Midnight Brunch Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Components
• Goal of the Game
• Setting Up the Game
• How to Play
  • 1. Inviting the Monsters
  • 2. The Doors Are Closed and the Midnight Brunch Begins!
  • 3. New Round
• End of the Game

Game Components

155 cards:

• 68 Monster cards
• 30 Brunch cards
• 21 Midnight cards (3 in each of 7 colours)
• 35 Call cards (5 in each of 7 colours)
• 1 Host card

Goal of the Game

Get the best food. To do so, invite a group of monsters with an overall value as close as possible to 15.

Setting Up the Game

Each player starts with three special Midnight cards and 5 Call cards with a colour of his choice.

The 5 Brunch decks are shuffled separately and placed side by side facing down in the middle, following a descending order (10-9, 8-7, 4-3, 2-1).

Note on this transcription: the English section lists only four deck pairings. The Italian section of the same PDF lists five (10-9, 8-7, 6-5, 4-3, 2-1), which matches the five Brunch decks, so the 6-5 pairing is included here.

N.B. In a match with 3 or 4 players the lowest Brunch cards (the blue ones) are not used. They are eliminated together with the 5 corresponding Call cards.

The player who looks sleepier receives the Host player card. During the first round he is the first player and the dealer.

N.B. The Host player is always the first player of the round and distributes the Monster cards starting from himself.

How to Play

1. Inviting the Monsters

The top card of each Brunch deck is turned. During the round these Brunch cards count as prizes.

The Host player distributes a face down Monster card to each player (starting from himself). Only the player who received it sees each one of these Monster cards. Therefore each player starts from a single monster with a certain value invited to his party. The players' goal is to invite other monsters trying to achieve the closest value to 15, if possible without going over it.

Starting from the Host player, each player can decide to invite a new monster to his party.

By declaring "Monster", he receives a new face up Monster card. He places this card in front of him, where all the other players can see its value. This procedure goes on clockwise.

When a player decides that he has invited enough monsters, he can declare "Brunch" during his turn. In this case he doesn't receive any new cards and places the Monster cards he invited in front of him, with the first card he received facing down, while the others lay open.

If during this round the player wishes to play a Midnight card, he can place it next to the Monster card he wishes to affect.

The Midnight cards work as follows:

• X: This card cancels a Monster card amongst those invited. The value of this monster counts as 0.
• -?: The value of this Monster card is subtracted instead of being added to the overall brunch value.
• x2: The value of this Monster card is doubled.

Each player can only play one Midnight card per round. Once used, the Midnight cards are discarded.

Therefore the overall brunch value of each player is composed of the total value of the Monster cards he invited to his party. If a Midnight card has been played it can affect the overall brunch value.

N.B. The player can decide the value of the Ghost Monster card, which has an X instead of a number. This card can have the same value as the lowest or highest amongst the other Monster cards already invited by the player.

• If a player has more than one Ghost in his party, they must have the same value.
• The Midnight cards can't be played on the Ghost Monster card.
• The Ghost Monster card can't copy the value of a Monster card which has been matched with a special Midnight card by the current player.
• A player can also decide not to match the Ghost Monster card with any card in his monster party. In this case the value of the Ghost Monster card is 0.

2. The Doors Are Closed and the Midnight Brunch Begins!

When all the players have declared "Brunch", it's time to eat. Each player secretly chooses one of his Call cards and places it on the board facing down. The Call cards indicate which Brunch card the player wishes to eat during this round, according to the corresponding food icon.

At this point the showdown begins. All players reveal their face down Monster card, the Midnight card they played, as well as their Call card.

The prizes are assigned starting from the deck with the lowest value and proceeding in ascending order.

• If no player has placed any Call card on a certain Brunch card, this card is ignored for now.
• If only one player placed a Call card on a certain Brunch card, this player collects this card independently from the overall brunch value of the monsters he invited.
• If more than one player placed a Call card on the same Brunch card, this card is assigned to the player with the overall brunch value closest to 15.

The final values have to be compared according to the following rules:

• An overall value of 15 wins against an overall value of 14, a 14 wins against a 13, a 13 wins against a 12 and so on.
• Any overall value higher than 15 loses to any overall value lower than 15. Therefore an overall value of 16 loses to an overall value of 2 but wins against an overall value of 17.
• In the event of a tie, the winner is the monster party which does not include a Midnight card.
• If the tie persists, the winner is the player who is sitting next to the Host player (clockwise).
• The Host player always wins in a tie.

The players who lose in a tie still have a chance to collect a Brunch card. They can collect the first available card among the Brunch cards with a lower value compared to the card they called for. If there aren't any Brunch cards with a lower value, the player won't collect any card during this round.

E.g. In this round the Brunch cards acting as prizes have the following values: 10, 7, 6, 4 and 1. When all players have declared "Brunch" and placed their Call cards, the game is interrupted and all players reveal their face down Monster card, the Midnight card they played, as well as their Call card.

The Brunch cards are assigned in ascending order.

No Call card has been placed on the Brunch card with a value of 1 (blue) and 4 (green), therefore these cards are ignored for the moment. Sonia, who has an overall value of 18, played her Call card on the Brunch card with a value of 6 (violet). Since she is the only player who claimed this card, she can collect it regardless of the overall value of her monster party.

Luca and Andrea played a Call card with a value of 7 (yellow). Luca has a Monster card with a value of 7 and a Monster card with a value of 3, which is doubled by the x2 Midnight card, for a total of 13. Andrea has a Monster card with a value of 2 and a card with value 5. Then he decided that his Ghost card has value 5 (the higher card in his hand), so his total value is 12. Luca gets the Brunch card with value 7 (yellow) while Andrea is forced to take the Brunch card with value 4 (green).

Since both Mauro and Cinzia played a Call card on the Brunch card with a value of 10 (red), they must confront the overall value of their monster parties. Both have an overall value of 14, but Mauro hasn't played any Midnight card. Therefore Mauro gets this Brunch card. Moreover Mauro would have gotten the Brunch card even if Cinzia hadn't played any Midnight card, because he is sitting closer to the Host player, Sonia. Mauro gets the Brunch card with a value of 10 (red), while Cinzia has to take the last remaining Brunch card: the one with a value of 1 (blue).

Mauro scored 10 points, Luca 7, Sonia 6, Andrea 4 and Cinzia only 1, despite having the second highest overall value. This goes to show that having a monster party with a high overall value is not enough: choosing the right food based on the player's Monster cards is just as important in order to make the most of an otherwise mediocre monster party.

3. New Round

All Monster cards are discarded. All players discard the Midnight cards they used, while taking back all of their Call cards.

The player who scored the fewest points during the last round is going to be the next Host player.

In the rare case in which more than one player scored 0 Brunch points, the Host player will be the one sitting further away from the last Host player.

All the Brunch cards that have not been collected during the last round are eliminated and a new card is revealed from each Brunch deck.

If the Monster cards should run out, the ones previously used will be reshuffled.

End of the Game

The game ends after 6 rounds.

The player who scored the most points after adding up all the values of the Brunch cards he collected wins.

In case of a draw, the winner will be the player who scored the most points during the last round.