Mystery Mansion Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object
• Contents
• How to Set Up the Game
  • 1. Assembly of the Mansion Rooms
    • Figure 1: How to Assemble a Room
  • 2. The Foyer
  • 3. The Front Door Card
  • 4. Plastic Pieces
  • 5. Labels
  • 6. Treasure Tokens
  • 7. Cards
  • 8. Pawns
• How to Play the Game
  • Who Plays First?
  • How to Enter the Mansion
  • What Do You Do on a Turn?
  • An Example of One Turn (Figure 2)
• How to Build the Mansion
  • The Rooms
  • Adding On a Room
• How to Move Your Pawn Through the Mansion
• How to Play Your Cards
  • The Play of the Object Search Cards
  • The Play of the Other Search Cards
  • How Many Search Cards Can You Own?
  • The Play of the Clue Cards
    • Clue Cards You MUST Play Immediately
    • Clue Cards You MUST Put in Your Hand Before You Can Play Them
• Moving a Treasure Chest
• Exiting the Mansion
• Unlocking a Treasure Chest
• How to Win the Game

Object

Be the first player to bring the REAL TREASURE out of the mansion.

Contents

• 24 cardboard rooms (16 to be assembled)
• 4 plastic pawns
• 1 "door" die
• 7 cardboard treasure tokens
• 8 plastic secret passage doors
• 1 label sheet
• 7 plastic treasure chests
• 72 Search cards
• 1 instruction booklet
• 12 plastic staircases
• 56 Clue cards
• 1 front door card

How to Set Up the Game

1. Assembly of the Mansion Rooms

The 24 room units are of 3 levels. Here's how to prepare them for play.

Basement rooms: Carefully punch out the 8 rooms from the sheet that contains the room marked CELLAR. These rooms are flat and do not require assembly.

First Floor and Second Floor rooms: Carefully punch out the 8 Second Floor rooms from the sheet that contains the room marked Guest Room. Follow the steps outlined in Figure 1 to fold each one into a 3-dimensional room.

Figure 1: How to Assemble a Room

Find the room unit marked Guest Room and place it picture side up on a flat surface with Flap A at the top of the unit. Notice the crease lines and corner pieces of the room. You will crease Flap A on these lines and Flaps B, C and D in the same way in the following steps. Also notice the Tabs and Slots on the flaps of your room unit which are numbered from 1 to 4. When you fold the flaps to assemble the room, you will be inserting Tabs into matching numbered Slots.

Step 1. Turn the room picture side down, keeping Flap A at the top of the unit. Firmly crease Flap A on its 1st crease line by bending the flap in toward the center of the unit.

Step 2. Firmly crease Flap A on its 2nd crease line by bending the flap in toward the center of the unit. Hold Flap A in this position and go to Step 3.

Step 3. Raise Flap A to an upright position. This will automatically crease Flap A on its 3rd crease line. Now crease Flaps B, C and D on their crease lines in exactly the same way, following Steps 1, 2 and 3, above. Then, rotate the creased room unit 1/2 turn clockwise so Flap A is on your right.

Step 4. Fold Flaps A and B in an upright position then crease the corner pieces. Hold Flaps A and B in this position and go to Step 5.

Step 5. Fold Flap C toward the center of the unit, tucking the corner pieces under the gap as you fold it.

Step 6. Press Tab 1 of Flap C into Slot 1 of Flap A and press Tab 2 of Flap C into Slot 2 of Flap B.

Step 7. Make sure the Tabs are securely locked into the Slots. Rotate the room unit one turn. Then crease the other corner pieces and fold Flap D in exactly the same way, following Steps 4, 5 and 6.

Step 8. After creasing and folding the room unit as outlined above, the assembled room will look like this. Now turn the room picture side up and it's ready for play.

Assemble the 8 First Floor rooms in the same way.

2. The Foyer

Position the FOYER picture side up on a flat surface between the players. Turn the other 23 rooms picture side down and place them off to the side but within reach.

3. The Front Door Card

Punch out the Front Door card from the game platform. Place it next to the Foyer so its staircase leads to the double doors of the Foyer. PLEASE NOTE: the double doors are the only way in or out of the mansion.

4. Plastic Pieces

Use scissors to detach the 8 secret passage doors, 12 staircases and 7 treasure chests with attached lids from the runner. CAUTION: do not cut the lids from the chests. They MUST remain attached.

5. Labels

Peel off the 7 number labels from the label sheet and attach one label to the recessed area on the bottom of each treasure chest.

6. Treasure Tokens

Punch out the 7 treasure tokens from the game platform. Two tokens are gold and jewels which is the REAL TREASURE. 5 tokens are cobwebs and dust which is the FAKE TREASURE. Place one token inside each chest, then close them. DO NOT LOOK AT THE NUMBERS ON THE BOTTOM OF THE CHESTS AS YOU ARE DOING THIS! Mix up the chests so no player knows which chests contain the Real Treasure.

