Turing
Turing Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
Rules, 90 Image cards, 14 Voting cards.
The Shield is constructed from the gamebox.
Set-Up
Obtain some means of keeping score: a pen and piece of paper or a digital counter will do fine.
Place the Voting cards with the black backgrounds face up on the table to indicate the R group and the L group. It may save confusion if they are oriented with the R on the right and the L on the left from the Interrogator's point of view.
Each player chooses a colour, then finds and draws the two Voting cards of that colour.
Decide whether to play Competitive or Co-operative mode, and pick a player to be the first Responder. The Responder may not talk during play. Hand the Responder the Shield.
Round Start
The chosen Responder stacks their Voting cards face down, shuffles them, and draws one. This indicates the Machine's card, either (R) Right or (L) Left.
Flip the top Response card to act as the Guide.
Gameplay
The Responder draws four Response cards (three if you want to play hard mode, five for easy mode). Either the rightmost or leftmost card is the Machine's card, as indicated by the Voting card they drew.
Of the remaining cards, they should choose one as theirs (if they wish, using the Guide to help them), then discard the remaining cards face-down (two cards at standard difficulty). They should make their selection behind the Shield (or under the table if they like) such that the Interrogators can't see which card was the Machine's.
The Responder should now have two cards remaining, which they stack with the leftmost card on top and the rightmost card underneath, and hand to the Interrogators. The Interrogators then place the top card of the stack they receive face-up below the L on the table and the bottom card face-up below the R.
The Interrogators may then choose one of the two sets of cards they can now see and select the Voting card matching the letter the set is below. If they do, they should place the Voting card face down alongside the most recently placed row of Response cards. They should feel free to discuss what they see as evidence of intent in the cards and their reason for voting one way or another.
Once all Interrogators have either selected a set or passed the chance to do so, repeat the process of drawing, choosing and voting for Response cards twice more (until there are two sets of three cards). After the third Response card in each set, all remaining Interrogators must choose a column.
Finally, score according to your chosen play mode.
Round End
The player on the Responder's left is the new Responder. Hand them the Shield, shuffle all Response cards together, and return to Round Start.
Game End
Ending Standard Competitive or Gnirut
Whenever all players have had an equal number of turns being the Responder at the end of a round, check the scores. If one player has the highest score (in the case of a draw, the most points scored as Responder breaks ties), end the game with the highest score winning. If not, keep playing.
Ending Co-operative
Continue until each player has had at least one turn as the Responder, then total the score and divide by the number of players, then by the number of players minus one. If the result is equal to or greater than two, all players win.
Scoring
Note scores from each round, and keep track of points gained from rounds playing as the Responder separately.
Scoring Standard Competitive Play (3-6 Players Competitive)
Each Interrogator which has identified the Responder's group after the first pair of Responder cards was placed scores three points, two points if two pairs were placed, and one point if three were placed. The Responder scores the same points as Interrogators that have correctly identified their group.
Scoring Co-operative Play (2-6 Players Co-operative)
Each Interrogator which has identified the Responder's group after the first pair of Responder cards was placed scores three points, two points if two pairs were placed, and one point if three were placed. The Responder scores the same points as Interrogators that have correctly identified their group.
Scoring Gnirut Play (2 Players Competitive/Alternative Competitive)
Each Interrogator which has identified the Responder's group after the first pair of Responder cards was placed scores three points, two points if two pairs were placed, and one point if three were placed. Note: the Responder does not score in this mode. They are actively trying to deceive the Interrogators.
Examples of Scoring (Co-operative or Standard Competitive Play)
Interrogator one correctly identifies the group after two Response cards: they score two points.
Interrogator two correctly identifies the group after three Response cards: they score one point.
The Responder scores three points: two for Interrogator one, and one for Interrogator two.
Other Cards
Turing benefits from players using the same set of cards and building up private language around them. However, players may wish to swap in card sets from other image interpretation games for play.
This is absolutely fine. Turing works great with most sets of abstract image cards of at least 60 cards.