Description

This is a project of an 8th grade school class in Altensteig/ black forest/ Germany. The game is about an old tradition in this city: On christmas eve big fires are lit on two hilltops in the city. Torchbearers light their torch on one of the fires and spread out in the darkness to make a torch chain across the city.

The game contains a gameboard, playing cards (people: the torch expert and torch novices, several kinds of wood needed for the torch fire = a tree and a wood base, then the wood that is to be stacked), action cards for the players to select their appropriate actions, 5 playing pieces, a torch point marker, one d6 die for dice duels and one die for the actions (one action, two actions, rainy day, unhappy face = sick torchbearers). Then there is the fire itself considering of a stack, a base and 14 wood pieces (actually from plastic).

Gameplay: Each player gets a pawn, action cards, and 3 people cards and 3 wood cards. The game has two phases: first the fire is prepared: Torch bearers have to be found, the wood has to be gathered. Then the wood is stacked. When 14 stacks have been reached (the point marker or one of the player pawns reaches past 14 wood on the game board) the fire is ready to be lit. There is a final dice throw, and then the winner is the one having advanced the furthest up the game board, meaning the one who stacked the most wood.

For the first phase a fire master is chosen - the first one rolling a 6 with the d6-die. Then each player chooses an action - gathering wood or getting torch bearers. The action die thrown by the fire master determines if an action is successful (no rainy day, no sick persons are rolled) and if successful if a single or double action is possible. If more than two players want the same action they roll the d6 to determine who can have a go.

The fire master title changes clockwise to the next player each time a turn is finished.

In the second phase the players - who have to have at least 3 torch bearer cards, one of them being an expert, first plant the tree, then the wood base, then wood stacks. For this they need to have the appropriate type and amount of wood cards. More than two people wanting to do the same roll it out with a d6. The action die determines if an action is successful (no rain), if torch bearer cards must be given up (sick persons) or an action can even be done twice. For a successful action the player pawn is moved one space up on the game board, for a double action two spaces. The point marker moves up one space up too (but only one even when two actions are made). Once the full stack of 14 is reached, either by a player pawn or indicated by the point marker, the game enters its last phase. To maximize their score each player can roll the d6. The player furthest behind has as many die rolls as are players present (e.g. player in 4th place can roll 4 times). If he/she rolls a 6 he/she can move up 4 spaces, player in 3rd place can roll 3 times and move up 3 spaces when rolling a 6 in these 3 rolls). Then the game ends and the player who is up the furthest is the winner.

Apart from the cards the game contains a 3D-woodstack to visualize the fires progress.