Papageno
Papageno Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Material
50 cards:
- 40 Bird cards, numbered from -2 to 9
- 4 Pan flute cards
- 4 Capture cards
- 2 Egg cards
- 1 rules booklet
Aim of the Game
"Small is beautiful": collect the smallest and lightest birds and win two rounds to be victorious.
Setting Up the Game
Shuffle all the cards (for a 2-player game, remove the Pan flute cards). Distribute 6 cards to each player, face down. Players arrange their cards in their game area in 2 rows of 3 cards each, still face down, and they are not allowed to look at them. All the players reveal one of their cards (their choice).
Put the remaining cards in the middle of the table to form a draw pile. Reveal the first card and place it next to it to form a discard pile. Whenever the draw pile is empty, just shuffle the discard pile again to make a new draw pile.
The player who best imitates the singing of a bird starts the game's first round. For the next round, the player with the most points starts the game.
How to Play
Players take turns clockwise.
On their turn, a player can take one card from the draw pile and look at it secretly, or take the top face-up card from the discard pile. They exchange it for one of their cards (already face up, or face down) in their game area. The drawn card is placed face up in their game area, and the exchanged card goes on top of the discard pile, also face up.
If a player took a card from the draw pile, they can directly discard it after looking at it, without replacing one of their cards. If they took a card from the discard pile, as they know it already, they have to exchange it with one of their cards and can't discard it right away. It is also placed face up in their game area.
Beware: When a player exchanges their card, they cannot take a look at their own face down card before the exchange takes place.
It is allowed to replace every card in one's game area, even already face up cards.
It is not allowed to change the location of cards or to swap 2 cards; the player can only place the new card in the spot of the one they are exchanging.
Special Cards
There are 3 special cards. Their power is activated when a player places them on his or her game area.
- Capture: Papageno is the best at capturing birds! When a player places this card in their game area, they can capture a bird or a special card from an adversary's collection. They exchange one face-up card from their game area for one face-up card from an adversary's game area. The player who has the Capture card decides which cards are exchanged. Be careful, you can only swap 2 face-up cards this way. The Capture card that was just played can not be the card exchanged with another player.
- Pan flute: when Papageno plays his flute, birds dance around! After placing this card in their game area, the active player gives their exchanged card to the neighbor on their left. This player has to place it face-up in their game area, in the exact same place it previously was in the adversary's game area (i.e., if the first player places the Flute card in the top left corner of their game area, then the next player will have to place the card they received in the top left corner, etc.). Then the neighbor gives the replaced card to the player on their own left, who places it in the exact same place again, and so on until all the players have replaced one card in their game area. The last card (the one from the player to the right of the active player) is discarded and the game continues.
Beware: If one of these special cards arrives in your game area but you are not the one placing it (i.e., when cards are exchanged with another Capture or Pan Flute card), they are not activated.
- Egg: an Egg card takes the value of the card to its left or right. If it is placed in the middle column, then players can decide if the value of this card is identical to the one on its left or right at the end of the game.
End of the Game and Scoring
The game ends as soon as one player has all their cards face-up. Then, the other players reveal their cards as well and all the players count their points as follows:
- The value of each card is the weight of the bird.
- The Egg cards take the value of the card to their left or right, as the player prefers - if in the middle.
- If 2 cards of the same value are placed in the same column, then they cancel each other out and their value is 0.
Beware: if the Egg card is next to a card that is canceled, the Egg card is not equal to 0 but to the actual value of the card. I.e., in the example below, the Egg card takes the value of the card to its right, which is 6, even if this card is canceled and scores 0 points.
The final score corresponds to the sum of all a player's cards. The lowest score wins the round.
The first player to win 2 rounds wins the game.
Example: top row 3 + 1 + 0, bottom row 7 + 6 + 0 = 17.