Ascend
Designed by Daniël Muilwijk
Players 3-4
Length -
Extra Material None

a climbing game for 3 to 4 players.

Introduction

You and your opponents try to be the first duck to reach the peak. During the ascent you will be set back by bombs falling from the sky. Therefore, it takes quite some personality to persist the ascent in order to be able to crown oneself as King of the Quackers and flush the opponents straight back to the swampy pond they came from.

Overview

The game is played over multiple hands. Every hand you get dealt some cards. After each hand, you score points according to how quickly you got rid of your cards. Your points accumulate from hand to hand and once someone collects enough points he or she is declared the winner of the game.

Setup

The game uses the extended Decktet (including the Pawns, the Courts and the Excuse), although it is playable with only the basic Decktet.

Deal

Shuffle the deck and deal it out evenly to the players.

If you play a four player game with the extended Decktet one card remains and is put aside face down.

Exchange

After the cards have been dealt, the players pick up their cards and evaluate their hand. The players pick two cards they don’t need and pass them face down to their neighbors; one to every neighbor. Once everyone has done this, the players simultaneously pick up the two cards which are passed to them and add those to their hands.

Game Play

The player on the dealer's left leads with a playable combination of cards. The opportunity to play proceeds clockwise and at each turn a player chooses to pass or to play. A player who has passed is not barred from playing if the chance comes round again.

After the lead, all plays in that round must be of the same kind of combination, contain the same number of cards, and be of equal or higher rank than the previous play. (Bombs are an exception and will be explained later.)

Play continues until a play is followed by passes from all other players, whereupon all the played cards are gathered up and put aside. Whoever played last starts again by leading any playable combination.

By this means, the players will eventually run out of cards. The first player to do so wins the hand, the second comes second, and so on. The hand is played until only one player has cards left.

If the player due to lead has no cards, the turn to lead passes to the right.

Playable Combinations

There are four kinds of playable combinations:

  • Single Card
  • Set
  • Straight Flush
  • Bomb

Single Card

A Single Card is exactly what you expect it to be; it’s just a single card. Any card can be used for this purpose.

In ascending order, the rank of Single Cards is:
Excuse, Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Pawn, Court, Crown.

When someone leads with a Single Card, all subsequently played cards must share a suit with this lead card and must be of equal or higher rank than the previous card played (the Excuse is an exception).

Set

Two or more cards of the same rank are called a Set. Suits are irrelevant in Sets. Crowns can’t be used as Sets.

The rank of a Set is represented by the rank of its members.

When someone leads with a Set, all subsequently played Sets must be of the same size as the Set lead and must be of equal or higher rank than the previous Set played. (Bombs are an exception.)

Straight Flush

A Straight Flush is a sequence of three or more cards of consecutive rank, which all share the same suit. Pawns, Courts and Crowns can’t be used as part of a Straight Flush.

In Straight Flushes, Aces play the role of ‘suited wild cards’. This means an Ace can represent any number card – 2 to 9 – of its suit.

The rank of a Straight Flush is represented by the rank of the highest ranked card it contains. In the case an Ace is used as a wild card for the highest number in a Straight Flush, the number the Ace represents is considered as the rank of that Straight Flush. Of course, this can be as high as a 9.

When someone leads with a Straight Flush, all subsequently played Straight Flushes must be of the same length as the Straight Flush lead and must be of equal or higher rank than the previous Straight Flush played. (Again, Bombs are an exception.)

Bomb

A Bomb is a combination of two or more personality cards, irrespective of their ranks or suits. Personality cards are the cards done up as face cards, with two close-ups of a single figure.

The rank of a Bomb is represented by the lowest ranked card it contains.

A Bomb can be played to follow either a Set, a Straight Flush, or another Bomb. A Bomb must contain the same number of cards as whatever combination it is following.

A Bomb may be beaten by another Bomb of equal size. A Bomb may also be beaten by a Set or a Straight Flush, if the Set or the Straight Flush is of equal or higher rank than the Bomb just played. Note that the rank of a Bomb only matters when a player wants to play a different combination upon that Bomb.

Sets and Straight Flushes can never be played in the same round, even if interrupted by a Bomb.

Bombs can also be used to lead.

Some combinations can be interpreted as both Sets and Bombs; those are Sets that exist of personality cards only. They should be interpreted as Bombs during gameplay.

Excuse

The Excuse should be considered as a personality card and can thus be part of Bombs.

According to the order of rank depicted under ‘Single Cards’, the Excuse has the lowest possible rank in the game. This means that when the Excuse is part of a Bomb, the Bomb has a very low rank also.

The Excuse has a special use, and may be played as a single card Bomb to follow any played Single Card. The Excuse, when used as a single card Bomb, can be followed by a Single Card which shares a suit with the card led and must be of equal or higher rank than the Excuse, which is trivial.

When the Excuse is led it acts like a Single Card with no suit. Any Single Card can be played upon it and determines the suit or suits to be followed.

Scoring

In each hand players get points as follows:

Place 3-Players 4-Players
1st out 9 7
2nd out 4 4
3rd out 0 2
4th out 0

Game

The game ends when someone reaches 50 points. You may increase or decrease this boundary though, depending on how long you want the game to be.

The player with the most points is declared the winner. In case of a tie play continues, until there is a unique winner.

Bidding

The bidding rules are optional and only advised if the players are already used to playing the game. Also, note that some experienced players even prefer just the basic game, so don't feel obligued to use them at all. It all depends on your tastes though.

Directly after you've played a combination of cards, you may make a promise to be the first player who will go out of cards. The value of this promise is equal to the number of cards you have in your hand at the time you make the promise. Remember this value or write it down.

You may not make a promise if someone else has already promised earlier during the hand or if the Mountain (4moons.pngsuns.png) already has been played. For this purpose it is advised that when the player holding the Mountain plays it, he also mentions that fact to the other players.

If the player who made the promise indeed managed to go out first, he gets a number of points equal to the value of his promise.

If the player who made the promise breaks it because someone else went out first, the other players distribute the value of the promise evenly among themselves (rounding up if necessary) and add them to their score.

In addition to this special scoring from promising, regular scoring also applies. Both are added to form the total score of a player for that hand. In hands were no one made a promise, only regular scoring applies. When you play with these bidding rules, regular scoring is slightly different though. In each hand players get regular points as follows:

Place 3-Players 4-Players
1st out 8 6
2nd out 4 4
3rd out 0 2
4th out 0

With bidding, the game ends when someone reaches 75 points. You may increase or decrease this boundary though, depending on how long you want the game to be.

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