Future Inc. Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Card Anatomy
• Set-Up
• Money Marker
• Gameplay
• Action Phase
  • Build a Factory
  • Promote or Discredit a Product
  • Adjust a Selling Price
  • End of Your Turn
• Market Phase
• Upkeep Phase
• Event Cards
• Endgame
• Example 01 - Building a Factory
• Example 02 - Market Phase

Components

• A — 66 Factory Cards
• B — 8 Event Cards
• C — 4 Personal Pads
• D — 1 Main Board
• E — 4 Product Demand Markers
• F — 1 Phase Marker
• G — 1 Round Marker
• H — 4 Money Markers FF/+25
• I — 6 Money Tokens +50/100
• J — 1 First Player Token
• K — 4 Player Aid Cards

The four types of product in the game are Robots, Energy, Chips and V.R. Systems.

Card Anatomy

1. Production Icons
2. Number of Players indicator
3. Victory Value
4. Cost (Money)
5. Cost (Products: # and type)
6. Product Demand Increase
7. Selling Price
8. Modifier Reminder
9. Modifier (reverse)

Set-Up

Place the main board in the center of the table and each product demand marker in the 1 space of its corresponding row. Place both the phase marker and the round marker in the leftmost space of their respective tracks on the main board. Give each player a personal pad and a money marker. Place the marker in the 20 space, on its FF side. Give the first player token to a random player.

Shuffle the event cards and deal three to each player. Keep these cards face down next to your personal pad so that the other players cannot see them.

Prepare the factory cards according to the number of players: if there are 4 players, use all the cards; if there are 3 players, remove the cards marked with four dots from the game; if there are 2 players, use only the cards marked with two dots.

Sort the resulting factory cards into three groups according to their backs (I, II and III), shuffle each group separately and then stack them up to form a single deck (with the I Era cards on top, the II Era cards in the middle and the III Era cards at the bottom). Draw 6 cards and place them next to the main board, face up and visible to everyone, to create the market. Place the rest of the deck nearby, leaving some space for a discard pile common for all players.

Money Marker

Throughout the game, you will use your pad to track the amount of money you have at any given time. Move the marker accordingly as you spend or earn money. If you exceed 24FF, flip the marker over to its +25 side and move it to the 0 space (or vice versa if you go below 25FF). If you exceed 49FF, flip the marker back to its FF side and place a +50 token in one of the spaces on your pad (if you exceed 99FF, flip the +50 token to show +100).

Gameplay

In Future Inc., you will take turns buying factories and promoting your products until the market phase begins, when you will try to sell your production to make a profit. At the end of the game, the value of your factories is added to the profit you have already made to determine the winner. Future Inc. is played in five rounds (two of I Era, two of II Era and a final one of III Era). Each round consists of 3 action phases and 1 market phase.

Action Phase

Each player, starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, must perform one of the following actions:

Build a Factory

Choose one of the six factories available on the market and pay its cost. Factories cost money (subtract the specified amount from your pad) and products. Products must come from your own factories. Each factory produces a quantity (usually 1, but the most advanced factories produce 2) of a specific type of product. If you produce the products required by the selected card, you will not have to pay any additional amount, but if you are missing any product you will have to buy them on the market. For each missing product, pay its current price (the highest visible number to the left of its demand marker) in FF. [See Example 01]

Once you have paid for the factory, increase the demand for the products needed to build the factory, regardless of whether you have produced them or bought them. To do this, move the demand marker for these products as many spaces to the right as indicated on the factory card.

Place the purchased factory in your play area. If you already have factories that produce this type of product you must place this card either above or below them (this is an important decision, as the visible card of the pile determines your selling price and victory value for this type of factory). Spread the cards out slightly so that all the production icons of each card in the pile are visible above the front card. Your total production of a particular product is equal to the sum of the icons on your factory cards of that type.

Promote or Discredit a Product

First, take a card from the market and discard it to earn as much money as the card's selling price. Then, if you choose to promote, increase the demand for all the products in the discarded card, as if you were building it. On the other hand, if you choose to discredit, choose only one of the products shown on the discarded card's cost and reduce its demand by 1 (move its marker one space to the left).

Adjust a Selling Price

Select a card from the market, turn it over and place it underneath one of your factory piles so that only one price modifier is visible. You must choose whether to use it on its positive side (increasing the price) or its negative side (decreasing the price). In the next market phase, your selling price for that type of product type will be modified by that number.

