King's Ransom Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Objective
• Game Components
• Useful Terms
• Setup
• Play
• Piece Movement
• Victory
• Inside Booklet FAQ

Objective

Defeat your opponent by checkmating or directly capturing their King.

Game Components

• 24 Blue Cards
• 24 Red Cards
• 2 Player Aid Cards
• 1 Rulebook

Contains 50 cards and rules.

Useful Terms

• Arena - The play field, which is 3 cards wide and 6 cards long. This is where the battle takes place.
• Deck - The remaining cards of your color, placed next to you during play.
• Discard Pile - When a card is captured or replaced it goes to the side of your Deck face up. (Note that if one of your pawns ever lands on a space on your opponent's back row, you may promote it by switching it with any card in your discard pile.)
• Hand - The 3 cards you hold so your opponent cannot see. This is where you play cards from.

Setup

1. Each player takes their deck removes the King, and places it directly in front of them face up.
2. Each player shuffles their deck and allows their opponent to cut. Then place your deck next to your side of the Arena.
3. Each player takes the top 4 cards of their deck and randomly deals them out around their King, face down: 1 card to the right, 1 card to the left, 1 directly in front of and 1 two rows up. (It is suggested that after you deal your cards you look at them to see what piece occupies each space. Note: In King's Ransom you may look at any of your face-down cards at any time.)
4. Each player draws 3 cards, then the red player goes first.

Play

On their turn each player does the following in order:

1. Flip - Turn one of your face-down cards so it is face up. You must do this as long as you are able to do so.
2. Move - You must move a face-up card to any space not occupied by one of your own cards, following the same rules as chess. If you land on a space occupied by an opponent's card (either face up or face down), you capture it.
3. Announce Check - If you are threatening an opponent's King, you must announce check if the card that is threatening to capture the King is face up. If it is face down you do not need to do this, as you may capture the King directly with a newly revealed (flipped) card.
4. Play - A card is played face down in an unoccupied space on your side of the Arena. (If you have no open space to play, you may replace an in-play card on your side with a face down card from your Hand, discarding the replaced card. Alternatively, you may discard a card from your Hand).
5. Draw - Take the next card from the top of your Deck.

Piece Movement

• The King - can move only one square at a time, horizontally, vertically or diagonally. (If this card is captured the game is over.)
• The Queen - can also move in all directions, but does so any number of spaces; this means horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
• The Rook - is capable of moving any number of squares, but only horizontally or vertically.
• The Bishop - is capable of moving any number of spaces, but only diagonally.
• The Knight - moves in the form of an 'L' in any direction; namely, it moves two spaces horizontally and one vertically in any direction, or two spaces vertically and one space horizontally in any direction. When a Knight moves two spaces vertically or horizontally it ignores cards in those spaces.
• The Pawn - can only move one space forward (unlike regular chess where the pawn may advance two on its first movement) and may capture one space diagonally forward only.
• The Prince - moves like the King except it may be captured without ending the game..

Victory

Just like chess, your goal is to checkmate the other player's King. Checkmate is to attack an opponent's King in such a manner that there is no escape or defense that will stop the attack from succeeding on the next turn. You may also capture the King with a newly flipped card.

Inside Booklet FAQ

Can I move off the board? No. The Arena is 3 wide and 6 long. You may not move out of this area.

Can I use chess moves such as Castling? Unlike standard chess, Castling does not exist in King's Ransom.

Can I capture a face-down card? Yes you may. However, as you do not know what the card is, you may end up sacrificing a queen to take a pawn.

What happens when the Deck runs out of cards? Play continues, but no more cards may be drawn.

What if the only card I can move is my King but he is not in check and anywhere I move him places him in check? This is called a stalemate, which is considered a draw.

What happens if you cannot move and do not have a card to play on your turn? (Note: having no advantageous move does not mean you can skip your move step.) This is also a stalemate.