PLEASE NOTE: before each future game, the treasure tokens should be randomly repositioned in different chests to prevent players from memorizing which number chests contain the Real Treasure.

7. Cards

Shuffle the Clue cards. Then shuffle the Search cards and deal 5 Search cards facedown to each player. Place these decks facedown within easy reach.

8. Pawns

Each player chooses a pawn to move and places it on the Front Door card.

How to Play the Game

Who Plays First?

Choose a player to go first, then order of play goes to the left.

How to Enter the Mansion

All players enter the mansion through the double doors in the Foyer. On your first turn, you must roll OPEN on the "door" die to move your pawn into the Foyer.

What Do You Do on a Turn?

On your turn, you can roll the "door" die or you can play a card or do any combination of both that totals 3 Actions. Each roll of the die counts as ONE ACTION of your turn. Each play of a card from your hand counts as ONE ACTION of your turn. YOU MUST DO 3 ACTIONS PER TURN.

Rolling the die. The die is marked with the words OPEN and LOCKED and when rolled tells you if a door to a room is open or locked. If you roll LOCKED, you cannot enter the room or move your pawn, but the die roll still counts as one action of your turn. If you roll OPEN, you can EITHER move your pawn through the open doorway and into the next room OR add a new room next to the room you're in and immediately move your pawn into this new room. Read the section "How to Build the Mansion" below, to learn how to add a room.

Playing a card. Search cards allow you to search objects in a room for clues. Each time you play and discard a Search card to search an object, you immediately draw a Search card to replenish your hand, then you draw a Clue card. Clue cards help you find treasure chests and the keys to unlock them. Some Clue cards MUST be played immediately and do not count as an action of your turn. Read the section "How to Play Your Cards" for more information on Search and Clue cards.

What counts as one action on your turn:

• Roll LOCKED on the die
• Roll OPEN on the die and move your pawn into the next room
• Roll OPEN on the die then add a new room and move your pawn into it
• Play any Search card
• Play a Clue card FROM YOUR HAND
• Travel through a Secret Passage (this is discussed later)

Just make sure you complete a total of 3 and only 3 actions on your turn.

An Example of One Turn (Figure 2)

Green moves into the Foyer and adds a room.

• Action #1: Roll the door die. Green rolls LOCKED. The door to the mansion is locked so Green's pawn cannot move into the Foyer.
• Action #2: Roll the door die. Green rolls OPEN. The door is open now so Green's pawn moves through the double door entrance to the mansion and into the Foyer. Green has 4 Object Search cards and most of the objects pictured can be found in rooms on the Basement Level of the mansion. Therefore, Green decides to add a Basement Level room onto the Foyer to search down there for clues.
• Action #3: Roll the door die. Green rolls OPEN. Green picks one of the facedown Basement Level rooms at random and turns it faceup. Green picked the Storeroom and places it next to the Foyer by lining up the doors and positioning a staircase. Then Green's pawn moves from the Foyer, down the staircase, and into the Storeroom to complete the 3rd action. On the next turn, Green will play Search cards to look for clues inside the trunk and under the sacks in the Storeroom.

How to Build the Mansion

By rolling OPEN on the die and adding on a new room, you and your opponents actually build the mansion, room by room. Adding new rooms to the mansion is an important part of the game because it gives you more places to search for clues. Here's how you do it.

The Rooms

The 24 rooms of the mansion are divided into 3 types. Basement Level rooms are flat; First Floor Level rooms are 3/4" high; and Second Floor Level rooms are 1-1/4" high. The rooms on each level:

• Basement: Boiler Room, Cellar, Laboratory, Pantry, Sewing Room, Storeroom, Utility Room, Wine Cellar
• First Floor: Dining Room, Drawing Room, Foyer, Gallery, Kitchen, Library, Music Room, Sitting Room
• Second Floor: Ballroom, Bath, Guest Room, Maid's Room, Master Bedroom, Nursery, Solarium, Study

Adding On a Room

Roll OPEN on the die, choose a room, then place it next to the room your pawn is presently in. It's that easy, however, there are certain rules you must obey.

Choosing a room. Pick one of the facedown rooms (without looking at it) from the group of unused rooms, then turn it faceup. You can choose a room ON THE SAME LEVEL OR ONE LEVEL ABOVE OR BELOW the level your pawn is presently on. For example, if your pawn is in a room on the Basement Level, you can add a Basement or First Floor Level room but you cannot add a Second Floor Level room because such a room would be TWO levels above your pawn's present level.

Placing a room. At least one door in the new room you are adding must LINE UP with a door in the room your pawn is in so a doorway is formed between the two rooms as shown in Figure 3. If no doors line up, turn the room you picked facedown and put it back, then pick another room.

