Movie Trailer

Movie Trailer Rulebook

Table of Contents

What's in the Box

144 Clue-tiles;
a Movie Trailer board;
6 Scoring tiles with Latin numbers I, II, III, IV, V and VI;
Movie tickets, with the following Movie Point values: 1, 5 and 10;
1 "statuette" for the Director.

Goal of the Game and Winning

The winner is the player with the total of Movie Points at the end of the game.

Length of a Game

Depending on the number of players, the suggested game's length is the following:

Players	Turns in a standard game	Turns in a short game
3	12	9
4	8	4
5	10	5
6	12	6
7	14	7
8	16	8

You can freely choose a different number of turns, as long as it's a multiple of the number of players.

Setup

Before starting, prepare the game components as follows:

Put the Movie Trailer board in the middle of the playing area, so that it's within reach of all players.
Arrange the Clue-tiles next to the Movie Trailer board, face up. Sorting them by type (colour) may help you later.
Scoring tiles go close to the Movie Trailer board, face up, forming a pile, with the tile "I" on top and the others in numerical orders (tile "II" under tile "I", and so on until tile "VI").
Put the Movie Tickets close to the Scoring tiles. Provide pen and paper (not included in the box).

The player who saw a movie on the big screen more recently takes the "statuette" to identify himself as the first Director. You are now ready to start the first turn.

How to Play

The Director chooses a movie title and writes it down, the other players are Spectators and must try to guess the title correctly.
The player (Spectator) on the left of the Director chooses a free slot on the Movie Trailer board (each slot belongs to a category, see the next page for a detailed description of all categories). A free slot is a slot with no Clue-tile on it.
The Director must choose one of the Clue-tiles and place it in the slot of the Movie Trailer board requested by the Spectator. The Clue-tile must be related to the movie chosen by the Director!

To make the Director's choice easier, Clue-tiles have different colour borders, to indicate that a tile is more suited to the category "Place" (green), "Genre" (blue), a generic clue or the ending (yellow), a main character, the good or the evil guy (red).

Always remember, though, that Clue-tiles do not have a strictly fixed meaning. The pictures on the Clue-tiles can play a metaphorical role. Don't look at them straightforward, but try to be creative!

IMPORTANT: How should the Director choose a title?

He should ideally choose a movie at the same time not too easy, and not too difficult to guess. The Director will be awarded the highest number of Movie Points if the movie is guessed after four Scoring tiles have been turned, while the guessing Spectator earns more Movie Points the faster they are in guessing the title. Furthermore, if after six Clue-tiles no Spectator was able to guess the movie correctly, no one will score points for the current turn. Which means that to win in Movie Trailer it's much more important to know which movies the other players may be familiar with than to be an unmatchable movie expert.

Categories

The Movie Trailer board is divided into categories. Each category has a fixed number of Clue-tile slots.

Category	Clue-tile slots	Meaning	Example hints
Leading role	2	Main character(s) of the movie. It can also have a metaphorical meaning.	Hints to a movie whose main character is Santa Claus, or even the "holiday season"
Film genre	2	The movie genre (horror, classic, comedy, romantic comedy, drama, action, war, etc…)	Drama movie
Place	2	Where the movie takes place.	The movie "Lawrence of Arabia" mostly takes place in a desert
Ending	1	How does the movie end? The last frames are often the most remembered.	A dove flying off the hands of the android in "Blade Runner"
Good	1	Something or someone with a positive role in the movie, the hero or moral compass.	The heroic dogs in "Antarctica"

After the Director has placed the Clue-tile in the requested slot, the Spectator who asked for it can try to guess the movie title or pass. If he did not guess the right title (or if he passed), the next Spectator in clockwise order can give it a try or pass, and so forth until all the Spectators had a chance to guess or pass.

What happens if no Spectator guesses the correct title?

The Scoring-tile on top of the pile is discarded, uncovering the scoring tile below it. The Spectator to the left of the one that chose the previous slot for the Clue-tile chooses a new empty slot, and the Director must place a Clue-tile in it. A new round of guessing can begin.

PLEASE NOTE

It can happen that the Director can't find a Clue-tile that fits the requested slot (maybe that category doesn't fit that well the movie… not all movies have evil characters, or maybe the Director cannot remember exactly how the movie ends). In this case, the Director declares that he is unable to find a Clue-tile for that slot, and places a face-down Clue-tile to cover that slot. The player who chose the slot chooses another (different) one. If the Director gains any Movie Points during this Turn, he will earn one less point for every Clue-tile face down on the Movie Trailer board.

What happens if after six Clue-tiles have been placed no Spectator guesses the right movie title?

When even the last Scoring-tile is discarded because no Spectator was able to guess the movie correctly, no player (neither the Director nor the Spectators) gains any Movie Points, the Director reveals the title of the movie showing where he wrote it. The player to his left becomes the new Director.

Clue-tiles are removed from the board, Scoring-tiles are again placed in one face up pile (with the "I" one on top and the "VI" tile at the bottom), the new Director takes the "statuette", chooses a new movie title and writes it down secretly; a new turn can begin.

What happens if a Spectator guesses the movie title correctly?

The Director reveals the title of the movie showing it to the players.

The Director gains the number of Movie Points shown on the visible scoring tile in the Director's space. The Spectator who guessed the title correctly (and only him) gains the number of Movie Points shown on the visible scoring tile in the Spectator's space.

