces two vehicles: fire engine and the ambulance.

Assembly

Each vehicle is composed of two cards, each a mirror image of the other. Place these together with the vehicle graphic facing outwards. Stick these into the stands, and voila! Instant vehicles!

The Ambulance

Rescuing victims in the Basic Game was no sweat; just carry them outside and you're done! In the Advanced Game, it is not quite so simple. Victims must be carried to the ambulance. The ambulance is always in front of an entrance, and can be driven around by the players. Nevertheless, this is a complicating factor that actually makes the Advanced Game more challenging.

The Fire Engine

Like the ambulance, the fire engine can be driven around and parked in any corner of the board. While standing beside the fire engine, a player can take the FIRE THE DECK GUN action to blast their corner of the board with a high-pressure water cannon. The deck gun is so powerful, in fact, that it can also knock out players and kill victims. It is best reserved for hopeless situations, when fire suppression is the priority.

Vehicle Placement at Start

The start player may place the fire engine and the ambulance at any corner of the board (not necessarily the same corner). These vehicles may only be placed where the fire engine or ambulance graphics appear, respectively.

These "parking spaces" are color-coded red or blue for clarity. Note that the vehicles actually occupy two spaces each. They can be operated from within either space. Place the vehicles beside their positions, rather than directly on the board.

Vehicle Actions

The two vehicles present new opportunities and challenges. Three new actions are available to players, but a player must be standing on one of the two squares a vehicle shares to do any of them.

DRIVE - Both the fire engine and the ambulance can be driven to the next parking space of their respective type in either the clockwise or counterclockwise direction. To reach the opposite side of the board, two DRIVE actions must be taken. This moves the player as well as the vehicle. It costs 4AP to DRIVE either vehicle (2AP for the Driver/Operator), but is a great way to get around quickly.

RIDE - This action is unique in that it is free (0AP) and can be done even on another player's turn. If you occupy the parking space of a vehicle (either square) while it is being driven, you can piggy-back and travel with the vehicle to its destination. A player may choose to RIDE or not RIDE, and any number of players may RIDE simultaneously. All players may choose to exit the vehicle from either parking space.

FIRE THE DECK GUN - Firing the deck gun is a 4AP action (2AP for the Driver/Operator) that can be taken only with the fire engine. The deck gun can potentially EXTINGUISH large masses of fire in one burst. It targets only the corner of the board where the fire engine is placed, but is somewhat imprecise.

Before going any further, notice that the board can be broken into 3x4 quadrants. These quadrants are delineated with white brackets. Whenever you choose to FIRE THE DECK GUN, roll the dice. The result may or may not be a space on your quadrant. If not, one or both values must be adjusted. Flip any "out-of-range" dice upside-down to get the opposite result. This is your adjusted roll, and it is guaranteed to fall within the quadrant.

The deck gun targets your (adjusted) roll, completely extinguishing any smoke or fire in that square. It also "splashes over" into adjacent squares, completely extinguishing them too.

The deck gun has a downside, which is that its high-pressure spray will knock out firefighters in any of the affected spaces. This has exactly the same effect as catching fire, or being hit by a shock wave. Victims will be killed if hit with the deck gun, even if they have not yet been identified as a victim. Flip over any unidentified POI that is hit with the deck gun. Victims die. False alarms are discarded as usual. Hazmats are unaffected.

Example: The fire engine (not shown) is parked in the lower-right corner of the board. The green player chooses to FIRE THE DECK GUN. He rolls a 27, which is adjusted to a 57. The fire at 57 is extinguished, as are an additional fire and smoke in adjacent (not necessarily contiguous) spaces. Unfortunately, the POI at 56 is also hit. Identify (flip over) the POI, and then take the appropriate course of action.

Specialists

Each player has a specialist card. This is your character in the game, from beginning to end. Each specialist has unique abilities that makes him particularly well-suited to certain situations. Players may choose their specialist, or draw one at random.

Paramedic

The paramedic can resuscitate, or TREAT victims in his own square. This is a 2AP action. Place a blue disc underneath a treated victim to denote the change in status.

All players (not just the paramedic) may MOVE with a treated victim without having to carry him. Consider how many AP this will save before you TREAT a victim. A player may only carry one victim at a time, but any number of treated victims may follow him.

Fire Captain

The Fire Captain may MOVE other players on his turn. He may help another player carry a victim or hazmat. The Fire Captain must spend as much AP as that player would have done had he chosen to MOVE in that same fashion on his own turn. For instance, it would cost 2AP to MOVE a player who is encumbered.

Rescue Specialist

The rescue specialist can not EXTINGUISH fire or smoke, but can CHOP down walls for only 1AP. He may MOVE diagonally, but only if there are no obstacles in the way. Diagonal movement sometimes intersects not one but two wall segments. Unless both the near and far wall are open (collapsed, or an open doorway), diagonal movement is not possible.

Example: The white player is the Rescue Specialist. Arrowheads represent directions he can legally MOVE, while "X"es are directions blocked by one or more obstacles. Although both doorways are open, our player may only move diagonally through the lower-left one. This is because the near wall is open (collapsed), in addition to the doorway.

Driver/Operator

The Driver/Operator may DRIVE any rescue vehicle for only 2AP. In addition, after firing the deck gun and rolling the dice, he may accept the result or reroll one or both dice. After rerolling one die, he may then choose to reroll the other, but is limited to a single reroll for each die. Like it or not, the second roll always replaces the first.

Hazardous Materials

The base set of Flash Point contains only one variety of hazardous material, or "hazmat" - the flammable hazmat.

If fire ever reaches the space occupied by a flammable hazmat, it causes an explosion as a secondary effect. Resolve this only after the preceding effect has been completely resolved. An explosion radiates in all four directions from the flammable hazmat. Once this explosion has resolved, remove the hazmat from the board and the game.

Disposing of Hazmat

To dispose of hazmat, simply carry it outside. Any space outside the house will do. Once disposed of, remove materials from the board and from the game. Firefighters are encumbered by carrying hazmat in the exact same way they would be if they were carrying a victim. A firefighter may not carry two hazmat at the same time, or a hazmat and a victim, or two of anything for that matter!