Description

“TWILIGHT DANCE is a Cold War themed ‘worker placement’ chaining game, in which two adversaries take turns to place and move hidden identity playing pieces on a four by four grid featuring sixteen European capitals. The city of Cold War Berlin is represented by an additional special space in the centre of the board.”

• The Print & Play game board (available in the files section)
• 16 wooden playing pieces (tokens, pawns or blocks etc) [8 each of two different colours]
• The 16 Print & Play images that need to be affixed to the underside of the playing pieces [4 Agents, 2 Moles and 2 Decoys each]

Objective of the game and how to play:
The winner of the game is the Spymaster with the most points at the end of the game. The game ends after all 16 pieces (representing KGB and SIS Agents (or Operations if you prefer) have been played out – i.e., both players’ hands of playing pieces are empty; or, after the conclusion of an agreed number of turns (usually set at 12).

Pieces are played to the board, which is a 4-by-4 grid forming a schematic representation of key European Cold War capitals, with the city of Berlin represented by an additional ‘special’ space in the middle of the board. The cities represented - in addition to Berlin - are Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, London, Amsterdam, Warsaw, Moscow, Paris Bonn, Prague, Vienna, Lisbon, Madrid, Rome and Sofia.
Points are awarded at the end of a game for each chain of two or three adjacent cities the two players have Agents or Moles in. Chains can be orthogonal or diagonal. Chains of two earn 2 points and chains of three 3 points. Berlin cannot be used to accumulate points but has a special role in the game in that it is the only location on the board in which ‘stacking’ is allowed. At player discretion however ‘supremacy’ in Berlin may be used to adjudicate ties.

Players can do one of the following five things on their turn:
1 Place one of their pieces in any one of the sixteen cities, provided the space representing that city is empty.
2 Relocate one of their own pieces already on the board to any other city, provided the space representing the new location is empty.
3 Place a piece as 1 above and then “shunt” it and all other pieces one location in any single orthogonal plane. *
4 Place a piece in Berlin or “stack” a piece on an opponent’s piece already there. (Maximum stack: one piece each.)
5 Use the topmost piece in Berlin, if it is theirs, to shunt a piece or pieces along any one of the four diagonal planes extending from the city. *

[*Note: If a piece is shunted off the board, it enters the other player’s hand, irrespective of allegiance.]

Scoring examples are illustrated in the rules located in the files section.

Notes on restrictions and other essential rules:
In the basic game, players cannot “relocate” their adversary’s pieces. They can only be moved by ‘shunting’.

Players cannot forego their turn if they possess unplaced pieces.

‘Shunting’ is orthogonal from the 16 cities comprising the 4-by-4 board. It is diagonal from Berlin.

A piece passed to a player as a result of shunting should not be examined by the shunting player. The player receiving the piece will be able to look at its hidden side once it is in their hand.

Pawns and stacking
Players preferring to use pawns for playing pieces can simulate stacking by the way the pawns are positioned in the Berlin space on the board – a Top and Bottom within the space is clearly apparent.

Variant rules
A number of variant rules can be adopted at set-up by mutual agreement of the players. These are included with the base game.

—description from the designer