Transcript
From Totempole to Waterfall for 3 to 6 players CANYON is a revised reissue of the classic game Bid and Bluff, which was first released in 1972 in the USA. The happy hunting grounds are closed for repair, the buried hatchet is nowhere to be found, the buffalo herds have gone on holiday, and the palefaces have decided to drink their firewater themselves rather than sell it to the Indians. All this means that the young Indian braves have to find new forms of entertainment, and since Manitou has decided to let more water than usual flow through the canyon, they decide to organise a canoe race through the rapids.
Contents
30 Tempo cards, 6 sets, each with values from 0 - 4 50 Playing cards, 5 suits, each with values from 1 - 10 The Game Board
6 Indian Canoe playing pieces.
1 black Round Marker .
Preparation • Each player should choose a playing piece, and takes the matching set of tempo cards. • Then choose a player to start. Starting with this player, and continuing in clockwise order, each player places their playing piece on one of the six starting spaces on the board.
• Black Round Marker should be placed on the space marked "1", of the the Round Counter on the board. • Shuffle the 50 playing cards well and deal one to each player. The player who gets the highest card is then Dealer for the first round, the player to their left is the Starting Player, and is first to play in the first round. In subsequent rounds, the positions of Dealer and Starting Player move one place in a clockwise direction per round.
Aim of Game and Course of Play The first canoe to reach one of the three landing stages in the Indian Village wins the race. In order to achieve this, CANYON is played over several rounds, each round consisting of five phases
1) 2) 3) 4) 5)
Deal cards. Predict speed. The Card Game. Movement of Canoes. Move Round Marker one space further.
Phase 1 Deal Cards The Dealer for the round shuffles the 50 playing cards well, and deals the number of cards shown on the Round Marker to each player. In the first round, this will be 8 cards per player. The dealer then turns
over the topmost card of the remainder and places it face upwards next to the deck. This card shows which suit are trumps during this round. The remaining cards are not used during this round.
Phase 2 Predict Speed Once all the players have had a good look at their cards, each has to decide how many tricks (see Phase 3) they expect to win in this Round. Starting with the Starting Player for the Round, each player in turn turns over one or more Tempo cards to show how many tricks they expect to win. There is no need for the sum of the Tempo cards turned over to equal the number of tricks in the Round. In the unlikely event that a player thinks that they will win more than four tricks, they should turn over two or more Tempo cards to equal the sum of tricks that they think they will win. For example, if they think that they will win
6 tricks, they could turn over a "4" card and a "2" card to give a sum of 6. Example: Anja thinks, after looking at her cards, that she will win 2 tricks. She therefore turns over her "2" tempo card and places it in front of her for all to see.
=6
Phase 3 The Card Game Once all players have turned over their tempo cards, they can start the real card game. The current Starting Player plays the first card. Each player in clockwise order must then play a card. They must follow suit if possible. Ie they must play a card of the same suit as the first card played if they have one. If a player doesn't have a card of the suit first led, they may play a card from any other suit, they need not play a trump unless they want to. Once every player has played a card, they must look to see who has won the trick. If all the cards played were of one suit, or only from non-trump suits, then the highest numbered card in the original suit wins the trick. If however, one or more cards from the trump suit have been played, the highest numbered trump card wins the trick.
The winner of the trick takes all the cards from that trick, and places them in front of them as a face down pile. If the player wins more than one trick during the Round, they should place the tricks so that the other players can see how many tricks they have won. The player who won the last trick leads to the next. Example: The Green cards are trumps for this round. Anja starts and plays the Blue 7, Bernd follows suit and plays the Blue 8, Carola plays Blue 3 and Dirk plays the Red 9. Bernd wins the trick since he played the highest numbered card in the suit that was led. Bernd then leads to the next trick. If Dirk had played the Green 9 rather than the Red card, he would have won the trick.
Phase 4 Move Canoes Once all the cards have been played, the players move their canoes in turn, starting with the current Starting Player and continuing in clockwise order until the Dealer is the last to move. Basically, each player moves their canoe as many spaces forwards as they have won tricks. If, for example, a player wins three tricks during the Round, they may move their canoe three spaces forwards. Additionally, a player may get a bonus if they win the same number of tricks as they predicted with their tempo cards. The higher the tempo card played, the greater the bonus, as shown on the bonus table on the board: • If a player predicts that they will win 0 tricks and this proves correct, they get a bonus of 1space.
• If a player predicts that they will win 1 trick and this proves correct, they get a bonus of 2 spaces. • If a player predicts that they will win 2 or more tricks and this proves correct, they get a bonus of 3 spaces. A player may never get a bonus of more than three spaces per round. Example: Anja predicted that she would win 2 tricks, but in fact won 3. She doesn't get a bonus, and moves her canoe 3 spaces. Bernd predicted 1 trick, and won just 1. He moves 3 spaces, (1 for the trick and 2 bonus spaces). Carola predicted that she wouldn't win a trick, and was right, she moves her canoe 1 space. Dirk predicted 4 tricks, but only won 2, he only moves his canoe 2 spaces.
