Organism

Organism Rulebook

Table of Contents

Components

General game components:

One open hex board with seven rings (1/2/3/4/6 player side and 5 player side)
One power board with spaces for 0-5 points
24 mutation cards (marked 1,2,3,4,6)
Player boards (see the player board art on page 1)

Player-specific components (in six player colors):

A set of 5 elements of each type (EAT / MOVE / GROW, 15 total):
- 5 EATER
- 5 GROWER
- 5 MOVER
3 power levels
15 food tokens
5 platforms
1 player aid diagram

Overview

Each player controls an Organism composed of three elements: EAT, GROW, and MOVE. In the beginning, each organism contains one of each element, which is a requirement for any organism to live. If an organism lacks one of these three elements at the end of the turn, it dies.

Players take turns either eating food, growing new elements, moving into new positions (possibly coming into contact with other organisms or even dividing into separate organisms), or circulating food within their organism. When any elements of opposing organisms meet, the conflict is resolved by removing one or more elements from the board.

You win the game if you disrupt a certain number of the opposing player's elements, hold the center for long enough, or if you attain three separate organisms at the end of your turn, becoming the seed of a new world.

Setup

ORGANISM plays from 1-6 players: 2-6 players competitively in the base game, and solo play with the associated RAIN mutation (which can be played multiplayer cooperative as well). The rings in play and each player's home spaces depend on player count and game length variant (open or close).

The setup diagrams on this page show the board layout for 2 player, 3 player, 4 player, 5 player and 6 player games.

Gameplay

Play alternates between players. On each player's turn they will perform the following steps:

A - Introduce
B - Hold the Center
For each organism:
- C - Choose Element
- D - Perform Action(s)
E - Resolve Conflicts
F - Check Integrity

If you have more than one organism at the beginning of your turn, you perform phases C - Choose Element and D - Perform Actions for each organism before moving onto phase E - Resolve Conflicts.

The gameplay page shows the organism states as: ALIVE; NOT ALIVE - missing a Mover; NOT ALIVE - missing an Eater; and (on the MOVE page) NOT ALIVE - missing a Grower.

A - Introduce

If you begin your turn with no organisms on the board, first remove any food or elements present in your three home spaces, and any elements in any spaces adjacent to your home spaces (dropping food as normal when elements are removed, but no power for disruption is awarded). Then place one of each element, each containing one food, in each of your three home spaces.

B - Hold the Center

If you have an element in the center space of the board at the beginning of your turn you "hold the center" - gain 1 power.

C - Choose Element

If you have multiple organisms, you perform C and D for each organism in turn.

Choose one of your organisms, then choose one of the three element types to be your action(s) for this organism this turn: EAT, MOVE or GROW.

You get one action for each element of that type in your organism.

Example: So, if your organism contains 2 EAT elements, 3 MOVE elements and 1 GROW element, you could EAT twice, MOVE three times, or GROW once.

D - Perform Actions

Once you have chosen an action type (EAT / MOVE / GROW) and identified how many of that action you get to perform with this organism this turn, you perform each action one at a time. Each action is independent of each subsequent action, and must be completed fully before proceeding to the next action.

For each action you take, you may perform CIRCULATE instead of the action of the chosen element type.

Example: You have an organism with three GROW elements, two EAT elements and one MOVE element. If you choose GROW, you can GROW three times, GROW twice and CIRCULATE once, CIRCULATE twice and GROW once, or CIRCULATE three times. These three actions can be done in any order (for the choice of growing twice and circulating once, any of GROW/CIRCULATE/GROW vs GROW/GROW/CIRCULATE vs CIRCULATE/GROW/GROW, are possible).

Each action is explained on the following two pages.

EAT

Choose one open space adjacent to one of your EAT elements and add all food present in that space, + 1 additional food, into the chosen EAT element. If there are no open spaces adjacent to any of your EAT elements, you may not perform the EAT action.

GROW

Consume food from your GROW elements and add a new element (EAT, MOVE or GROW) to an open space adjacent to one of your GROW elements. The number of food you must remove collectively from your GROW elements is the number of that element type already present in your organism. If there is any food present in the space where the new element is grown, that food is added into the new element.

You may not GROW into a space adjacent to another player's element (you may only become adjacent to another player's element through movement). If there are no open spaces adjacent to GROW elements that aren't also adjacent to any other player's elements, or you don't have sufficient food in your GROW elements, you may not perform the GROW action.

