Components

• 1 Two-sided game board
• 6 Player boards
• 27 Oracle cards
• 9 Position cards
• 48 Oracle stones
• 30 Tiles Of Disfavor
• 6 Shaman stones
• 1 Day tile
• 30 Number tiles
• 1 Hourglass.
• Instructions

Object of the Game

Setup

Place the game board on the table facing up (with the field for the position cards on the left-hand side) well within everyone's reach.

Lay the day tile on the grey circle in the box on the left of the game board and have the hourglass ready. Each player receives:

• 8 oracle stones

• 5 tiles of disfavor in the player's color, and

• 1 shaman stone, also in the player's color, which each player puts on field 0 of the score track on the game board. Once placed on the game board, each player chooses a player board.

Sort the oracle cards according to their backside (see the example sheet for more information on the oracle cards). The basic game requires only the novice cards with the grey bird on the back .

Remove the novice cards that have 1 or 2 oracle stones and put them on the 3rd and 4th field in the upper row on the game board. Now shuffle separately the remaining novice cards and position cards, and put them in 2 piles next to the game board.

Game Play

1. Lay oracle cards and position card

Move the day tile one field to the right (except for the first round). To start each round, take the top position card and lay it on the left field of the game board with the side with the three oracle stones facing up.

This position card is the 1st challenge of the oracle; it shows the formation in which 3 of your oracle stones must be laid on your player board.

Pick up the top 4 novice cards from the pile and put them on the lower row of the game board from left to right (fields with ), destined for the oracle cards.

If there are not enough cards left in the pile, shuffle all the novice cards and from the newly shuffled pile, take 4 cards, laying them on the lower row. The oracle cards and position cards are explained in more detail in the example sheet.

The fields on the right side of the game board with the light-colored birds are empty for the basic game and only come into play in the advanced game variations.

2. Place Oracle Stones

As soon as the oracle challenges are set, someone gives the command to begin. Everyone tries to complete each of the oracle's challenges on his player board with as few oracle stones as possible.

If you think you've completed all the challenges, call out "done" and turn over the hourglass. Once the hourglass has been turned over, all the other players have only as much time as the hourglass permits to complete all the challenges.

Be sure before calling out "done", because once you've said, "done", you can no longer make any changes to your player board.

3. Double-check and Move the Shaman Stones

Once the sand has passed through the hourglass, no one can lay down stones or move them around on the player board.

Player for player, each player board is examined to see how many challenges each player completed and how many oracle stones were needed.

Begin with the first challenge from left to right: whoever didn't manage to complete the challenge, has to lay one of his tiles of disfavor in the corresponding points box above the challenge. Repeat for each challenge, moving from left to right.

Once each player board has been checked for each challenge, all tiles of disfavor placed in the points boxes are counted for each player.

Then the number of oracle stones used on the player boards are added to the point total for each player, and the player's corresponding shaman stone is moved along the track of disfavor according to the point total.

Once moved, players retrieve all their tiles of disfavor from the game board.

4. End of Round

Once everyone has moved his shaman stone forward, the round is over. Pick up the position card from the game board and put it back into the box. Remove the 4 oracle cards from the lower row of the game board.

Players remove their oracle stones from their player boards and have them ready for the next round. The next round can begin following the order of play as described above.

Increasing the Level of Difficulty

Here's how you can add multiple levels of difficulty for the challenges:

• Level 1

  The game proceeds as described above with the following changes: Remove the oracle cards that have either 1 or 2 oracle stones from the game. Shuffle the novice cards and randomly lay 6 of them on the fields of the game board destined for the oracle cards .

  Leave the first two fields in the upper row with the 1 and 2 printed oracle stones empty. This increases the complexity of the challenges, as some challenges no longer have oracle stones.

• Level 2

  The game proceeds as described above in the basic game and in level 1, and includes the following changes: Now the intermediate cards with the light-colored birds on the back also come into play.

  Shuffle the intermediate cards and randomly lay 4 of them on the challenge fields with the light-colored birds . Now there are 7 challenges to complete. You can also turn over the position card so that 4 oracle stones are showing.

  Tip: You can also play Xalapa by yourself. Simply keep track of all your points of disfavor for each game on a piece of paper and compare your score from game to game to see if you can top your previous high score.

• Level 3

  The game proceeds as described above in the basic game and in level 2, and includes the following changes: Lay the expert cards with 1 or 2 oracle stones on the two challenge fields with the light-colored birds in the upper row on the right-hand side of the game board .

  They stay on the board throughout the entire game. Replace the intermediate cards with the expert cards, placing them on the two fields in the lower row.

  To make it even more difficult, you can also include the cards with 1 or 2 oracle stones in the pile of expert cards, shuffling them together. Now challenges can arise that don't have any oracle stones.

• Level 4

  The game follows the same rules as in the basic game with the following changes: Remove the cards with oracle stones and put them back into the game box. Shuffle the expert and novice cards together.

  Now randomly lay 6 of these cards on the game board (for challenges 2 to 5). Leave the fields with the printed 1 and 2 oracle stones empty. For the last two challenges, use intermediate cards as in level 2. Agree on which side of the position card to use.

• Level 5

  The game follows the same rules as in the basic game with the following changes: All oracle cards can be combined to form new challenges! So simply play without oracle cards with 1 or 2 oracle stones being first laid on the game board.

  Instead, shuffle these cards into the card pile. You can also shuffle all oracle cards together and create the challenges from these cards; you can even cover up the printed oracle cards with new cards.

You may even end up with challenges that consist of two oracle cards with oracle stones:

At least 3 stones must be laid on the player board.

Challenges can also be solved with zero oracle stones.

The same number of stones must be laid on red fields as on fields with a gecko. That can also be 0 stones on red and 0 on gecko fields!

End of the Game

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