The player to the left of the current Director becomes the new Director.

Clue-tiles are removed from the Movie Trailer board, scoring tiles are again placed in one face up pile (with the "I" one on top and the "VI" tile at the bottom), the new Director takes the "statuette", chooses a new movie title, writes it secretly, and a new turn can begin.

PLEASE NOTE

Players should agree on the accuracy level required to guess the movie. For instance, "Indiana Jones" is not the title of a movie, but the name of a series of movies whose titles are: "Raiders of the Lost Ark", "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom", "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull". Is it "the second Indiana Jones movie" a good guess for "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" or the correct title is required? Our suggestion is that a clear and unambiguous identification of the movie is required, while it's not necessary to recall every word of the title, but feel free to play with the level of accuracy that better suit your gaming group and your style.

Scoring Tiles

Scoring tiles show how many Movie Points are awarded to the Director and the Spectator who guessed the movie correctly when the title is revealed. The amount of points gained changes Scoring tiles. The points earned by the Director are indicated on the upper side of the tiles. On the lower side, the points earned by the Spectator.

Speed Game (Alternate Rule)

Instead of guessing (or passing) in clockwise order, each Spectator can make a single guess as soon as the Director places the Clue-tile. If two or more Spectators should guess simultaneously the right movie title, each one of them gains one half of the Spectator's Movie Points.

This alternate rule is recommended for groups of 6 or more players (but feel free to play a few first turns with the "regular" rules if it's your first game, just to fully understand the rules).

End of the Game

At the end of the number of turns defined at the beginning of the game, the game ends. The winner is the player with the most Movie Points (just add up the value of your Movie Tickets). If two or more players have the same number of Movie Points, victory is shared among those players.

Hint

It's in the best interest of the Spectators to guess the title as fast as possible, to gain more points. The Director gains the most points when the movie he chose is guessed between the third and the fourth Scoring tile, so he should try to choose a title that is not too easy but at the same time not too hard to guess.

In the next pages you'll find a few examples and suggestions about which Clue-tiles could be used to make the Spectators guess the movie.

King Kong

Place: Jungle
Leading role: Beautiful blonde
Ending: Death of King Kong
Place: New York
Genre: Adventure
Place: Island of death
Leading role: Giant

Note as, since there are no Clue-tiles showing a monkey or an ape, not even a "giant ape", the Director must think out of the box when choosing the tile.

Dracula

Genre: Horror
Evil, Good or Generic clue: The sun, sunlight
Place: The castle in Transilvania
Evil or Leading role: Vampire
Generic clue: Stake in the heart

Note that the Clue-tile is showing a knife and not a stake, also here the Director must think out of the box to deliver the clue.

Toy Story

Place: The classical American house
Generic clue or Leading role: The kid owning the toys
Leading role: Toys as gifts
Leading role: Buzz Lightyear
Leading role: Woody
Genre: Cartoon, animated movie

The Blues Brothers

Genre: Road movie
Genre or Generic clue: Musical
Genre: Comedy
Generic clue: Car
Generic clue: Money to be found
Generic clue or Evil: Police going after the protagonists
Generic clue or Ending: The concert in the prison

Pulp Fiction

Generic clue: Drugs
Generic clue or Genre: Big gun
Leading role: Ensemble – coral movie
Generic clue: Run with the money
Generic clue: Boxing fight or just fight
Place: California
Bad or Leading role or Generic clue: The killer
Generic clue: Dancing scene

Please note that even if the Clue-tile shows a different kind of dancing, it stands for "dance" as a general meaning.

A Game Turn

Mark is the Director for the current turn and writes down the movie title, "Avatar".

Sarah and Luke are the other players in this three-player game. Sarah is the first Spectator and she chooses a slot for "generic clue". Mark takes the Clue-tile with the number 11, showing the galaxy.

Sarah tries to guess and she says "Body Snatchers", then Luke says "Moon". Since they are both wrong, it's time to move to a new round, but before that the top scoring tile is turned over, revealing the second one. It's now Luke that must select a free slot and he chooses the last "generic clue" slot left. Mark does some thinking and then takes the Clue-tile #67, the computer. Luke can't figure out the title so passes. Sarah is confident she found the right answer and she confidently affirms: "it's Matrix!" but Mark teases her reminding that "Matrix" has nothing to do with the "galaxy" or "space", the first Clue-tile given.

Since no one guessed, it's now the third round and the top scoring tile is turned over. Now Sarah wants to know more about where the movie is set, and so she selects the "Place" slot. Mark is undecided between the Clue-tile #11 (jungle) or #40 (spaceships) but chooses the jungle, since now he really wants the Spectators to guess the movie. Sarah tries with "Flash Gordon" which is a good guess, but not the right one, unfortunately for her. Now Luke is almost sure and says "Avatar".

Mark congratulates, showing that he indeed wrote "Avatar". Since the movie was guessed on the third round, the Director, Mark, is given 7 Movie tickets, and 6 Movie tickets are awarded to Luke, as the Spectator who guessed the right title.

Now Luke becomes the new Director, takes the "statuette" and starts thinking of a movie title. Sarah and Mark will be the Spectators in the new turn.

Disclaimer: movie titles in this rulebook are quoted as mere examples, to facilitate the readers in understanding the rules of the game.