Example: You have two MOVE, one EAT, and three GROW elements in your organism, and two food collectively on your GROW elements. You may add a new MOVE element by consuming both food, or a new EAT element by consuming one food, but you cannot add another GROW element as you do not have sufficient food.

MOVE

Move an element in your organism to an adjacent open space (contains no elements of any player). In order to move, three independent conditions must be met:

MOBILE - The element must be adjacent to a MOVE element of the same organism, or be itself a MOVE element.
FED - The element that is moving must contain at least one food. (For EAT and GROW elements, the adjacent MOVE does not need a food, only the element moving requires a food in order to move.)
ALIVE - The element must be part of a whole living organism at the beginning of each move action in order to move. It can end its action separated, but it must begin as part of a living organism (at least 1 each of EAT/MOVE/GROW).

This food is not consumed in the process of moving, it remains on the moving element. It is simply required for an element to be able to move.

If there is any food in the space you move the element into, you take that food into the moving element.

This move can split your organism into two (or more!) parts, whose integrity will be determined at the end of your turn. If you have more than one organism, the elements in each organism are associated to their original organism for the whole PERFORM ACTION phase, even if elements from one end up adjacent to elements from another that hasn't taken an action yet. (It is recommended to nudge each of these separate-yet-adjacent elements away from each other to visually signify they are not connected, until integrity is resolved in a later phase).

An element may end movement adjacent to an element in an opponent's organism, but only if they are of different types (EAT/MOVE/GROW…. no GROW next to another player's GROW). Two elements of the same type from opposing organisms may never be adjacent, even temporarily.

Adjacent elements of different players are considered to be "in conflict" and will be resolved in the Resolve Conflict phase.

CIRCULATE

Instead of any of the above actions, you may CIRCULATE instead. Transfer one food from an element inside your organism to any other element inside the same organism. There is no limit to the amount of food that a single element may possess.

If some elements of one organism are separated from each other in this action phase (through movement), they are still considered part of the same organism for circulation purposes, so food may be circulated onto and off of these newly separated elements this turn (INTEGRITY is when separated elements become their own organism).

E - Resolve Conflict

If at the end of your actions you have any elements in contact (adjacent) to elements of another player, those elements are in "conflict". Conflict is resolved by removing whichever element is "disrupted" by the other. To determine this, the elements form a heterarchy with the following structure:

EAT disrupts GROW
GROW disrupts MOVE
MOVE disrupts EAT

There is a number associated to each element type based on their symmetry, with each element disrupting the next lower element, and the lowest (MOVE) disrupting the highest (EAT). EAT (5) > GROW (4) > MOVE (3) > EAT (5).

Adjacent elements of opposing players can never be of the same type.

Conflict resolves simultaneously, so it is possible for more than one element to be disrupted in a turn, including the one that was moved (if it ends up adjacent to an element that disrupts it). If there is more than one element disrupting other elements, always resolve in the order starting from elements that are themselves not disrupting any other elements: remove them first, then resolve the elements that afterwards are not themselves disrupting anything on the board. Iterate until all conflicts are resolved.

Any food held by a disrupted element is dropped in the space it used to occupy, along with one additional food (representing the element itself now available as food for others).

Each disrupted element awards power to the player who controls the piece that disrupted it. If a player's element is disrupted by more than one other player's element at the same time (rare but possible), all players with disrupting elements receive power for it.

F - Check Organism Integrity

Check each organism's integrity to see if it survives. If any organism (a contiguous group of adjacent elements of the same player) lacks any one of the three element types (EAT / MOVE / GROW), all of the elements in that organism are removed from the board. If any other player's organisms were removed in this way, reward one additional power to the acting player (total, not per organism).

SACRIFICE RULE: If any of the acting player's organisms are removed that contain an element used to disrupt another player's element this turn, this is called a SACRIFICE. The acting player awards power to any players with elements the sacrificing element disrupted this turn.

As with disruption, any element removed from the board due to integrity drops any food it contained in the space it previously occupied, along with one additional food (representing itself).

Game End

The game ends immediately if one of the following conditions is met:

THREE ORGANISMS - the acting player has three separate organisms at the end of their turn - they win immediately.
POWER - One or more players has reached the agreed upon power threshold.

If there is a tie for power the acting player loses, and all other tied players share victory.

Mutations

In addition to the base game rules there are 24 MUTATIONS - additional rules that can be mixed into the base game to change the decision space. Simply choose a mutation or mutations and place them alongside the board. The associated rules are available for all players.

