Neodreams Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
  • General Setup
  • Player Setup
• Card Overview
• Gameplay
  • 1 · Deploy Oneironaut or Cycle Sleep
    • A. Deploy Oneironaut
• Actions
  • Gain Resources
  • Draw Card
  • Create Card
  • Gain Object
  • Place Objects
  • Link Client
  • Broadcast Neodreams
  • B. Cycle Sleep
    • Returnal Action
    • Discard Action
  • 2 · Refill Market Step
  • 3 · Endgame Check Step
• Final Scoring

Components

• 1 Oneirosphere Board
• 1 Cycle Marker
• 90 Object Tokens
• 30 Client Tokens
• 90 Dream Cards (30 Lucid, 30 Neodream, 30 Recursive)
• 4 Mainframe Boards
• 4 Dream Boards
• 1 Active Player Token
• 1 Last Player Token
• 12 Resource Markers (4 Knowledge, 4 Memory, 4 Fantasy)
• 12 Oneironaut Figures

Setup

General Setup

1. Place the Oneirosphere board on the table so that all players can reach it. Place it so that the side that matches the player count is faceup.
2. Place the Cycle marker onto the matching space in the leftmost corner of the Sleep Cycle track located at the top of the Oneirosphere board.
3. Separate the Dream cards into 3 decks based on their card backs. Shuffle each deck separately and draw 2 cards from the top of each and place them face up to the right of the Oneirosphere board as shown. The area with the faceup cards is referred to as the Market.
4. Place each deck to the right of the matching faceup cards. Leave room to the right of the decks for discard piles.
5. Place all Object and Client tokens into the general reserve, near the Oneirosphere board. These tokens do not need to be separated by their individual illustrations.

The Oneirosphere terminal is the gateway to the dreams of the whole world. All sleeping people connected to the Oneirosphere create a single fabric of their fantasies and nightmares. Most of our work is done here, from extracting materials to creating and selling dreams.

Player Setup

6. Each player places a Mainframe board in front of them. This board will define their player color, and the area around it is defined as that player's personal supply.
7. Each player takes a random Dream board and places it to the right of their Mainframe board. This board, as well as the area below and to the right of it, are defined as that player's Dreamscape and the two cards printed on the board are considered to be cards for all purposes. The Dream board may be placed with either side faceup, though it is recommended to use side A for that player's first game. Sides A are symmetrical, while sides B have asymmetric effects.
8. Each player places 3 Oneironaut figures of their matching color into their personal supply.
9. Each player takes 3 Object tokens and places them into their personal supply near their Mainframe board. Note, that each Object token is functionally identical.
10. Each player takes one knowledge, memory, and fantasy Resource marker and places them all to the left of their Mainframe board, in line with the 3 indicator.
11. Each player draws one Lucid, Neodream, and Recursive Dream Card from the top of the decks and adds them to their hand.
12. Give the Active Player token to the person who woke up the latest this morning. Then, give the Last Player token to the person to the right of the person with the Active Player token.
13. Optional: If all players are familiar with the game, the person with the Last Player token may move the Cycle marker to any position of their choice along the Sleep Cycle track.

And this is the holiest of holies in our studio, the mainframe. It stores all of our resources and is the home for our licensed dreams which have been prepared for broadcasting or customized for special clients. Dreams are in a constant rotation, the section with our latest and most profitable assets is called the Dreamscape. Honestly, sustaining the tempo is a bit of a slog for us, so this section is now mostly empty. Consider filling the Dreamscape with astonishing dreams as your top priority.

Card Overview

Each Dream card shows:

• Cost: Resources that must be spent to create this Dream card.
• Object Slots: Locations where Object tokens may be placed to potentially upgrade the card.
• Standard Effect: This effect becomes active the moment the card is created.
• Upgraded Effect: This effect overrides the Standard Effect the moment the final Object slot on this card is covered with an object.
• Credits: Number of credits gained during final scoring for the player who created it.
• Discard Benefits: Resource or Object gained by discarding this card from hand.
• Dream Type: There are 3 types of Dream cards, and each activates differently:
  • Lucid: Activated when a Client token is placed on it.
  • Neodream: Activated each time a broadcast effect is triggered.
  • Recursive: Activated each time the card-specific condition is met.

Note: Each player begins the game with a Dream board that shows 1 Lucid card and 1 Neodream card. For all purposes, these are considered to be cards.

Gameplay

The game takes place over a variable number of turns, in which players will be placing their Oneironauts or advancing the Sleep Cycle track. Each of these will give the active player, and sometimes other players, access to a variety of actions that aid them in crafting and activating their Dreamscape of created cards.

The player with the active player token takes their turn in which they must perform the following three steps in order:

1. Deploy Oneironaut or Cycle Sleep
2. Refill the Market
3. Check for Endgame Trigger

1 · Deploy Oneironaut or Cycle Sleep

The active player must choose one of the options.

A. Deploy Oneironaut

The active player must take one Oneironaut from their personal supply and place it onto any empty location on the Oneirosphere board. If they do not have any Oneironauts in their personal supply, they must choose to cycle sleep instead.

The active player may then take each of the actions that are indicated with icons on the location that was chosen. These actions may be taken in any order of their choice. Actions may be ignored if a player does not want to take them. Each action option shown in the Oneironaut placement locations is explained below.

Actions

Gain Resources

Gain the indicated amount of the matching resource. Do this by moving the associated Resource marker up on that player's Mainframe track. Players can have no more than 10 of each resource type, and any excess is lost.

Dreams are a map of one's reality. An unreliable and misleading map, to be honest. But it is all the more exciting to follow subtle clues and hints in order to gain new strength. In a dream, you recall long-forgotten inspiring moments of your life, find solutions to problems that tormented you in reality and create fantastic images that will become your guiding thread in real life. In a way, sleep is a source of inner resources for a person. And this source is practically inexhaustible.

