How to play SK8COMBO

Before you start

A round in five phases

1. 01

   Preparation

   Once the deck is shuffled, whoever saw a skateboard most recently deals 3 cards to each player, one at a time, plus one aid card each. Look at your three and pick exactly one (a trick or a special card) as the base of your combo. Put it face down in front of you, in any of the five slots in your row. The other two go to the very bottom of the deck.

   Watch out: Once it is on the table you may not look at it again. The slot you put it in is locked from now on, but the card sitting in it is not. You can swap it on your turn for one drawn from the deck or taken off the discard pile, and a rival can take it off you with a Switch Up. The new card always goes into exactly the same slot.

2. 02

   Riding blind

   The dealer gives each player 4 face-down cards from the top of the deck, and everyone fills their own row up to five cards. Do not look at them. The only one you know is the anchor you picked at the start.

   Watch out: From here the slots are locked. You may not move cards between them, and a card swapped during play must go into exactly the same slot.

3. 03

   Sk8park action

   Play goes clockwise, starting with the dealer. On your turn you draw a card from the deck. If you want to keep it, swap it with one of your five face-down cards and put the one it replaced face up on the discard pile. If you do not, discard the drawn card straight away. A special card you can either fire at once or hide in your own row, swapping it for another card, to use later.

   Watch out: Instead of drawing blind from the deck you may take the top card of the discard pile, but then everyone sees what you have. Bear in mind too that discarding a Switch Up or a Spy Drone fires its effect automatically, so you may use it if you want to. A special card picked up off the discard pile cannot be fired until your next turn: for now you have to hide it in your row, swapping it for another card.

4. 04

   Final drop

   You call the drop at the start of your turn, before you take anything. If you reckon your hidden row is a finished combo, you do not draw from the deck - you say “Drop in!” instead. The other players get one final turn to save their own layouts, or to wreck yours.

   Watch out: You are done from that moment on: no drawing, no swapping, no cards played. From here only your rivals can still stir things up.

5. 05

   Scoring

   After the final turn everyone reveals their cards and counts. If you have the most points after calling the drop, your total score +the combo bonus is doubled.

   Watch out: If a rival scores more than you, or ties with you, you take a -10 point penalty and every card of yours is worth 0. In both cases the rivals record their points as normal.

Points and combos

Every trick is worth its place on the ladder. Combos add a bonus on top.

Worked example

Special cards

• 

  Spy Drone

  Secretly peek at any single face-down card, yours or an opponent’s. After use, the drone goes face up on the discard pile.

• 

  Switch Up

  Blindly swap one of your face-down cards with a rival’s, or swap two face-down cards between two rivals. You may not look at either card, neither the one you hand over nor the one you take. The new card must go into exactly the slot the old one held.

• 

  Wipeout!

  A trap card. At the end of the round the cards next to it are worth 0 points and count toward no combo. The Wipeout itself is worth 0 too. On the edge of the row, in slot 1 or 5, it zeroes only the one card beside it.

• 

  The G.O.A.T.

  The wild card. It stands in for whatever card a combo is missing. If it does not help you build one, at the end of the round it counts as a card of its own worth 15 points. If it does complete a combo, it takes the missing card’s value and loses its base 15.

Who wins

You play round after round and add up the scores. The first skater to hit the target you picked at the start wins. On a tie, it goes to whoever held the highest-scoring combo in the final round.