Components

• 60 population cards
• 40 Raxxon cards
• 6 character sheets
• 1 game board
• 60 action tokens
• 1 Raxxon token
• Instructions

Object of the Game

Game Elements

Setup

1. If playing the intro level game, place the following population cards back into the game box: 5 hostile, 3 family, 2 celebrity, 4 chaotic, 4 carrier, 4 volatile.

2. Place the game board and action tokens in reach of all players.

3. Separate the healthy population cards from the infected population cards. Shuffle the infected cards and deal a number of them facedown into a pile. The dealt depends on the difficulty level the players choose, as noted in this table.

   
   
   

4. Shuffle the dealt infected cards into the healthy population cards and form a facedown population draw pile.

5. Form a facedown infection supply pile with the remaining infected cards.

6. Have each player choose a character sheet, placing it in front of them with the side matching the player count face-up. Place all unused character sheets back in the game box.

7. Shuffle the Raxxon deck and form a facedown Raxxon draw pile.

8. Mark Raxxon's power at 0 on the game board using the Raxxon token. character sheet

9. Randomly choose a first player.

Day Order

The game takes place over a series of rounds, called days. Each day contains the following phases in order:

1. Crowd Setup: Population cards are dealt into a facedown grid to form the crowd.

2. Player Actions: Players investigate cards, manipulate the crowd, and attempt to move healthy cards to the evacuation pile until the end of day is triggered.

3. End of Day: Action tokens are removed from character sheets and infected cards that are on the loose infect the population.

Crowd Setup

During crowd setup phase, create the crowd for the day by dealing cards from the population draw pile facedown into a grid. The number of cards in the grid is determined by the number of players in the game:

If there are not enough cards to create a full crowd, deal out successive rows until the population draw pile runs out.

Adjacency

Cards immediately above, below, to the left or to the right of each other in the crowd are considered to be adjacent.

Cards diagonal to each other are not adjacent. Cards with space between them are not adjacent.

Player Actions

Once the crowd is set up, starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player may take a turn or pass. Once a player passes for any reason, her entire turn is skipped for the rest of the day.

Play continues to move clockwise around the table for those who have not passed until all players pass or until a card effect showing the end of day icon triggers.

At that time, the player actions phase ends immediately and end of day begins.

When taking a turn, a player must resolve the following steps in order:

1. Trigger all her character's consequences.
2. Choose an available action on her character sheet.
3. Perform the chosen action.

Triggering Consequences

When triggering consequences a player must move from top to bottom on her character sheet, triggering the consequence above each action token. If there are no action tokens on a player's character sheet yet, no consequences trigger. If an action has more than 1 token next to it, resolve them from left to right.

Choosing an Available Action

The top action of each player's character sheet (always Investigate) does not require an action token and can always be chosen.

Any other action is available to be chosen if there are one or more empty action token spaces next to that action.

After choosing one of these actions to perform, place an action token on the leftmost empty action token space next to that action.

Performing an Action

The player character sheets describe how to resolve each action. Actions include:

Game Icons and Effects

Killing Cards: When population cards are killed due to a game effect, place them in the population discard pile. During the end of day phase, the population discard pile is shuffled back into the population draw pile, so killed cards are not gone forever.

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  Whenever a population card is killed, if the killed card has this icon on it, immediately resolve the effect listed after the icon, whether the card was face-up or facedown.

  
  
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  Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, the infection rate rises. Draw the top card of the infection supply and place it face-up in the population discard pile. If the infection supply is empty when this icon triggers, the players immediately lose.

  
  
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  Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, the active player draws the top card of the Raxxon draw pile and reads the trigger to see if the card resolves.

  If the italic trigger applies, read the card and follow its instructions. Any choice offered by the card is made by the active player unless the card says otherwise. Resolve text effects and icon effects (at the bottom of each card) based on the result. Then place the card in the triggered Raxxon pile unless the card says otherwise.

  

  If the italic trigger text does NOT apply, place the card in the untriggered Raxxon pile and move on. Occasionally, a card effect will instruct a player to shuffle the untriggered Raxxon pile back into the Raxxon draw pile.

  
  
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  This icon on some actions offers a player an optional effect. If a player chooses to resolve the effect that follows this icon, draw a Raxxon card after completing that action. If the player declines to use the effect, do NOT draw a Raxxon card.

  
  
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  Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, increase the Raxxon's power track by 1. When the track reaches 8, the players immediately lose.

  
  
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  Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, immediately end the player actions phase and proceed to the end of day phase.

  
  
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  Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, immediately move a HOSTILE card from the evacuation pile to the population discard pile.

  
  
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  Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, draw the top card of the population draw pile without looking at it and place it facedown in the crowd. The player adding the card may choose where to place it, following these rules:

  • The card must be placed adjacent to as many other cards as possible.

  • If the crowd is empty, the card is placed in the middle of the table alone.

  • The maximum width/height of the crowd is 6x6. A card cannot be placed that would make the crowd any wider or taller than 6 cards.

  • If the population draw pile is empty, shuffle the population discard pile to form a new population draw pile. If both are empty, nothing happens.

  
  
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  Whenever a game effect triggers this icon, the active player flips a facedown card in the crowd face-up. If all cards in the crowd are already face-up, nothing happens.

  
  
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  After flipping a card face-up, if the flipped card has this icon on it, count the number of cards of that specific population type face-up in the crowd, including the just- flipped card.

  If that count matches a numbered effect on the card exactly (not more or less), resolve the effect. See "Example: When Flipped" below.

  
  

End of Day

Once all players have passed or triggers, resolve the following steps in order:

1. The Crowd: Flip all remaining cards in the crowd face-up. (Do not trigger any effects at this time).

   
   
   

2. The Infection Spreads: Count the total number of infected cards in the crowd and in the uncontained quarantine. Trigger that many times, up to a maximum of 4.

   
   
   

   In this example, there are a total of 4 infected cards inthe crowd and uncontained quarantine. So 4 cards would be moved from the infection supply and placed face up in the population discard pile.

3. The Population: Move all cards from the crowd and uncontained quarantine to the population discard pile, then shuffle the population discard pile into the population draw pile.

   
   
   

4. Ongoing Containment: Move all cards in the contained quarantine to the uncontained quarantine.

   
   
   

5. Clear Character Sheets: All players clear all action tokens from their character sheets.

   
   

   In this example, Thomas Heart had 4 action tokens on his character sheet. All of these are removed during the end of day phase.

   
   

Once the end of day phase has been resolved, continue on to the next day. The player to the left of the most recent active player becomes the first player in the new day.

End of the Game

The game can end in 3 ways:

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