Also, one wall of the added room must touch one wall of the room your pawn is in as shown in Figure 3. You cannot place a room as shown in Figure 4 because only part of the walls are touching. This would be ILLEGAL.

When you add a room one level above or below the room your pawn is in, place a plastic staircase in the LOWER LEVEL ROOM, directly in front of the open doorway between the two rooms, as shown in Figure 3. In this example, the Foyer is one level below the Solarium so the staircase is placed in the Foyer.

PLEASE NOTE: each staircase is MOVEABLE which means it can be moved around within the same room, from one open doorway to another open doorway, if necessary. For example, if another Second Floor room is added to the Foyer in Figure 3, just move the staircase already in the Foyer to the doorway leading to the newly added room. Never put two staircases in the same room!

IMPORTANT: You and your opponents can add new rooms to the mansion in any order, arrangement or floor plan as long as these rules are strictly followed.

How to Move Your Pawn Through the Mansion

Roll OPEN on the die then move your pawn into the next room by passing through the open doorway between the rooms and up or down the staircase if the rooms are on different levels. OR, you can roll OPEN on the die and add a room and move your pawn into the new room.

IMPORTANT: moving your pawn by die roll is not the only way to travel through the mansion. Some Search and Clue cards can direct your pawn's movement and Secret Passages allow you to move quickly from one end of the mansion to the other.

How to Play Your Cards

The Play of the Object Search Cards

Once your pawn is inside a room, you can search objects in that room for clues if you have an Object Search card that pictures the object you want to search. This type of Search card pictures two different objects. You can search either object but NOT BOTH. The picture on the card does not have to match the object in the room in exact detail but they must be the same basic object. For example, an Object Search card showing a sofa or a chair allows you to search behind a sofa or under a chair. You could search any style sofa or any style chair in the mansion. The sofas or chairs DO NOT HAVE TO MATCH the picture on the card in design, size, shape or color. Remember, to search an object you must have a Search card that pictures the object and your pawn must be in the same room as the object. Here's how it's done.

1. Say aloud what object you want to search and its location (for example, a Cabinet in the Cellar).
2. Play a card from your hand that pictures the object you want to search. Play it faceup in front of you for all to see then place it faceup on the Search discard pile. Draw the top card from the Search draw pile to replenish your hand. Remember, playing a Search card always counts as one action of your turn!
3. Whenever you play an Object Search card you take the top card from the Clue draw pile and secretly look at it. Either play it immediately or put it in your hand, depending on what kind of Clue card it is. Read the section "The Play of the Clue Cards" below, for more details.

The Play of the Other Search Cards

All of the other Search cards are played the same way as the Object Search cards except no Clue card is drawn. Instead of allowing you to look for clues, these other Search cards direct you to do something. Let's see what these cards are and what they direct you to do.

• Steal a Search Card from Any Player: directs you to take one Search card at random from any ONE player's hand.
• Change Places with Any Player: directs you to move your pawn to any room in the mansion that's occupied by an opponent's pawn. Then move that opponent's pawn to the room your pawn just left.
• Move to Any Occupied Room: directs you to move your pawn to any room in the mansion that's occupied by an opponent's pawn.
• Lose One Action of Your Turn: this card counts as one action of your turn when played.
• Oops! You've Been Waylaid. No Clue Here: this is an absolutely useless card! Just play it and count it as one action of your turn. Remember, each Search card you play counts as one action of your turn!

How Many Search Cards Can You Own?

There is no limit to the number of Search cards you can hold in your hand. Each player starts the game with five, but you can add more by playing cards that allow you to steal or draw additional Search cards. Remember, each time you play and discard a Search card, draw a new Search card to replenish your hand.

PLEASE NOTE: if the draw pile of Search cards is used up, shuffle the discard pile and turn it facedown to start a new draw pile.

The Play of the Clue Cards

Each time you play an Object Search card to search an object in the room your pawn is in, you take the top card from the Clue draw pile. Clue cards can help you find Treasure Chests, Keys and Secret Passages, or direct you to do something. There are two types of Clue cards. The difference between them is whether or not you must put the card in your hand before you play it.

Clue Cards You MUST Play Immediately

These are played without putting them in your hand. Playing this type of Clue card NEVER counts as an action of your turn because YOU DO NOT PLAY IT FROM YOUR HAND.

Treasure Chest Card: this card means you have found a Treasure Chest! Play it immediately and set it aside, out of play. Then place a Treasure Chest in the room your pawn is in. Be sure you or your opponents do not see the secret numbers on the bottom of the chest.

IMPORTANT: finding a chest does not mean it is yours and you own it. You must have a Key card that matches one of the secret numbers on the bottom of the chest before you can claim ownership or move it. Read the "Key Card" section, below, and "Moving a Treasure Chest" section for more details.

