Marble Bobsleigh Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Assembling and Preparation of the Game
  • Components
  • Assembling the Boards
  • Setup
• Game Play
  • Shooting Trigger-Marbles
  • Triggering the Race
  • Scoring
  • Next Round
• Ends of the Game

Assembling and Preparation of the Game

Components

• 4 Game boards
• 1 Game board locking pin
• 1 Marble pouch
• 4 Stickers
• 4 Marble launchers
• 16 Flags
• 16 Player marbles (plastic, 4 colors)
• 32 Trigger marbles (glass, 7 x 4 colors, 4 x translucent)

Assembling the Boards

• Each sheet of stickers is attached to a board. Check the numbers on the stickers before attaching them. When you reassemble the boards, check the colors of the stickers where they meet.
• There are numbers on stickers 1-4, 2-4, 3-4, and 4-4. They help you figure out which board goes where on your next assembly.
• Assemble the four boards as shown in the picture: Game Board 1 (Blue home), Game Board 2 (Red home), Game Board 3 (Yellow home), and Game Board 4 (Orange home).
• When you assemble the game boards, place the cross-shaped locking pin in the center, then fit the boards into each socket.

Setup

1. Assemble the boards together. Make sure they are fixed firmly with the locking pin. Assemble four marble launchers to the boards. Each launcher is placed at one of the four corners. They should fit tightly onto the board so they don't stick out of the board.
2. Each player takes four flags, one for each color, and pins them onto the holes marked as the starting position. Each lane has designated colors and the flags should match them. Each player then also takes four "player-marbles" of a color and places them behind each flag. Put all "trigger-marbles" in the pouch.
3. Each player draws eight trigger-marbles from the pouch without looking at their colors and puts them into the mouths of their marble launchers.
4. A player who visited a sports center for the winter sports most recently will start the game first.

Game Play

The objective of the game is to pull out the flag and roll down your marble to the finish area as precisely and as quickly as you can. Once you get to the finish area before the others, you will earn trigger-marbles, and the player with the most marbles at the end of the game will be the winner.

Shooting Trigger-Marbles

1. The first player will spin the handle counter clockwise to shoot a trigger-marble out to the rail.
2. The next player will do the same and shoot a marble.

The handle should always be pointing at the mouth of the launcher. After a player spins the handle a circle, it must be stopped pointing at the mouth of the launcher in order to load the next marble.

3. As players turn their handles one after another, taking turns, marbles will pile up at the end of the rails. When you see a trigger-marble with the same color that is already piled up there coming out, the race is triggered!

Triggering the Race

The illustrations show three steps: 1. Check! (look at the trigger-marbles that have piled up at the end of the rails), 2. Pull out! (pull the flag out of its hole), and 3. Blow! (blow on the marbles).

All players pull out the color of their flag that matches the color of the trigger-marbles and let the player-marbles roll. Players may blow their marbles to make them go faster down to their home. But they must be easy on them, otherwise the marbles can deviate from the rails.

Translucent marbles are counted as the color of the marbles they will tag or be tagged. Quickly check the color and pluck out the flag of an appropriate color.

Scoring

4. A player who made his or her marble to the home of the same color of the flag that he or she pulled out will win marbles. The player will collect trigger-marbles from two areas. One of the two areas must be the area with the last marble which triggered the race. Put the marbles into his or her launcher.
   • The illustrations show 1. Goal in! (the marble reaches its home) and 2. Take marbles from two areas to his or her launcher.
   • After scoring, place the flag on the second hole, further back.

Next Round

Then the other players will plug in their flags and return their player-marbles. The one who won the last round will plug his or her flag in the hole further back from the starting position. Then set the player-marble behind the flag. The next round will begin with the player who won the last round.

In case of a misplay, like pulling out a wrong flag or a false start, the player will place that flag further back from the initial starting position as a penalty.

Ends of the Game

If any player turned the handle on his or her turn and did not shoot a marble, the game ends immediately. All players open their launchers and count how many marbles they have. The player with the most marbles is the winner. In case of a tie, the player who has more translucent marbles will be declared the winner. If it couldn't break the tie, the tied players play one last round to conclude.