Mutations have 5 parts:

Name
Phase - when this rule applies.
Complexity - can be simple / moderate / complex.
Friendliness - how much contention the mutation adds or removes from the game:
- BLUE - negligible effect on interaction
- GREEN - makes the game friendlier
- YELLOW - makes the game more interactive
- RED - makes the game more hostile
Effect - the new rule or rules introduced into the game when this mutation is in play.

Some mutations have simple effects on the game, whereas others make it a whole new game. We recommend becoming familiar with base game play before adding mutations, and even then mixing in one mutation at a time. Once everyone is comfortable with those, then start combining them for unexpected interactions.

There is a family of mutations related to FIELDS - disks placed under elements that have special properties or confer abilities based on which mutation is chosen. If one of these mutations are in play, players also take the set of fields of their color at the beginning of the game, or you can leave them in the box otherwise.

One of the mutations (RAIN) allows for solo and cooperative play - we have a special section for RAIN at the end.

SKIP - introduce (simple)

On your first introduce phase place 5 elements (instead of 3), placing the additional two directly in front of the original three. You still need at least one of each element type and no more than two of any one type.

DRINK - hold (simple)

For each turn you hold the center, gain one additional power compounding each turn. Once the streak is broken the power reward is reset.

EXPAND - grow (simple)

Add newly grown elements adjacent to any element, rather than being restricted to placing only adjacent to GROW elements. The newly grown element must still grow into an open space that is not adjacent to any other player's element.

RECLAIM - conflict (simple)

Whenever an element is lost from your organism on another player's turn, gain one food into another one of your organisms.

JUMP - move (simple)

You may spend any number of your available move actions to move one element that many spaces over your own elements, landing in an open space adjacent to your organism. All normal movement conditions still apply (fed / mobile / alive).

PUSH - move (moderate)

You may move into a space containing another of your elements, which pushes that element in a direction of your choosing and costs an additional move. If that element itself moves into another space containing another of your elements, that element is also pushed into an adjacent space of your choosing, up to the limit of your available move actions.

AVENGE - integrity (moderate)

Whenever you lose an organism to integrity on another player's turn, gain a field. You may spend it later to take a free additional turn.

REGENERATE - conflict (moderate)

When one of your elements is disrupted, you may spend the necessary food to immediately grow that element back into your organism (adhering to all restrictions with growing).

COMMUNE - move (moderate)

Elements are considered fed and mobile for the purposes of movement if they are adjacent to at least two other fed elements.

ECHO - choose action (moderate)

Before your CHOOSE ACTION phase, you may take one action of the type the previous player performed with their last organism (this may be used to CIRCULATE).

COMBUST - perform actions (moderate)

At any time while performing actions, remove one of your elements (leaving behind no food) to take two actions of a type different from the combusted element.

ACCELERATE - turn (moderate)

Take two separate turns (complete with CONFLICT and INTEGRITY), where each organism chooses a different type of action to perform.

PULSE - move (moderate)

For one move action, if you spend two food you may move all the elements of one organism one space in the same direction, as long as none of those elements is obstructed in any way (i.e. two elements of the same type of different players come into contact).

CONTRACT - move (complex)

For one move action, choose one element: for every other element in that organism, in order from closest to furthest: move each element one space closer to the chosen element, if able.

TRANSMUTE - perform actions (complex)

Spend one food from one of your elements to treat it as if it were any other element type for the rest of this turn.

PERSIST - integrity (complex)

Elements are not removed due to integrity. Instead, during integrity verify each player has at least one living organism, otherwise remove them entirely from the board (leaving food behind as usual).

SYNCHRONIZE - perform actions (complex)

If after performing all of your actions for an organism there is an element of the chosen type adjacent to two other elements of a different type (but the same type as each other!), you get one immediate action of that type.

MERGE - move (complex)

Elements of the same type of different players may become adjacent - in this case the two organisms MERGE, which means elements in a merged organism are not disrupted by elements of any other player that also has elements in that organism.

Going forward, the elements in each merged organism only perform actions on the turn of the player who "controls" the organism, and the controlling player chooses the type of action for all elements in the organism. Normally the organism is controlled by the player that has the most elements in that organism, but if two or more players are tied for most then whoever has the next most elements in that organism controls it. If control is still not established it goes to the first player in turn order with the most. Regardless of who controls it, play goes in the order from least to most elements, with ties broken by normal turn order starting from the player next in turn order after the controlling player.

