Meteors Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Box Setup
• Setup
• Turn Structure
• Dinosaur Selection
• T-Rex Phase
• Meteor Phase
  • Outcome 1: The Meteor ends in one of the box spaces with a dinosaur
  • Outcome 2: The Meteor ends outside the box
  • Outcome 3: The Meteor ends in one of the water regions of the box
• Egg Phase
• End of Turn
• End of Game
• Bolide Card
• How Is the Meteor Launched?
• How Does a Dinosaur Launch?
• Hard Mode (Modalità Difficile)
• Variants

Components

• 1 box with special inserts
• 1 Meteor
• 1 ocean level indicator
• 32 Food tokens
• 8 Wave tokens
• 35 Dinosaur cards, Era I
• 36 Dinosaur cards, Era II
• 5 summary cards
• 1 Bolide card
• 110 Hatchling cards in 6 types

Box Setup

Place the box at the side of the table, in a position easily reachable by all players. Assemble the box as shown in the illustration, placing the ocean level indicator on its side. The Meteor may be left inside the box when it is not in use.

Setup

1. Divide the Hatchling cards and form 6 decks, one for each different type of hatchling. Place these decks face up in the center of the table.
2. Shuffle the Era II cards and set them aside; they will come into play later.
3. Shuffle the Era I cards and deal 4 face-down cards to each player to form their hand. Place the remaining cards as a face-down deck in the center of the table, near the Hatchling decks.
4. Reveal 6 cards from the Era I deck and place them face up in a line in the center of the table, dividing the play area in two. The cards must be arranged so that it is clear which card is closest to the deck. This line is called the Herd (Branco).
5. Place the Food tokens in an area in the center of the table that is easily accessible to all players.
6. Likewise, shuffle the Wave tokens and place them face down in the center of the table.
7. Deal one summary card to each player.
8. The player who most recently saw a dinosaur receives the Bolide card. The player holding this card is considered the first player (see "Bolide Card").

The setup illustration shows five player positions labelled G1 (purple), G2 (blue), G3 (red), G4 (orange) and G5 (green), each with a face-down card stack placed in front of it. The rulebook's setup text does not name these positions.

Turn Structure

The game is played over two eras of 3 turns each. At the end of Era II, a scoring is carried out to determine the winner.

Every turn follows the same structure:

1. Dinosaur Selection (Selezione del Dinosauro)
2. T-Rex Phase (Fase dei T-Rex)
3. Meteor Phase (Fase delle Meteore)
4. Egg Phase (Fase delle Uova)
5. End of Turn (Fine Turno)

Dinosaur Selection

All players simultaneously choose one of the Dinosaur cards in their hand and place it face down in front of them. When all players have chosen, the cards are revealed. The revealed cards have an icon whose effect is resolved in the later phases of the turn.

Note: only the icons on the cards played in the current turn are resolved. All other icons on Dinosaur cards that a player has in front of them are not activated.

T-Rex Phase

Starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player who played a card with a T-Rex icon resolves the following:

• If possible, they must discard a Dinosaur card played in a previous turn.
  • Note: they cannot discard the T-Rex card they have just played.
• All opposing players must, if possible, discard the Hatchling card on top of their own hatchling pile (see "Egg Phase") and return it to its face-down deck.

Example: Carlo has played a T-Rex card. He is the only player who played a dinosaur of this type, so he resolves its icon first. He discards a Brontosaurus played in the previous turn and forces the other players to discard the first Hatchling of their piles. Since Gianna has no Hatchlings, she discards nothing.

Meteor Phase

Starting with the first player and proceeding clockwise, each player who played a card with a Meteor icon resolves the following:

• The player takes the Meteor and places the box in front of them, on the other side of the table (see "How Is the Meteor Launched?").
• The player reveals a new Dinosaur card and adds it to the Herd (Branco), at the end of the line. This card also determines the launch mode for the current attempt (see "How Does a Dinosaur Launch?").
• The player chooses a launch difficulty and moves the ocean level indicator to the value chosen.
• The player launches the Meteor.

After the launch, there are 3 possible outcomes.

Outcome 1: The Meteor ends in one of the box spaces with a dinosaur

The Meteor has hit a target! The player discards from the Herd as many Dinosaur cards as the current ocean level.

Warning: only Dinosaur cards of the same type as the dinosaur shown in the space that was hit are discarded.

The player immediately takes one Food token for hitting a target. In addition, the player takes one Food token for each card discarded from the Herd as a result of the launch.

