Sky Tango Rulebook

Table of Contents

Material

68 narrow game cards:

Placing your own sun and moon rows skillfully, each player tries to clear away as many cards as possible.

All cards are shuffled well and provided as a covered stack. Each player draws 5 cards from the stack and keeps them in hand.

The youngest player begins and puts one card down.
Game play is then continued clockwise one after the other.
Only if a player used up all hand cards, he may draw five new ones prior to her next turn.

A turn comprises either laying down or clearing away. Both is not permitted in one turn.
If it is your turn you must play!

Each player may only set up one sun and one moon row in front of himself.
Per turn one hand card is normally played. It may be placed both in your own or your opponent's rows as suitable.
Sun cards are placed in incrementing (but not necessarily consecutive) numbers to the right or left of each other, but never between cards already put down.
Moon cards are put down according to the same principle.

Whenever there is an animal on the card that was just put down, the player must put down another card in the same turn.
If the animal card was her last hand card, she draws 5 new ones from the stack and continues playing.
It is possible to play several animal cards one after the other.

Eclipse cards are put down on top of cards that are already put down. They are used to interrupt your own or your opponent's rows.
A lunar eclipse may only be placed on a moon card, a solar eclipse on a sun card.
This interruption may be cancelled (in one of the next turns) if the eclipse is covered with a suitable moon or sun card.
If several eclipses are next to each other, one that directly borders a sun or moon card must first be covered.

Whoever set up one or more uninterrupted row(s) of at least 5 cards in front of herself may (but need not) clear it away in the next turn and take it.
The cleared 5 or more cards may be part of a longer row (interrupted by an eclipse), but must not contain a visible eclipse.
If the cleared cards cut a row in two, the two remaining ends are moved together so that only one row remains.
These cards form a heap next to the draw stack.
In the next turn, the player may draw 5 new cards and continue to play.

If a player cannot (completely) perform her turn because she does not have a suitable card, she destroys herself; i.e. she loses her hand cards and her sun row and moon row.
All of these cards are discarded.
At the start of her next turn, the player draws 5 new cards before continuing normally.

Remark: Destruction of your own game may be valuable for tactical reasons in order to avoid negative points of your own.

If the draw stack is empty, the pile of cards next to it is shuffled and put down as the covered new draw stack.
The hand cards are always drawn in the next turn only (exception: an animal in the last card played, see What Does an Animal Mean?).
If less than 5 cards remain in the stack, the player takes just these.

If a player can not draw any hand cards because the draw stack is used up, the game ends.

The other players may play their hand cards one after the other, i.e. put down, clear away or even destroy themselves — but not draw any more!

Players sitting opposite are partners.
They build only one sun and one moon row together. If one sets up a moon row in front of herself, the partner may only set up a sun row and vice versa.
If a partner cannot complete his turn, his hand cards are lost and his row, but not the row of his partner.
At the end of the game, the points of both partners are added.
The team with most points is the winner.