A Planetary Colonization Game Played On A Sphere

This is a game of Pantropy and Terraforming, played on a Hoberman Sphere, for three or four players. The player must balance the strategies of mega-engineering the planet to fit the colonists, or bio-engineering the colonists to fit the planet. Through the game the colonies diverge into human subspecies until the planet is irreversibly transformed to be habitable by the winning global techno-ecology.

Expand the sphere to full size and hang it above a table. On the table, each player has in his/her own color: 8 habitats, 5 arcologies, a bag of 180 atmosphere rings, and 1 shuttle. Each player gets a production cost menu chart. Each slot in the chart is painted with a color. The game has a bag of chips in all six colors of the sphere. From that stash, insert a matching colored chip into each slot on your chart. There are dice with colors instead of numbers. Give the 4-sided die to the first player, the 6-sided die to the second player, the 10-sided die to the third player, and the 12-sided die to the fourth player. If there are only three players, leave the 12-sided in reserve with the 20-sided.

Setting Up

The first player hangs one habitat on an intersection of the Hoberman sphere and clips three atmosphere rings on a strut of the sphere, between intersections. The strut has 3 joints around which to clip a ring, so there are 3 places for rings on each strut.

Go around clockwise and let each player place a habitat and 3 atmospheres. All habitats must be at least two intersections away from any other habitat. Then the player who went last gets to place another habitat and 3 atmospheres coming out of each. Then go back around counter-clockwise until all players have two habitats and a total of 6 atmospheres on the sphere. When you place your second habitat, take two resource chips: one each of the two color rings that habitat touches.

Step 1 of Your Turn: Roll the Dice

Although each player has a die of his or her own, the 8-sided color die is passed around. All the other dice are called the swappable dice, but this is called the permanent die, and it is always in play. It has one side each of red, blue, yellow, green, purple, and orange, and two black sides. When it’s your turn, roll this die along with whichever swappable die is in your possession.

Step 2 of Your Turn: Resolving the Result of the Dice Roll

When the dice are rolled, as long as the 8-sided die doesn’t come up black, look for all habitats and arcologies hanging from intersections on the sphere that have one of those two colors. Each one touching those colors gets a chip, but it’s a chip of the other color on that intersection! Not the one that was rolled! So if you roll red, and there is a habitat on the intersection of red and green, it gets green. If there’s another habitat on the intersection of red and orange, it gets orange. If both colors of an intersection are rolled, then the habitat on that intersection may receive one chip of each. If both dice come up the same, each habitat on the ring of that color receives two chips: one of each of the colors on its intersection.

If the 8-sided die comes up black, you have a choice of either Pantropy or Terraforming.

Terraforming means changing the planet to fit the colonists. This changes the resource-producing conditions. If you roll black and choose Terraforming, the color on the swappable die is resolved as if it were the only die rolled. Then, swap anyone’s swappable die for any other die of your choice, including the one that’s out of play. Since the swappable dice have different colors and numbers of sides, this affects the likelihood of different colors:

Pantropy is a term which means changing the biology of the colonists to fit the planet. If you roll black and choose Pantropy, no resources are produced. Take a chip from your menu chart of the color which was rolled on the swappable die, and swap it with any other chip in your menu. That changes your building cost, effective on this turn.

Step 3 of Your Turn: Trading and Building

After distributing resources, or Terraforming or Pantropy, you may trade resource chips with any other player. When it’s your turn, no trades may occur at this time unless they are with you. You may also trade in 5 of any one resource to Earth (the bank) for 1 of the resource of your choice. Then you may exchange chips with Earth to build things according to the costs on the menu. You may build as much as you desire at one time, as long as you can pay for it. When you’re done building, your turn is over. Pass the 8-sided die to the next player.

Things You Can Build

ATMOSPHERES: Pay a blue chip and a red chip. Clip a new ring on a joint that connects to another joint that already has one of your atmosphere rings on it. In this way, your species’ atmosphere is spreading around the planet. When your path is blocked by another player’s atmosphere ring, you may take it off and replace it with yours, as long as you can pay for it. Atmosphere spreading is blocked by arcologies of other players, but not habitats. A chain of your atmosphere may not be lengthened if it is interrupted so that it no longer connects to your habitats or arcologies.

HABITATS: A habitat costs one chip each of red, blue, yellow, green & orange. Like atmospheres, any new habitats you build must touch an atmosphere you already have. They may be built on an empty intersection at least two struts away from any other habitat, or one strut away from an arcology of your own color.

ARCOLOGIES: By turning in two yellow, one orange and two purple chips to earth, you receive a arcology. Remove a habitat you already have and replace it with one of the big ornament bulbs. From now on, it gets double the resource reward. Also, it relaxes the crowding rule. Because of the ecological diversity of a arcology, it is legal for a new habitat to be built on the intersections adjacent to an arcology of your color, as long as it is at least two struts away from or an arcology of another color, or any habitat.

SHUTTLE: Turn in one red, one blue, and one green chip. Hang your shuttle on the string of any habitat or arcology, of any player. From then on, you may exchange three of your chips of one of the colors at the node your shuttle is currently hanging from, for one of any resource from earth.

CARDS: For one chip each of green, yellow and purple, you may draw the top card from the deck. Except when specified otherwise, you may keep cards until you choose to play them, you play them between rolling the dice and passing the permanent die, you may play only one card per turn, and you put them in the bottom of the deck when played.

Thanks to Anders Sandberg for the use of his images.

Orbital Mirror lets you build three atmospheres. Each other player must build one atmosphere in turn. Then play resumes from wherever it left off.

Soil Bacteria lets you build six atmospheres free of cost when you play it.

Solar Shade allows you to remove any three atmospheres, of any color, from the sphere.

Space Elevator requires paying one chip of each color, red, blue, yellow, green, purple, and orange. Keep the card on the table in front of you. Your exchange rate is now three to one on any resource until someone else plays a Space Elevator card.

Shuttle moves your shuttle off of any structure, or moves another player’s shuttle off of your own structures. You may place it on any structure on the sphere.

Aquifer liquifies a giant subterranean cache of ice. Choose a color. All players give you all their chips of that color.

Guided Comet. Exchange a chip on your building menu for a chip of any color from the bank.

Luddite Legislation may be played when any player plays any other card, to cancel that card, which is lost. Or it may be played when any player rolls black, to prevent Pantropy or Terraforming. The game has Technocalypse cards in reserve which are not in the deck. When you play a Luddite card, instead of discarding it in the bottom of the deck, you shuffle it in, and take a new card from the Technocalypse reserve and shuffle it into the deck as well.

Technocalypse: Any player who draws a Technocalypse card sets it face-up in a countdown area and draws another card. If the total number of Technocalypse cards drawn by all players reaches five, the world is consumed by self-reproducing technologies that were developed illegally by rogue factions because the open societies banned research and didn’t get to them first. All arcologies become habitats, the space elevator is discarded, and any player with eleven or more chips must discard half of them, rounded up. The Technocalypse cards are then put back in the reserve. It is permissible for Technocalypse to result in habitats adjacent to each other, because the crowding rule only applies to building them, not demoting them. If you do not have enough habitat pieces to replace your arcologies, you must leave some of their intersections empty.

Ending the Game

When all the joints of the sphere have atmosphere rings on them, the game is over. Whoever has the most atmosphere wins. The ecology is the same inside and outside of that player’s habitats. Everyone else has to go on wearing breathers outdoors for the rest of their lives.