Example: Gianna has played a Pterodactyl with the Meteor icon and is the second player to launch (Marco launches first, since he holds the Bolide card). After the launch, the Meteor ends in the Triceratops space. Gianna immediately gets a Food token for hitting a target. She also discards two Triceratops from the Herd and gets two additional Food tokens. Although there are three Triceratops in the Herd, she may discard at most as many as the ocean level at the time of the launch, which in this case is two.

Outcome 2: The Meteor ends outside the box

The launch attempt has failed; there is no particular effect.

Example: Marco launches the Meteor but does not manage to land it in the box. His launch is void.

Outcome 3: The Meteor ends in one of the water regions of the box

Each opposing player who played a Tide icon immediately takes 2 Food tokens.

The player who made the launch must reveal Wave tokens equal to the current ocean level, plus one additional Wave token for each Tide icon played in this turn. For each revealed token:

• If it shows an Egg symbol, the player must discard the Hatchling on top of their own hatchling pile (see "Egg Phase") and return it to its face-down deck.
• If it shows a Dinosaur symbol, the player must discard any one of their own Dinosaur cards in front of them.
• If it is an empty token, nothing happens.

Note: a player cannot reveal more Wave tokens than there are in total. If a launch requires revealing more than 8 Wave tokens, simply reveal all of them and resolve their effects.

Once the player has finished revealing the Wave tokens, they are turned face down again and shuffled.

Example: Carlo launches a Meteor that ends in the central water space of the box. Marco, who played a Tide icon, immediately receives two Food tokens. Carlo must now reveal 4 Wave tokens: 3 for the current ocean level plus 1 for the Tide icon played by Marco. Turning over the third and fourth tokens, Carlo reveals a Dinosaur symbol and an Egg symbol. He must therefore discard one of his own Dinosaurs of his choice and the Hatchling on top of his own pile.

Egg Phase

Every player who played a card with an Egg icon takes one Hatchling for each Dinosaur card they have in front of them. All their dinosaurs have found a partner!

Example: Gianna plays a Stegosaurus with the Egg icon. In this phase she gets a Brontosaurus Hatchling, a Pterodactyl Hatchling and a Stegosaurus Hatchling.

Every player who did not play an Egg icon must choose one dinosaur type and receives one Hatchling for each pair they manage to form among their own dinosaurs of that type and those remaining in the Herd. Each pair must be formed between one of the player's own dinosaurs and one from the Herd. Each pair so formed guarantees one Hatchling of the same type.

Warning: a Dinosaur can be part of only one pair for a single player, but several players may use the same Dinosaur in the Herd to form their own pairs!

Example: Marco has not played a dinosaur with the Egg icon this turn. Since he has 3 Velociraptors and 1 Pterodactyl, he chooses the first type to make Hatchlings. There are only 2 Velociraptors in the Herd, so Marco receives only two Velociraptor Hatchlings.

Hatchling Pile

All Hatchlings acquired in this way must be placed face up, in any order the player prefers, in a single pile of Hatchling cards in front of that player. The top card of this pile is always visible to all players.

End of Turn

At the end of a turn, all players pass their hand of cards clockwise. Each player thus has a new hand from which to select their dinosaurs.

Note: Dinosaur cards played in previous turns remain in front of the players, face up.

Reminder: the icons on cards played in previous turns are never activated.

The Bolide card is also passed to the next player clockwise.

Then adjust the Herd:

• If there are more than 6 face-up cards in the Herd, remove cards until there are 6. Cards are removed starting from the one closest to the deck.
• If there are fewer than 6 cards in the Herd, add cards until there are 6. The cards are taken from the deck in play and placed in a line in the Herd. New cards are always placed further from the deck than the previous ones.

When players have only one card in hand:

• If this happens during Era I: these cards are discarded together with all the cards in the Herd. Then the deck and the discards are removed from the game. Take the Era II deck and deal 4 new cards to each player. Place the deck in the center of the table and reveal 6 new cards to form the new Herd.
• If this happens during Era II: discard these cards and proceed to the End of Game count.

End of Game

Before calculating the final score:

• Each player gets 1 Food token for each group of 3 herbivore Hatchlings (Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus or Triceratops) in their Hatchling pile.
  • Note: a Hatchling can belong to only one group.
• Players who have the greatest number of Velociraptor Hatchlings among all players gain 3 Food tokens.
• Players who have the fewest number of Velociraptor Hatchlings among all players (including zero) discard 1 Food token.