As long as two of the same element from different players are adjacent, those organisms are merged. If at the end of the perform actions phase this is no longer the case, resolve conflicts as normal.

Field Mutations

The next mutations all have to do with FIELDS - disks placed under elements (or otherwise used) with a specific effect according to the mutation. Fields may be grown like any other element type and placed adjacent to a grower, but can also be placed under an existing element. Growth cost works the same, which means the first field placed costs zero food, and one for each field present of that player thereafter. Fields can also be moved and carry any food in their space with them. They must be mobile but do not need to be fed or alive. Fields always survive integrity.

Fields may never be in the center.

Fields are like elements in some ways, and not like elements in others. For clarity:

Ways fields are like elements:

They belong to a player
You can grow them
They can move if mobile, and carry food

Ways fields are NOT like elements:

They always survive integrity
They can share spaces with other elements
You cannot circulate to or from them
Don't need to be fed or alive to move (but do need to be mobile!)

SLIDE - move (simple)

An element in a space with a slide field may move out without spending an action (all normal rules of movement still apply).

WARP - eat / grow / move / conflict / integrity (simple)

All spaces with warp fields from the same player are adjacent for the purposes of eating, growing, movement, conflict, and integrity.

PROJECT - perform actions (simple)

For each element in an organism on a project field, you may take one action of that element's type instead of whatever action type was chosen for this organism.

PILLAR - move (simple)

No element may share a space with a pillar. The pillar may not be moved onto or grown onto any other element. If two pillars ever become adjacent they are both instantly annihilated.

METAMORPHOSE - move (moderate)

Before moving onto a field, you must change the type of the element moving there.

IMMOLATE - conflict (complex)

Combine with another field mutation - when an element is disrupted, drop a field of its player there (replace any existing field).

INHERIT - setup (complex)

May place any pattern of slides, warps, projects, pillars and/or metamorphoses on the board at setup. They can be neutral (movable by anyone) or owned by different players.

RAIN - Solo and Co-op

RAIN - turn (complex): RAIN is first in turn order and takes a turn like any other player.

Setup

Turn the board on its side (so a corner is facing "up" instead of a side) and choose which rings of the board to include. Two sides will be the "top" with one space at the pinnacle, which will include either 7, 9, or 11 spaces depending on which rings are in play. The two sides opposite will be the "bottom".
Choose the home spaces for the players. Each organism needs at least three adjacent spaces along the bottom separated from all other organisms by one space, or two adjacent spaces and one a ring in, forming a "pyramid". In this way the different board sizes have different capacities for players, up to 4 separate players. Also, any of these organisms can be distributed among a smaller number of players each fielding multiple organisms at game start.
- 7 spaces on bottom: 2 organisms (flat)
- 9 spaces on bottom: 2 organisms (flat) or 3 organisms (two pyramids on either side)
- 11 spaces on bottom: 3 organisms (flat) or 4 organisms (all pyramids)
Find the element die (6-sided, each element EAT / MOVE / GROW on two opposite sides) and the 7 / 9 / 11 sided "column" die, depending on how many spaces are along the "top" of the board.
Choose two player colors for RAIN and place those pieces with the chosen dice.
Choose a threshold of power for RAIN to end the game - 5 is a good introduction, but ultimately up to 13 or more is enjoyable, depending on how far you want to go.
This can be cooperative or competitive, in addition to solo. Agree which you are playing (with yourself if necessary).

The sense of "up" is very important for this mutation as RAIN's elements start at the "top" and fall "downwards" in "columns", each of which has a number starting on the left at 1 and increasing along the "top", and the players start at the "bottom". This is entirely a convention on the player's part which corner of the hexagon is up and which is down.

Players do not disrupt each other and can become adjacent without conflict, but elements of the same type of different players may still never become adjacent (unless MERGE is in play).

On RAIN's turn:

All of RAIN's elements on the board fall "down" in their column one space. RAIN absorbs all food any elements move on to.
If any elements of the same type are adjacent, remove them both and add one to RAIN's power for each player element that was removed.
Roll the two dice. Take an element of the type shown on the element die from RAIN's supply and place it on the top of the column with that number (starting at 1 on the left and counting up). If no element of that type remains in RAIN's supply, nothing happens.
Resolve conflicts and award power as normal.
If RAIN has reached or passed its power threshold, the game is over.

The total number of turns you were able to survive is your collective score, and the power each player ended with is your personal score.

If you want to get more intense, add two RAIN elements each time it is RAIN's turn.