Draw Card

Draw 1 card, either from the Market (faceup cards) or from the specified deck. The action icon indicates which type of card may be drawn: any card, a Lucid card, a Neodream card, or a Recursive card.

Note: Some card effects may specify where to draw Dream cards from. For example "draw from the deck" means that you are not allowed to draw from the Market while applying the effect.

Create Card

Create 1 Dream card from the player's hand by spending the resources indicated in the card's top left corner. Resources are spent by moving the associated Resource marker down a number of spaces equal to the cost. If you don't have enough of at least one of the resources, you can't create a card. Fantasy resources are considered wild, and each may be spent instead of 1 memory or 1 knowledge. Created cards are placed faceup into the player's Dreamscape, and it is recommended that they be grouped with other cards of their type.

Note: All card effects become active immediately when Dream cards enter a Dreamscape. This may trigger some Recursive effects which apply to the action that was used to create it (for example, linking a client) or even apply the effect to the Recursive Dream itself (for example, "after you create discard 1" will activate when that card is created). However, you can choose to use a card's effect incompletely, with the exception of cards that require you to spend something to gain something, or choose not to use it at all.

Gain Object

Gain 1 Object token from the general reserve and place it into the player's personal supply. Each Object token is functionally identical.

Many dreams are too chaotic or vivid for us to license them. But often in such dreams you can find images suitable for transplantation into other dreams. They will make already licensed dreams more dramatic and interesting. These attracts a larger audience and have positive effects on our financial and technical capabilities.

Place Objects

Place any number of Object tokens from that player's personal supply onto empty Object slots on cards within their Dreamscape. Each Object token must be placed on the topmost empty slot on a card, and Objects may be placed onto multiple cards even if they still have empty Object slots remaining.

Once the final Object slot on a card is covered, the upgraded effect will override that card's standard effect for the rest of the game. Objects may be placed onto Lucid cards that already have Clients placed on them.

Link Client

Link a Client into a Lucid card within the player's Dreamscape by placing one Client token from the general reserve onto that card. Each Lucid card can have at most one Client token placed on it. The Client token is placed on top of the Lucid symbol in the bottom right corner of the card. The player may now perform that card's effect. The Client token will remain on that card for the rest of the game unless removed by a card-specific effect.

Some Dreams are too intimate and specific to individual experiences to be enjoyed by the mass market. Instead, these dreams are paired with high paying clients who desire them. These creatively customized dreams are permanently stored in our mainframe.

Broadcast Neodreams

Broadcast all of that player's previously created Neodream cards in any order of their choice. Each card may be activated once for its effect or ignored if the effect is not desired.

Our studio's latest release, a family fantasy saga about tiny cute creatures exploring space in a bottle was watched simultaneously by over 300 million sleepers thanks to our broadcasting technology. This type of distribution brings in most of our income and gives us the opportunity to create ongoing narratives that keep people engaged while also efficiently reusing our established assets.

B. Cycle Sleep

The active player moves the Cycle marker one space to the right on the Sleep Cycle track. If the Cycle marker was on the rightmost location, then this action moves it to the leftmost location, labeled Daydream, on the track. Then, each player simultaneously takes a Returnal action for each of their Oneironauts in the same column as the Cycle marker in any order of their choice.

At any time during this step, the active player and only they may also take all actions within the section of the Sleep Cycle track where the Cycle marker currently is. Once the Active Player has finished taking the Sleep Cycle track actions, they move the Cycle marker so that it covers the action icons in that space.

The Oneirosphere obeys natural laws and follows the sleep cycle of dreaming people around the world. You can send an oneironaut into any dreams sleeping phase, but they can only return when the Global Dreammind reaches that phase in their own dreams.

Who or what is this entity? To be honest, we still do not entirely know. Some believe that this is computer artificial superintelligence, others that it is a sleeping deus-ex-machina who dreams of our world. All that matters is that right now you need to focus on learning its rhythm in order to effectively manage our team of oneironauts.

Returnal Action

The player either takes a draw card action according to the row that the Oneironaut is currently in or a create card action. They then remove the Oneironaut from the Oneirosphere board and place it into their personal supply so that it may be deployed in the future.

Discard Action

At any time, and as often as they want, any player may take a discard action in order to discard any card from their hand in order to gain the benefit shown in its top right corner. Depending on the icons shown, the benefit will either gain that player 1 of the indicated resource or gain them 1 Object token from the reserve. Discarded cards are placed faceup onto discard piles to the right of their matching decks.

2 · Refill Market Step

Once all actions have been taken, the active player must refill the Market so that there are exactly 2 faceup cards next to each of the decks. If a deck is depleted, then shuffle all discarded cards of that type and place them facedown to create a new deck to draw from. Also, follow this rule if the deck is depleted during step 1 of a turn, and the effect or action allows the player to draw a card from the deck.

3 · Endgame Check Step

If any player has 12 or more cards within their Dreamscape, including those shown on their Dream boards, then the game end will be triggered. The game will continue until the player with the Last Player token finishes their turn, at which point the game will end.

If the game has not ended, then pass the Active Player token to the next player in the clockwise direction and the player who received it must now perform a turn.

Final Scoring

Once the game has ended, players will perform final scoring by summing their credits from the following sources:

1. Each created Dream card is worth a number of credits shown in the top-middle of the card.
2. Each Object token that has been placed on a card is worth 1 credit.
3. Add together the number of unplaced Objects, cards in hand, and resources. Divide this number by 5, rounding down, and gain that number of credits.

The player with the most credits wins the game! If there is a tie, then the tied player who placed more Object tokens onto their cards will win the game. If there is still a tie, then the tied players share the victory.