Rulebook.pdf

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2-6 Players

Age 8+

Overview

People in your neighbourhood have gathered together to build a pyramid out of straw, wood, and stones!

You join in happily but soon you notice there are collapses, fires, and even explosions happening. Turns out

this may not be a friendly cooperative community project after all....

Objective

Be the first to get rid of all your materials (i.e. tiles), no matter how much mayhem you may cause!

Components

There are 40 regular tiles showing straw, wood, or stone. Each tile has a unique

colour/symbol and number combination. The number represents the tile’s weight.

There are also five special tiles: two Coals, two Blowtorches, and one Millstone.

Set Up

• The tiles are distributed randomly and evenly among the players. Players put their tiles into

facedown draw piles, from which they draw up a hand of five tiles, which are hidden from the other

players.

• When playing with an even number of people, there will be leftover tiles. These are placed face up

next to each other to become part of the bottom row of the pyramid, but any Coals or Blowtorches

get discarded.

Taking a Turn

Choose which of your five tiles you’d like to play. Each turn, you must play exactly one tile. If that tile does

not fit with the ones below according to the building regulations, then you must suffer the consequences.

Place your tile on the pyramid (see next section) and resolve any subsequent mayhem.

Draw back up to five tiles (unless your draw pile is empty).

Building Regulations (Placement Rules)

In general, place your tile to form a pyramid shape. Remember that all players are building on a single

pyramid while competing to be the first to exhaust their own supply of tiles.

In the following examples, the spaces outlined with green dotted lines show the place(s) where a tile can be

played.

If there are no tiles (A) or only one on the table (B), you can play any tile you’d like. B shows the two

possible places.

(A) (B)

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As soon as there are two tiles next to each other with no tile on top of them, that is the place where you

must put your tile. (C, D, and E)

If a pyramid shape is complete, extend the pyramid’s base on either side (F).

(F)

Sometimes (after mayhem) there will be multiple free spaces on top of two tiles or between tiles in the

bottom row, in which case you can choose which space to use (G and H).

(G) (H)

Building Regulations, Part Two: Triggering Mayhem

Numbers on the tiles reflect their weight.

Tiles placed on the pyramid’s base level can be any colour (I) Colours match:

and weight (number).

Otherwise, when placing a tile on top of two others, it must

match one of them in either colour (I) and/or number (J) AND

the tile’s weight must be equal to or less than that of the sum

of the 2 tiles below (K and L) ...or mayhem will ensue

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J) Numbers match:

K) Legal placement example: The top tile (Red 6) matches one of the tiles below (Red 40) in colour and its

weight is less than the sum of the two below: 6 < 40 + 2:

L) This placement will trigger mayhem (a collapse in this case) because the top tile’s weight, 60, is more

than the sum of the two below (34):

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Collapses

If you have broken the building regulations and your placed tile mismatches the two under it and/or is

overweight, the two tiles below it collapse. They are removed from the pyramid and put at the bottom of

your draw pile. The tile you just placed moves down and over to the right or the left, your choice. That

could be the end of the mayhem, but each row of the pyramid is checked from top to bottom and left to

right to see if any other tiles don’t match or are overweight now. If so, another collapse is triggered.

Continue this process until all of the tiles fit.

Remember that collapses occur when a tile:

• Is overweight (its number is greater than the sum of the two tiles below it) OR

• Doesn’t match the colour or number of either tile below it

The Millstone

The 200 tile has every colour. Like stone tiles, it cannot burn. Due to its extra

heavy weight, it easily causes collapses if it cannot be placed low in the pyramid.

Incendiary Mayhem: Fires & Explosions

Straw Fires

The two Coal tiles of weight 1 can start a fire as soon as one is adjacent to flammable straw tiles. This can

happen if the Coal is already incorporated into the pyramid (e.g. if Coal is resting on inflammable stone or

wood tiles and a straw tile is placed adjacent to it.) The fire can spread quite far because every straw tile

that catches on fire spreads the fire to any and every other adjacent straw tile. All burnt tiles go under the

fire-starting player’s pile.

When placing Coal or a flammable straw tile adjacent to Coal, first check that the placement is legal. If not,

a collapse will ensue instead of a fire.

In this example, there is a colour match between Coal and Green 10 so a fire starts. 1) the Coal tile is

removed from the game 2) the player who placed the Coal puts the burnt straw tile at the bottom of their

draw pile.

In the next example, the Green 1 coals do not match the colour or number of either tile below, so they

collapse and go under the player’s draw pile. If the player then chooses to drop the coals to the right, it will

land where it has a colour match with Green 100 and it is too far from Blue 2 to ignite its straw.