PLEASE NOTE: there are 7 Treasure cards and 7 Treasure Chests so each Treasure card is only used once in the game. This is why a Treasure card is set aside out of play after it's been used.

Cobweb Card: this card means you have found NOTHING on your search. Play it immediately, then place it faceup on the Clue discard pile.

The other Clue cards that you must play immediately direct you to either return Clue cards to the deck, draw Search cards, move to an occupied room, or exchange places with another player. If you draw one of these Clue cards, play it immediately and discard it, then do what the card says.

Clue Cards You MUST Put in Your Hand Before You Can Play Them

Be sure to keep them secret from your opponents until you play them. Playing this type of Clue card ALWAYS counts as one action of your turn because YOU PLAY IT FROM YOUR HAND.

Key Card: this card means you have found a key to a chest. Each key is a different number from 1 to 7. If you can match your key number with either secret number on the bottom of a chest, you can claim the chest. Here's how to do it. Move your pawn into the same room that an unclaimed Treasure Chest is in, play your Key card so all can see its number, then pick up the chest to see if the numbers match. IF THE NUMBERS DO NOT MATCH, leave the chest in the room and continue your search. IF THE NUMBERS MATCH, announce that you are claiming the chest and put it next to your pawn. NOW THE CHEST BELONGS TO YOU AND YOU CAN START MOVING IT OUT OF THE MANSION! Read the section "Moving a Treasure Chest" for details. After playing a Key card, return it to your hand. You do not discard it because it is a KEY THAT YOU OWN.

Steal a Treasure: this card allows you to steal a claimed Treasure Chest that belongs to an opponent. Here's how to do it. Move your pawn into the same room that your opponent's Treasure Chest is in, play and discard your card, then pick up your opponent's Treasure Chest and place it next to your pawn. Also, take the Key card from your opponent that unlocks the chest. NOW THE CHEST AND THE KEY TO UNLOCK IT BELONG TO YOU!

Steal a Clue Card from Every Player: this card allows you to steal one Clue card from each of your opponents. Play the card and discard it, then pick one Clue card, at random, from every opponent's hand. ALL THE CLUE CARDS YOU PICKED BELONG TO YOU NOW!

IMPORTANT: if you steal a Key card that unlocks a chest an opponent has claimed, then the chest ALSO BELONGS TO YOU NOW! You still must move your pawn into the same room as the chest to actually take possession of it.

Secret Passage Card: this card allows you to create a Secret Passage connecting any two rooms in the mansion. Here's how to do it. Play the card and discard it. Place a Secret Passage Door in the room your pawn is presently in, then place a second Secret Passage Door in any other room in the mansion (except the Foyer). Now move your pawn through the Secret Passage you just created and into the room where you placed the second Secret Passage Door.

IMPORTANT: any player can use an already established Secret Passage without playing a card or rolling the die. Here's how to do it. To use a Secret Passage, your pawn MUST be in a room with a Secret Passage Door. Announce you are going to use a Secret Passage then move your pawn from the room it is presently in, through the Secret Passage, to any other room with a Secret Passage Door. MOVING FROM ONE ROOM TO ANOTHER ROOM THROUGH AN ALREADY ESTABLISHED SECRET PASSAGE COUNTS AS ONE ACTION OF YOUR TURN.

PLEASE NOTE: if the draw pile of Clue cards is used up, shuffle the discard pile and turn it facedown to start a new draw pile.

Moving a Treasure Chest

Before you can move a chest you must have the key to unlock it. Once you have the key, the chest belongs to you so you can move it from room to room to carry it out of the mansion. Your pawn and the chest you own move through the mansion together. Each time you move your pawn the chest automatically goes with it. You can move by die roll or card play but you CANNOT use a Secret Passage when carrying a chest out of the mansion.

Exiting the Mansion

If you own a chest and the key to unlock it, you must carry it outside the mansion before you can open it. The only way in or out of the mansion is through the double doors in the Foyer. Try to move your chest into the Foyer and out of the mansion as fast as possible because your opponents will try to steal it.

IMPORTANT: the only two safe places where a treasure chest or the Key card that unlocks it cannot be stolen are in the Foyer and outside the mansion.

Unlocking a Treasure Chest

Once the chest and your pawn are outside the mansion, you can open it. Here's how to do it. Show your opponents your key number and the matching secret number on the bottom of your treasure chest, THEN go ahead and open the chest. If you find cobwebs and dust you have the wrong chest. Put the Key card back in your hand then go back into the mansion to continue your search for the REAL TREASURE. The opened chest remains outside the mansion and out of play. If you are fortunate enough to open your chest and find the REAL TREASURE of gold and jewels, then the game is over and you're the winner!

How to Win the Game

The first player to bring the REAL TREASURE out of the mansion wins the game.