Canoes may be moved forwards, sideways, backwards or diagonally. They must be moved forward where possible, they must move as far towards the finish as they possibly can.
A canoe must use all the movement points available to it during a turn if at all possible, only if the river is completely blocked, may points be "wasted". Canoes may only move over water spaces, rocks and shore spaces are impassable to canoes.
Only one canoe may occupy each space at a time. Canoes may not "leap" other canoes. A canoe may not pass through the same space twice during the same move.
Examples of movement Bernd (B) has 2 movement points to use, and it is his turn to move. He has only one choice, he must move diagonally between the island and C, finishing one space in front of C, blocking her way forward.
Carola has 3 movement points to use and it is her turn. Since however her way forward is completely blocked by Anja, (A), an island, and Bernd (B), she is entirely unable to move.
Dirk (D) has 3 movement points and it is his turn, Since his way forward is blocked, he has to move diagonally backwards for a space before he can move diagonally forward to finish alongside Bernd
Carola (C), has two movement points to use, and it's her turn. She would like to stop in the narrows and block B from further movement, but it is possible for her to move forward by moving diagonally alongside A and so she must do so.
Rapids and the Waterfall The last 7 rows of spaces before the finish are marked with arrows. This indicates that this stretch of the river consists of rapids, and special movement rules apply to canoes on these spaces. If a canoe moves from a normal space onto one of the rapids spaces, it moves in the normal way. If however, a canoe starts it's move on one of the rapids spaces, they may only move further if they win exactly the same number of tricks as they predicted, and in this case, they only move the number of the bonus, rather than the normal "number of tricks won plus bonus". If a canoe starts it's turn on one of the rapids spaces, and the player does not win the number of tricks they predicted, they do not move forwards but instead, the canoe is moved one space in the direction shown by the arrows. If this leads to them moving into a space already occupied by another canoe, that canoe is also pushed one space sideways. It is possible for a "chain reaction" to take place, causing several canoes to be pushed in the direction of the Waterfall. If this involuntary movement causes a canoe to fall over the Waterfall, the experienced Indian canoeist saves himself by quickly paddling to the bank and finds their way back to the river
through the cave shown on the board. The net effect of all this is that they start their next turn at the landing stage at the mouth of the cave. This is the only space on the board that can be occupied by more than one canoe at a time. Examples of movement on Rapids Spaces: Anja has predicted 2 tricks, and achieves this. She therefore moves 3 spaces forwards (bonus). Bernd predicts 0 tricks and achieves this, he moves 1 space forwards (bonus). Carola predicts 2 tricks but wins 4. This means that she may not move her canoe forwards, but it is carried one space in the direction of the arrow. Dirk predicted 4 tricks, and got them. He therefore moves 3 spaces forwards. An example of the action of the rapids: A and B have already made their moves. Now it's C's turn, but she hasn't won the same number of tricks as she predicted, and so she is carried by the force of the stream one space in the direction of the arrow. This causes her to push A one space to the left, which in turn pushes B over the Waterfall. B must therefore retrace his steps through the cave and starts the next round from the landing stage at the mouth of the cave.
Phase 5 Move Round counter one space further on Once all the canoes have been moved, you should move the black round marker one space around the Round Counter on the board. The first time that you do this, it reduces the number of cards for the next Round from 8 to 7. Each further Round sees the number of cards in play reduced until it reaches 1. After this Round, the number of cards in play increases again at 1 per Round until it gets back to 8. .
Should a game last longer than 14 Rounds, play continues as per Round 1 and so on. Although the Rounds with just one or two cards per player are great fun, it is true that the luck factor is extremely high in these rounds. If you wish to reduce the luck factor in this game, you may skip rounds 6, 7, 8 and 9, which are marked with a darker background on the Round Counter, and go directly from Round 5 to Round 10.
The Starting Player from the previous Round now becomes the Dealer for the current Round, and must shuffle the Playing Cards and deal them out. In the second round each player gets 7 cards as stated above. The player to the left of the Dealer becomes the new Starting Player and leads to the first trick. Play continues in this way until the game is over.
Game End and Victory The first player to move their canoe to one of the three landing stages in the Indian Village, wins the game. Should more than one player reach the stages in the same Round, the player whose canoe has the
most unused movement points wins ("Furthest past the post"). If this still fails to divide the players, the player who played the higher tempo card in the last Round wins.
Author: Frederick A Herschler Comic: Sascha Krämer Development and Production: Grünspan Spiele
This Translation John Webley Graphics, Franz Vohwinkel Copyright 1997 ABACUSSPIELE Verlags KG 63303 Dreieich, Germany. All rights reserved
"He's being very patient with the new paddlers",
"True, but I still think he'd do better if he told them that it's the thick end of the paddle that goes in the water"
