KnOctopi Deluxe

Octopi are the dragons of the sea. Just like land dragons they like to horde silver, gold, and precious gems. Join our pod as they raid a sunken pirate's treasure chest. Earn points by collecting pearls, silver pieces of 8, gold doubloons, rubies, emeralds and diamonds. Or simply race to be the first to complete your octopus' 3 arms.

But beware the sting of the jellyfish! If you have no inkblot defense you will lose the arm and all its points leaving you to re-grow the arm.

There are 3 quick reference cards included: Quick Start Rules card, Basic Strategy card, and Suggested Arm Length card. See action shots.

Expanded rules offered as a free pdf download.

SET UP

Players decide whether they'll play the points or race version, number of tiles for a full arm, and what Wild tiles can be, jellyfish-inkblot, arms pieces, etc.

Youngest player goes first. All players choose 1 Octopus (each body color offers 2 design choices because everyone says the original design looks scary, so I added some "fun" ones). Players now draw 3 tiles each. All regular tiles are freely placed, special tiles - Jellyfish, Inkblot, and Wild are held until actual play begins. Any un-played tile is held in player's facedown hold pile. Players may only have up to 3 tiles in a hold pile.

GENERAL PLAY

Players now either draw 1 tile only or trade 1 tile for 1 from another player's hold pile at start of each turn. Players decide best play strategy each turn as the game progresses.

Play continues until ANY player completes their octopus. If playing a point game all points are counted even if an arm is incomplete. Slip knots lose 1 point for the arm they are in.

Jellyfish tiles may be used to sting an opponent's arm to set them back. Inkblots may be used as a defense against this. Stung arms are re-grown. There are also 6 wild tiles, which again, players decide what they can be: points, no point filler, jellyfish, inkblots, opponent loses a turn, etc, during set up.

There is a very basic 1 player game option, attempting to complete an octopus before being stung 3 times but this is mostly random draw, download the PDF rules.

DELUXE SET vs BASIC SET

Basic Set has 4 body colors red, yellow, blue, green, and four 18 tile micro card arm sets matching these colors. Each color set includes 1 color matching Jellyfish - Inkblot pair and a blank Wild card. The point cards in the Basic set are a group of knotted arm tiles composed of two 1 point overhand, two 2 point figure 8, and one 3 point barrel knots. There are 2 slip knots in each color and they are minus 1 point (-1) each.

Deluxe set includes the basic 4 color sets and adds the colors violet and orange. The Deluxe also adds one 36 card micro deck of 6 arm tiles in each colors with: pearls, silver pieces of eight, gold doubloons, emeralds, rubies and diamonds. Both sets offer 2 body image choices per color.

An important difference is with Deluxe the color body cards are double sided. In the Basic they are separate cards. Both sets offer uncolored images to create your own unique octopus design.

Expansion Pack 1

There is currently 1 expansion pack. This was created to upgrade the 4 player - color Basic to the 6 player - color Deluxe by adding violet and orange sets and adding the gem & coin tiles. However, it offers full stand alone play for 2-4 players.