Every player then calculates their score as follows:

• Add up all the points on their Hatchlings.
  • Note: Velociraptor Hatchlings have already been counted.
• Add the points given by their Food tokens: each Food token is worth 4 points.

The player with the highest total score is the winner. In case of a tie, the player with the most Food tokens wins. If there is still a tie, the player who best imitates a T-Rex wins.

Example: Carlo has 2 Brontosaurus, 1 Stegosaurus and 1 Triceratops. He gains one Food token for the group of herbivores he manages to form. Unfortunately, he is the player with the fewest Velociraptor Hatchlings, so he must return one Food token to the supply. Gianna also has only one Velociraptor Hatchling, but since she has no Food tokens she loses nothing. During scoring, Carlo gets 12 points from the 3 Food tokens he holds, in addition to the points from his Hatchlings.

Bolide Card

The Bolide card indicates the first player and allows that player to perform one additional Meteor launch, in addition to any Meteor icon they played through their Dinosaur card. This launch must be performed before any other launch in the current turn, during the Meteor Phase.

How Is the Meteor Launched?

Position the box in front of a player sitting opposite you. Try to determine a distance that is roughly the same for all players.

We recommend always positioning the box in front of another player, so that they can easily recover the Meteor once the attempt is concluded.

• The line formed by the Herd marks the minimum distance between you and the box.
• The Meteor must bounce at least once before entering the box for the launch to count as valid.

If any of the launch constraints is not respected, the attempt is considered void, as if the Meteor had been launched outside the box.

[The printed sidebar on this page is a flavour tip about keeping drinks and food away from the launch area; it is not a rule and is not transcribed.]

How Does a Dinosaur Launch?

The launch mode for each attempt is determined by the Dinosaur card revealed in the Meteor Phase. The standard launch modes are as follows.

Standard Mode

• Brontosaurus: the elbow must stay resting on the table and the arm extended. The Meteor is launched with the hand.
• Pterodactyl: the Meteor must be launched from a height above the head of the launching player, who remains seated.
• T-Rex: the backs of your hands must be pressed against your chest. Launch the Meteor with one of the two hands.
• Stegosaurus: keep your hands together, palms touching in a mirror-like fashion, with the Meteor placed between them. Launch the Meteor with both hands.
• Triceratops: rest the Meteor at the centre of the three fingers (index, middle and ring), well extended. The back of the hand must face the box. Launch the Meteor in this way.
• Velociraptor: the fingers of one hand are extended and all held together. Position the Meteor between the middle and ring fingers. Launch the Meteor with a downward movement of the hand, from top to bottom.

Hard Mode (Modalità Difficile)

Once you have practised your launches, you can play with hard mode. Adopt these rules only during Era II of the game, instead of the Standard launches.

• Brontosaurus: the arm is extended above the head, and the elbow stays in contact with your head. The Meteor is launched with the hand.
• Pterodactyl: stand up and move slightly away from the table. The Meteor must be launched from a height above your head, from a standing position.
• Triceratops: the Meteor is held between two fingers of one hand. Tap it with your forehead.
• Stegosaurus: cross your hands and make the backs of your hands touch, interlocking them. The Meteor is placed between the two backs of the hands.
• Velociraptor: the fingers of one hand are extended and held together. Position the Meteor between the middle and ring fingers. Launch the Meteor with a downward movement of the hand, from above. The Meteor must bounce at least twice before entering one of the box spaces.
• T-Rex: the backs of your hands must be attached to your chest. Launch the Meteor with either hand. The player who has the box in front of them at the time of the launch gives the box small taps, alternately on its right and left sides, holding it lightly in motion while the launch is made.

Variants

Facilitated Launches

In the first games it can be particularly difficult to launch the Meteor following the indications of the Dinosaurs. After all, if they are extinct, there is a reason!

If launching the Meteor proves too difficult, do not follow the section "How Does a Dinosaur Launch?", but limit yourself to respecting the other launch rules.

Remember that a new Dinosaur card must still be revealed and added to the Herd at each launch.

Won't Somebody Think of the Hatchlings?

Some play groups prefer a greater degree of interaction between players. If you prefer that the Meteor has a more lethal impact on the game world, change this rule: when a player gains Hatchlings during the Egg Phase, if they did not play an Egg icon, they gain Hatchlings for two types of Dinosaur instead of one.

In this case, hitting Dinosaurs from the Herd to remove the possibility of pairs for the other players becomes even more important.