Marvin Marvel's Marvelous Marble Machine
Marvin Marvel's Marvelous Marble Machine Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Goal
You are a middle manager trying to manipulate the marble sorting machine to obtain as many marbles as possible for yourself. The board represents the machine which distributes newly-minted marbles from the center and funnels them to one of six goal areas at the edge of the board. The goal areas are the entire space between the separators. The winning player is the one who can manipulate the process to get the most marbles by the end of the day.
Set Up
The game uses the layout shown on the board diagram in the rulebook.
In a two-player game, one player will own the three black goals, and the other player will own the three white goals.
In a three-player game, each player will own one of the three shapes: square, circle, or triangle. In a four-, five- or six-player game, each player will own only one goal. In the four- and five-player games, the unused goal(s) will be unoccupied. Marbles entering that goal are immediately returned to the Home space and are pointed in a random direction determined by a die roll. In the four player game, choose one goal shape to be unused.
It is recommended that you play the game with two or three players before trying with more players, as learning how to play will make for slower games.
Separate the Machine Tiles (the Part and Modifier tiles) from the Marble tiles (see below for explanation). Keep both types of tiles on separate face down stacks. Each player draws two Machine Tiles to begin. Their hand will always consist of two Machine Tiles. They may keep the tiles secret. First play is determined by a die roll.
Play
In a turn, a player must play at least one and at most two tiles. There are three types of tiles.
The first type is the Marble tile. Each marble tile has an arrow which indicates the orientation (the direction the marble will move in), and a number which indicates their Speed Rating.
If not interfered with, marbles move in a straight line the number of spaces indicated by their Speed Rating.
When you play a marble, draw one at random from the marble stack and place it on the Home space in the direction of your choice, towards one of the six Separators.
Whenever a marble is played, every marble that is already on the board moves in the direction indicated by its arrow the number of spaces indicated by its number. If marbles occupy the same space, they do not affect one another in any way. After the existing marbles move, the new marble is then placed on the Home space.
Marbles can return to the Home space after being acted upon by Parts. The Home space is treated like any other space on the board, except that you may not place any Part on it.
When you play a marble, you must take another turn immediately, playing another marble or a Machine Tile. Your turn ends after playing the second tile, even if you play another marble.
Aside from the Marble Tiles, there are two types of Machine Tiles. These are the tiles you will have in your hand throughout the game. If you play a Machine Tile, your turn ends immediately afterward.
The first is the Machine Part. These are the parts with the hexagonal outlines. You place these from your hand onto any space on the board not occupied by another Part or the Home space.
Any marble which lands on a Machine Part will be affected by that part. A marble which lands on a Redirect, for example, will have its orientation changed to the direction indicated by the Redirect tile. A complete list of the Machine Parts and what they do is located on Page 3 (see Machine Parts below).
Players may place Machine Parts underneath existing marbles. The Part immediately affects the marble(s). Other than marbles directly affected by Parts, marbles do not move when Parts or Modifiers are played.
The last type of tile is the Modifier. These are the tiles without marbles or solid hexagonal outlines. When played from the tiles in your hand, these tiles enable players to change existing Machine Parts, erasing them, moving them, or swapping them with one another. A list of Modifiers is also located on Page 3 (see Modifiers below). As with playing Parts, when you play a Modifier, the only marbles that move are the ones directly affected by parts that shift.
Machine Part Placement Note
For some Machine Parts, the physical orientation of the tile is unimportant, as the effect will be the same no matter from which direction a marble enters. It only needs to be in the space desired. This is true for rotational Parts such as all of the Left and Right turns, the Reverse tile, and other tiles which treat all directions equally like the Jump, Go Home, and Solid Wall tiles.
However, for some marbles, like the Redirect, the placement is critical. You must place the arrow of this tile in the direction in which you want marbles to be redirected. The same holds true for Fork, Sort, Divert Slow and Push.
For Random and Random Push, which can have six different outcomes, we suggest orienting the numbers on those parts to mirror the direction of the numbers printed on the separators.
Refreshing Your Hand
After playing a Machine Part or Modifier tile, draw a replacement tile from the Part or Modifier bag.
Drawing Tiles
After playing a tile or tiles, a player draws back to a hand of two Machine Tiles. Towards the end of the game, if there are not enough tiles to draw, the players play with a smaller hand. You must continue to play with Marble Tiles even if you do not have any Machine Tiles, until the Marble Tiles are gone as well. If any player has no tiles left in hand, and cannot play a marble as well, the game will enter its final phase.
