Mind Up!
Mind Up! Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
104 cards, distributed as follows:
- 60 number cards, numbered from 1 to 60 (12 per color). Each card shows its number, its color, and sometimes a bonus or penalty.
- 30 Scoring cards, in 6 sets of 5 cards each (valued 1-5). Each set has a unique symbol on the card back. Each number card placed on a Scoring card gives that many points.
- 14 Bonus Objective cards, used only in the Optional game mode.
Set Up
-
Shuffle the 60 number cards into a face down deck.
-
Deal 7 cards to each player. Players keep their hand secret.
-
Make a row by revealing as many cards of the deck as there are players in the game. Arrange these cards in ascending order, regardless of their colors, bonuses or penalties.
-
Deal a set of 5 Scoring cards to each player. Each set of Scoring cards has a symbol on its back. Each player should have a card of each value, from 1 to 5. Put all unused Scoring cards sets back in the box.
Randomly select a player. That player shuffles their 5 Scoring cards, then reveals them one by one, placing them in a row from left to right, announcing which card was revealed.
-
All the other players place their own Scoring cards in front of them in a row, in the same order.
Turn Flow
Each turn of a round, players simultaneously select a card from their hand and place it in front of them, face down.
When all players are ready, those cards are revealed and placed, in ascending order, just below the center row; the smallest number goes under the first card, and so on until the biggest number, which goes under the last card in the row.
Each player takes the card located above the card they just played, and places that card on one of their Scoring cards, according to the following rules: if there already are one or more cards in the same color as the card they just took, they place the taken card on top of them. Otherwise, they place it on the first empty Scoring card, starting from the left.
Note: whenever you place cards on top of each other, overlap them so as to show the top half of the covered card.
Cards played this turn stay where they are in the center of the table: they will be the cards players can obtain next turn. Observing this sequence, play multiple turns until all players have only one card left in hand. All players place this last card in their tableau, as if they had taken it from the center row. This puts an end to the round.
Scoring Points
As the round ends, each player counts the points of the cards they have put on their Scoring cards, following this procedure:
First count points for each color: multiply the value of the Scoring cards by the number of number cards in that column. Add up the 5 scores, one for each color.
Then, each bonus (yellow bubble) and each penalty (red bubble) on the cards you've collected changes your score for this round.
Note the score for each player, then start a new round (except if you just played the third round, as it is the last).
New Round
Leave the cards in the center of the table where they are. They become the new center row.
Instead of dealing a new hand of cards, all players take the number cards currently on their Scoring cards, as their new hand, and draw an extra card from the deck. The 2nd round is played with a hand of 8 cards and the 3rd with 9 cards.
A player randomly draws a new order for the 5 Scoring cards, and each player rearranges their cards in the new order. The new round can start.
Game End
At the end of the 3rd and last round, players add the score they had in each round.
The player with the highest total is the winner. In case of a tie, the winner is the player who scored the most points in the last round. If the tie persists, tied players share victory.
Optional Game Mode: Bonus Objectives
Once you know how to play well, you may, if you wish, add this variant.
At the beginning of the game, shuffle all 14 Bonus Objective cards. At the start of each round, reveal one at random and place it close to the play area. When scoring points, each player checks if the cards laid out on their Scoring cards meet the indicated condition. If it is the case, the bonus or penalty of this card is added (or subtracted) from their score. Once each player has checked the Bonus Objective card, discard it and replace it with a new random one.
If you want to make the game more complex, you may reveal multiple bonus objectives each round (5 maximum), as long as the letter in the bottom right corner of the card is different for each card. If you decide to include 3 or more cards, keep them for the entire game instead of renewing them each round.
The 14 Bonus Objective cards (7 lettered pairs) are:
- A — (+2) if you have 1 or 3 orange cards. / (-2) if orange cards are in the scoring column with either value 1 or value 2.
- B — (+2) if you have 2 or 4 blue cards. / (+2) if blue is the color you have the most cards of (or if blue is tied).
- C — (-2) if you are the player with the least pink cards (or are tied for the least pink cards). / (+2) if you are the player with the most pink cards (or are tied for the most pink cards).
- D — (+2) if no color is on the right of the green column. / (+2) if green cards are in the scoring column with either value 4 or value 5.
- E — (+2) if you have more purple cards than orange cards (or the same number). / (-2) if you are the player with the most purple cards (or are tied for the most purple cards).
- F — (+2) if you have cards in all 5 colors. / (+2) if you have exactly 3 colors.
- G — (-2) if you have at least 1 color with exactly 3 cards. / (+2) if you have at least 1 color with exactly 4 cards.
Credits
- Design: Maxime Rambourg
- Illustrations: Christine Alcouffe
- Publisher: Catch Up Games
- Distributor: Pandasaurus Games and Blackrock Games
- Project manager: Sébastien Kihm
- Graphic Design: Jérôme Soleil and Peter Wocken
- French proofreading: Camille Mathieu
- Translation: Mathieu Rivero
- Production manager: Benoît Stella (Synergy Games)