How To Play Arlukkachase

You have begun the quest to save the world from a deadly virus and stop Darkarlukka. Do you think you are strong enough? Are your Arlukkachase powers up to the task? Maybe I should explain how you might go about it first…

A quick foreword however, the guides on how to play Arlukkachase, I found difficult to understand at times and they didn’t explain some terms or what to do in certain situations. So after doing some playtesting, I’ve come up with how I think it’s meant to be played, or some alternate rules for you to consider.

Objective

To win, Arlukkachase you need to hold the Arlukkey card in your hand for one round. It’s unclear what constitutes a round, so I played that after picking up the Arlukkey, each player has their turn and when it becomes your turn again, and you still have the key, you win. If at any point you lose the key, this ‘round’ resets. Darkarlukka can also win if all players are infected.

Settings up

To set up a game of Arlukkachase, you need to separate out the deck into marked and unmarked cards. The marked cards have a green square with a black dot on them.

2 player game -

Decide who is playing as Darkarlukka and deal them 8 unmarked cards. Deal the other player 7 unmarked cards and 1 marked Arlukkashield card.

3-5 player game -

Decide who is playing as Darkarlukka and deal them 8 unmarked cards. Deal each other player 5 unmarked cards and 1 marked Arlukkashield card.

Bonus Pile

The bonus pile that is referred to is actually 2 piles. Put all the Darkarlukka cards into one pile and all the Arlukkashields into another. Whenever a card says to draw from the bonus pile, you can choose which cards to draw from either of these piles.

Draw Pile

To construct the draw pile take all the remaining unmarked cards and add 3 Arlukkashield cards, 3 Darkarlukka cards and all the cursed cards. Then shuffle the pile. Finally, add the Arlukkey card to the bottom of the pile, face up, after it’s been shuffled.

Well done, you are ready to start the game!

Players turns

Each turn, the player whose turn it is can ‘use’ any number of cards from their hands, but they must be played one at once in case one of your opponents counters (we’ll come onto countering/battles in a minute). The rules say that this rule is optional, by which I can only imagine they mean you can change it to players can only play one card per turn, unless they are countering another player's card. It’s up to you how you play it.

When cards have been used they get added to the bottom of the draw pile. I suggest to save yourselves faffing around with the deck all the time, you just put them on a discard pile. If the deck runs out, just flip the discard pile over and continue from there. If a card tells you to shuffle the draw pile, add them together and shuffle.

If you are ready to end your turn, you do so by either drawing a card from the deck, or inserting a card into it. There isn’t a mention of where you can or can’t insert it, so I assume it can be inserted anywhere. I imagine this is mostly used by the

Darkarlukka player(s) when trying to get the other players to draw Darkarlukka cars. Or for bold non-infected players to try and stun Darkarlukka players with Arlukkashield cards.

If at any point you draw a Darkarlukka card as a non-infected player (which at the start is anyone not playing as Darkarlukka), then you become infected, lose, and are now working with the Darkarlukka player. This can only be stopped if you have an Arlukkashield card, at which point do what it says on the card. If a Darkarlukka player (which includes those infected) has, by draw or other means, an Arlukkashield in their hand, they are stunned, at which point do what it says on the card.

Attacking and Countering

Rob, Beg and Bom cards are attack cards, and peeking at your opponents cards is also considered attacking. If you are attacked by an opponent, you may try and counter them, which you can do in a few ways. In Arlukkachase you can:

● Play the same card that they played. This will turn the attack back on them but with an increase in power. So destroy 1 card becomes destroy 2, rob 1 becomes rob 2. Keep in mind the opponent can do this back at you again, and you can also do it again, and them again, and you again etc, so long as you have the cards. You get the idea. Each time it’s countered with the same card, the power increases by 1.

● Play a Reflect card. This reflects the attack back at your opponent but does not increase the power involved. Destroy 1 would still be destroy 1. Reflect can also be used to reflect, reflect cards…and you see where this is going. You can keep doing this so long as you both have reflect cards. And finally you can reflect Naah cards.

● Play a Naah card. Naah cards stop the last card played by your opponent, but it doesn’t work on marked cards. So the tricky thing with Naah cards is it says it stops the last card your opponent played, which is fine if it's at the start of a chain, job done, but what if it’s not? Or what if it’s reflected. The way I played it, is that if you are several cards deep in a chain and someone plays a Naah, then the chain ends and nobody wins. The reason I did this is if you play it

that the last card didn’t count, but the chain continues, you run into all sorts of questions I won’t list here. But it’s up to you. You can reflect a Naah, which I played as it just makes it Naah the Naah (which you can also do) like it didn’t exist. Of course they could reflect again…

My advice for these battles is try not to let them go too overboard, and just carefully work out what you are doing at each stage amongst yourselves to avoid arguments.

The last thing to be noted about these is the bonuses. If you win a battle in which 4 cards have been played, you can draw 1 card from the bonus pile. 5 cards = 2 cards from the bonus pile, 6 cards = 3. You get the idea.

Round up

Arlukkachase is a game which is both simple, but can have complex interactions. So at least while you’re learning, take your time with it and don’t be afraid to house rule something if that makes more sense to your group. Once you get to grips with it though it’s a fun quick game and I hope you enjoy it!