Rules
Introduction
Side Channels is a multiplayer deduction style game.
It's played with at least 2 players per Team. Each teams goal is, to have all their play cards covered by any Marker card. Be it your own teams marker or one of the enemy teams.
Roles
Each Team has players of 2 Roles: Agents and Coordinators.
Each Team needs at least one of each.
There can currently only be one Coordinator per Team. There is no technical limit to the number of Agents.
Role-goals
- Coordinator: Successfully communicate what cards belong to your Team by only giving a simple hint. While preventing your teammates from marking the dark card(s).
- Agents: Successfully mark play cards, belonging to your team while avoiding neutral, enemy, and the dark card(s)
Abilities
Each Role has specific abilities:
- Coordinators are able to see the Team (Color) assigned to the playing cards, but cannot interact with the Marker cards. They rely on the agents to place the markers on the correct play cards.
- At the start of their Teams turn they are able to see a hint input panel. (More on Hints later)
- They are not allowed to give further hints, than the Hint input panel allows.
- Agents are able to mark playing cards as belonging to their Team by dropping a Marker card onto it.
- They can also use Marker coins (to be implemented) to more efficiently communicate with their teammates by marking potential matches.
Hints
Hints are given by your Teams Coordinator at the start of your Round.
It consists of a Word and Number.
The word cannot be a word that is on one of the playing cards (please don't try to abuse this... I can't easily check for that...).
As a small example. Say we have this simplified board:
| Tree | Leaves | Water |
|---|---|---|
| Space | Lunch | Cat |
| Snow | Nature | Broccoli |
| and the Hint is: Forest 3 | ||
| This tells the Agents, that 3 playing cards stand in association with "Forest" |
According to that hint the Agents might mark the following cards on the board:
| Tree | Leaves | Water |
|---|---|---|
| Space | Lunch | Cat |
| Snow | Nature | Broccoli |
| Agents are allowed to place one more marker than the hint number. So in this case the agents would be allowed to place 1 more marker. |
| Tree | Leaves | Water |
|---|---|---|
| Space | Lunch | Cat |
| Snow | Nature | Broccoli |
| Sadly "Space" wasn't one of the playing cards associated with "Forest" this also ends the round. |
Card Types:
There are 3 different types of play cards:
- Neutral: Ends the turn if marked
- Colored:
- Continue round when successfully marking a card that belongs to your team.
- End round if marking enemy card.
- Dark: The Team that marks this card INSTANTLY LOOSES the game. It's the Coordinators job to prevent their Agents from marking this card.
Ending a Round.
A round can be ended in 2 ways:
- The agents Mark a play card that does not belong to their Team. So either a Neutral (White) or a colored enemy card
- Or by pressing the "End Round" Button.