End of Your Turn

Once your action is finished, draw a new card from the factory deck to replace the card of the market you have chosen. Then, it is the next player's turn, in clockwise order. Once all players have taken their turn, move the phase marker one space forward to indicate how many phases of the current round remain to be played. A total of three action phases are played each round before the market phase begins.

Market Phase

Each production icon visible in your factory piles represents a unit of production that you can sell on the market, provided there is sufficient demand and your price is competitive enough. The demand marker for each product indicates how many units of that product can be sold this round (from 0 to 15 max.). Follow these steps in order:

1. Increase the demand for all products as indicated by the events in play (see Event Cards). In addition, each player may choose one event in play to earn the bonus shown.

2. Starting with Robots, carry out the sale of each product in order. The player with the lowest selling price starts by selling as many units as his factories produce, up to the product's demand. He reduces the demand for the product by the number of units sold (moving its marker as many spaces to the left), and adds the corresponding amount of money to his pad. If there is still a demand for the product (the marker is not yet in the 0 space), the next player with the lowest selling price then sells his units. This process continues until demand reaches 0 or all units produced have been sold. If there is a tie for the selling price, the product with the highest original price (before any modifications) is sold first. If there is still a tie, the tied players alternate, in turn order, selling their units one at a time. [See Example 02]. It is possible that the demand is higher than the total production of all players. In this case, the remaining demand is kept for the next round.

3. Discard any event cards in play. Each player, in turn order, may choose one of their event cards and play it face down. Once all players have had a chance to play an event (or pass), turn the played event cards face up and place them next to the main board. These will be the active events for the next market phase.

Note that there are no V.R. Systems factories to build in 2-player games, but some factories may require this type of product. V.R. Systems can still be bought on the market for building purposes, and its price will continue to increase, but will never decrease.

Upkeep Phase

If this is the fifth round, skip this step and proceed directly to the final scoring. Otherwise, discard any modifiers in play, pass the first player's token to the next player, return the phase marker to the first action space and move the round marker one space to the right.

Event Cards

At the start of the game, each player is dealt 3 event cards. At the end of each market phase, each player can play one event card to take effect in the next round. You are under no obligation to play any of them, maybe will be best for you if one or two of them never come into play, but adapting your strategy to make the most of the events you have can be the key to victory.

At the start of the market phase, the event cards in play increase the demand for some products (the upper half) and give players a possible economic bonus (the lower half). Each player can choose only one of the bonuses, regardless of the number of event cards in play.

Example: with two events in play and after increasing the demand for V.R. Systems by 2 and the demand for Chips by 1, each player could choose to earn 2 FF for each pair of Robots and Energy produced by their factories, or 2 FF for each Chips produced, but not both.

Endgame

At the end of the fifth and final market phase, resolve the final scoring to determine the winner of the game. To do this, multiply the victory value of each type of factory you own (the value shown on the first visible card of each pile) by the total number of units of that product you produce (usually 1 per factory, but note that III Era factories produce 2). Add the total value of all your factories to the amount of money you have to determine your final score (use your pad to keep track). The player with the highest total is the winner. In the event of a tie, the player with the highest sum of victory values of his factories wins.

Example 01 - Building a Factory

1. The player wants to build this factory card from the market.
2. He produces 3 V.R. Systems, enough to cover the 2 required by the card.
3. But he does not produce any Chips (his other cards are useless in this case), so he proceeds to buy the missing Chips. The demand for Chips is at 4, which makes 3 FF the current market price (as it is the highest visible value to the left of the demand marker).
4. The player ends up paying 8 FF (3 FF for 1 Chips, plus 5 FF for the card's base cost), and places the card above or below the one he already has of the same type. He also increases the demand for Chips by 1 and for V.R. Systems by 1.

Example 02 - Market Phase

1. Four players have these cards in play during the Market Phase, and the demand for Energy is 7.
2. Players A and C are tied with a selling price of 2 FF, but since player C gets it by modifying a higher value (4-2), he starts to sell all his production (3 Energy), which gives him 6 FF (2 FF x 3) and leaves the demand at 4 (7-3).
3. Player A then sells his production (2 Energy), which gives him 4 FF (2 FF x 2) and leaves the demand at 2 (4-2).
4. Finally, players B and D tie with a selling price of 3 FF, without modifiers, so they take turns selling one unit each until the demand is exhausted. They end up earning only 3 FF each, as one unit from each player remains unsold.