Mission Zelle Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• What Is It About?
• Setup
• Course of Play
  • Phase A: Production
  • Phase B: Managing Hand Cards
  • Special Card: The Mitochondrion
• Variant: The Plant Cell
• Tips

What Is It About?

In the microscopic world of the cell, things are busy! Your task is to control biological processes for producing different proteins. Whoever first brings all three of their own game pieces to the end of their production paths, and thereby synthesizes the three different proteins, wins the game!

You play against each other and move your game pieces by collecting and playing three matching cards each time.

First set up the game, then read the rules together.

Setup

1. Place the game board in the middle with the blue side facing up.
2. Each person receives three game pieces of one color and places them on the three starting points in the cell nucleus (Zellkern). You therefore control three parallel production paths.
3. Each person receives one Joker token. The Joker replaces any one hand card once. After use it is turned over or set aside. When a game piece reaches a target space of its production path, the Joker is reactivated immediately and can be used again.
4. Place the 10 energy markers with the green ATP side up into the mitochondrion.
5. Sort out the 18 game cards with the leaf symbol and put them back in the box.
6. Shuffle the card deck and deal 9 hand cards to each person. If you get a Mitochondrion card in doing so, shuffle it back into the deck.
7. Place the remaining deck face down as the draw pile. Next to it, lay out face up as many cards as there are players. These cards form the cytoplasm display (Cytoplasma-Auslage).

Course of Play

Your turn consists of two phases. First you play matching sets and move your game pieces. Afterwards you discard as many hand cards as you like and draw back up to 9 hand cards.

Phase A: Production

In Phase A you may carry out several production steps. For each step you need a matching set of 3 cards (e.g. DNA – Transcription – mRNA) and 1 ATP.

Procedure:

1. Lay out a matching set of 3 face up. If you have no matching set, continue directly with Phase B.
2. Name the process aloud (e.g. "In the cell nucleus, DNA is transcribed into mRNA").
3. Your fellow players check whether your description is correct. If it is wrong, Phase A ends immediately. Take the played cards back into your hand and continue with Phase B.
4. Turn one energy marker in the mitochondrion to the ADP side.
5. Move the matching game piece one space forward on its production path.
6. You may play further sets as long as ATP is still available.

Phase B: Managing Hand Cards

1. You may place as many hand cards as you like on the discard pile.
2. Draw back up to 9 hand cards. You may draw cards from the draw pile and take face-up cards from the cytoplasm display.
3. Then refill empty spaces in the cytoplasm display from the draw pile until there are again as many cards there as there are players.
4. If you did not take a face-up card, discard all cards lying there and replace them with the corresponding number of new cards.
5. If the draw pile is empty, shuffle the discard pile and form a new draw pile from it.

Special Card: The Mitochondrion

The Mitochondrion card does not count as a hand card. When you draw it, you play it immediately and convert 1 ADP into 1 ATP.

Variant: The Plant Cell

Use the green side of the game board for a further challenge. In this variant you produce a single vacuolar protein and bring it to the central vacuole for storage. Since only one synthesis path is active, each person controls only one game piece. Remove the 32 cards with the paw symbol and instead shuffle in the 18 cards with the leaf symbol.

Tips

• It can be wise not to move all three game pieces equally.
• The Joker can be reactivated twice.
• Lay your cards out face up in front of you. This helps you keep an overview and gives the others only a small advantage.