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Wood Fires

The two Blowtorch tiles of weight 7 act in the same way as the Coal tiles, but they are more dangerous

because they can ignite both wood and straw tiles, so any fires they cause can spread quite far indeed.

The symbols remind players that Coal can only ignite straw but a Blowtorch can ignite straw and wood.

Example of a wood fire:

1. The active player has placed the blue

Blowtorch on top of Red 40 and Blue

20, a legal placement because of the

colour match and the Blowtorch not

being overweight...so a fire starts.

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2. The fire burns through the four contiguous wood and straw tiles. The Yellow 30 is shielded by the

Coal and the Red 120 (stone). Coals and Blowtorches do not spread existing fires.

3. The four burnt tiles go under the active player’s draw pile, the Blowtorch is removed from the

game, and just four tiles remain on the pyramid.

Explosions

An explosion occurs whenever two or more Incendiary tiles (Coals and/or Blowtorches) come into direct

contact with each other, assuming there has been a legal placement. Every tile, no matter its material, that

directly touches one of the Incendiary tiles goes under the active player’s draw pile and the Incendiary tiles

are removed from (that round of) the game.

When the Blowtorch was placed next to the Coal, the three tiles underneath them exploded (including the

Millstone.) The entire pyramid was destroyed!

• After any collapse, fire, or explosion, be sure to check for and resolve any subsequent mayhem

before the next player’s turn. Check and resolve from top to bottom and left to right.

• Only Coal and Blowtorch tiles that start a fire or explosion get removed from the game.

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The Curse

An Optional Variant

If three tiles of the same number form a mini-pyramid (two of the tiles next to each

other, one on top of them), either via placement or after resolving mayhem, the

curse is activated. The three tiles are removed and go under the draw pile of the

previous player. Any tiles coming off the pyramid from follow-on collapses and

other mayhem also go under the draw pile of the previous player. That player

decides the direction any tiles fall after follow-on collapses.

Only check for the curse after checking for collapses, explosions, and fires.

Checking Order

In the event of possible mayhem, events will be checked for in this order:

1. Check for collapses due to colour/number mismatches or overweight.

2. Check for explosions.

3. Check for fire.

4. Check for the curse.

A Tile on One Tile?

After mayhem, players may find they’re left with a pyramid that looks like this:

This tile is still legally placed because

it is the same colour and lighter than

the one beneath.

However, it would not be legal for the next

player to play their tile on top of only one

other (the Blue 100.)

The next

player can

only play

here.

The Fire Dice: A special variant for BoardGameArena players only

If you want to, you can activate the Fire Dice option. In this case, the behaviour of Fire changes.

First off, fires are never started by a collapse. They can only be triggered by placing coals or blowtorches

from your hand next to a flammable tile, or placing a flammable tile from your hand next to coals or a

blowtorch (as described in the rules about Fire, above). When you do that, the fire does not start directly,

but instead the Fire Dice is rolled.

The Fire Dice is a six sided dice - and depending on what it rolls, you will cause none to a lot of mayhem:

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• Rolling a Fire symbol will cause a Straw Fire or a Wood Fire (depending on the Fire tile involved).

A little symbol in the corner shows you, if the Fire Tile stays in the pyramid or is taken out of the

game.

• Rolling Smoke means: nothing happens. The game continues without trigggering any mayhem (for

now).

• Rolling an explosion causes an explosion! The coals or blowtorch and the flammable tile causing the

dice roll explode, i.e. are taken out of the game. All cards touching the two exploding cards are put

in the active player's draw pile.

In 3 out of 6 cases: Fire and the coals or blowtorch stays:

In 1 out of 6 cases: Fire and the coals or blowtorch is removed from the game.

In 1 out of 6 cases: Explosion

In 1 out of 6 cases: Smoke

A Strategic Tip

Collapses and other mayhem are not always bad. You might choose to cause a bit of mayhem to take a

small amount of damage for strategic reasons:

• To get rid of Incendiary tiles or the Millstone early

• To prevent an opponent from playing in the bottom row of the pyramid where the Building

Regulations don’t apply

• To cause a Curse

In this way, Flaming Pyramids can be a very strategic game, all the move so with fewer players. With 5 or 6

players, it is much more random and luck-dependent.

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Credits

Original game design: Norbert Abel

Please visit abelgames.net

Game production: Julia Schiller

Original artwork & graphic design: Simon Fletcher

BGA artwork modifications: Julia Schiller

Sirapope Tiyavanich

Norbert wishes to thank Jenny, Luise, & Niels

Julia wishes to thank Nicolas and Chris

And a huge thank you to all of our Kickstarter backers!

Visit flamingpyramids.com

• Watch how-to-play videos

• Read about the New Zealand flora and fauna featured on the tiles

Auckland, New Zealand