Number of Marble Tiles
| Speed Rating | # of Tiles |
|---|---|
| 1 | 11 |
| 2 | 7 |
| 3 | 5 |
| 4 | 2 |
| Total | 25 |
Collecting Marbles
A marble is collected as soon as it reaches one of the goal areas in the outer ring of the board. A goal is defined as the entire area between two adjacent separators at the hexagon's corners. If a marble lands on a separator space, a die roll immediately determines which player wins that marble, with odd numbers turning the marble one way, even numbers turning the marble the other way. As soon as a marble reaches the outer ring, it is counted as scored.
Collected marbles are kept public, with speed ratings visible to all.
Machine Part Effects
The table lists each Machine Part, the number of that part in the game, and its effect. Parts marked with an asterisk (*) must be placed in the direction you wish to redirect or push marbles.
| Machine Part | # in Game | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Left | 3 | Rotates any marble entering this space counterclockwise 60°. |
| Left 2 | 2 | Rotates any marble entering this space counterclockwise 120°. |
| Right | 3 | Rotates any marble entering this space clockwise 60°. |
| Right 2 | 2 | Rotates any marble entering this space clockwise 120°. |
| Reverse | 2 | Rotates any marble entering this space 180°. |
| Redirect | 2 | * Changes the orientation of any marble entering this space to the direction indicated by the arrow. |
| Jump | 2 | Immediately advances a marble in the direction of the marble's arrow two spaces, skipping over the space immediately after the Part. |
Modifiers:
The following pieces without borders are not placed on the board, but affect Parts already placed on the board.
| Modifier | # in Game | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Erase Part | 3 | Erases any one Part. Marbles resting on removed Parts are not affected. |
| Move Part | 3 | Enables a player to move any one Part to another space on the board. The player may also change the orientation of the piece as well, but the Part must always be moved to a different space. |
| Swap Parts | 2 | Enables a player to swap any two Parts on the board with one another. The player may also change the orientations of one or both of the Parts as well. |
Totals
- Total Number of Parts: 27
- Total Number of Modifiers: 8
- Total Number of Marbles: 25
- Total Number of Tiles: 60
Suggested Order of Marble Movement
Moving the marbles can be a confusing process if there are many marbles in the game. Here is a process that we suggest to help keep things clear:
- A player announces he is playing a marble. He places that marble off of the board in the "Next" space in the direction he wishes it to face.
- One player is in charge of moving the marbles on the board while another is in charge of rolling the die for the parts which require die rolling. Moving marbles either from the outside in or from one side of the board to another is usually a good way to keep them organized. Keep any marbles that land on a separator on that space.
- Sort out any marbles that land on separators by rolling the die, one roll per marble.
- The marble on the outside is now placed on the "Home" space in the desired direction.
Movement Example
A marble with movement three goes onto a Fork tile. If the die roll is odd, it will continue on to the Right tile, where it will be turned 60° clockwise, and continue to the Jump tile, where it immediately jumps over the Solid Wall which would otherwise block it, and land in the blank space beyond it before ending its movement.
If the die roll of the Fork tile had come up even, it would have turned the marble 60° clockwise immediately and it would have continued onto the Push tile, which would have shoved it onto the Jump tile, which would cause it to skip over the Solid Wall. Still having one more movement point, the marble would continue on one more space in the same direction.
End of Game
The game enters its final phase as soon as any player has no tiles in his hand and cannot draw any more or play a marble tile, or as soon as any player has accumulated his marble quota. Quotas are listed on the table below:
| # of Players | Quota |
|---|---|
| 2 Players | 7 Marbles |
| 3 Players | 6 Marbles |
| 4 Players | 5 Marbles |
| 5 Players | 4 Marbles |
| 6 Players | 3 Marbles |
During the final phase, players cannot play any more tiles. All of the marbles remaining on the board advance (and are still affected by Machine Parts) until they reach their ultimate destination: reaching a goal, being blocked by an obstruction, or being stuck in an endless loop.
The player who has the most marbles at the end of this process wins the game. If there is a tie for the most marbles, the tied players add up the speed ratings on all their marbles. The player with the highest sum wins the game, as those are the rarest marbles.
Team Play
When playing with either four or six players, you may opt for team play, in which you and a partner both share a set of goals. Four players will form two teams and use the two player quota and goal distribution, six players will form three teams and use the three player quota and goal distribution. The partners may not discuss strategy with one another or share secret information.
Included in the Game
- 1 Board
- 1 Instruction Booklet
- 25 Marble Tiles
- 35 Machine Tiles (Machine Parts & Modifiers)
- 1 Die