The Next Thing

In THE NEXT THING, playing stones represent clouds. Players take turns adding them to the board, trying to predict which picture will emerge first.

The player who predicts better, and who is best able to influence the course of the game in their favor will come out as the winner.

THE NEXT THING is a fun, fast-paced game with a very simple rule set yet surprisingly complex strategies. You will need to use both your social and pattern recognition skills to guess what other players are betting on, and your wits to outsmart them.

This game is suitable for kids and adults alike.

How does one play "The Next Thing"?

We start from a random combination of playing stones on the board. Then, we deal six pattern cards on the game table, and label them with numbers (please refer to the rulebook in the Downloads section for a detailed description of the setup):

Does what you see on the board look like any of the patterns?

As we play, everyone will be adding stones to the board until one of the patterns is built. Which of them will it be?

Everyone makes a secret bet by putting a betting card of their color into the queue. Players will be working on making sure the patterns they bet on get built first.

To offset the first player's advantage, these initial bets are done in counterclockwise order.

Now the player who made their bet last makes the first move. During this move, they add a stone to the board and place their second bet.

Every turn, players can place up to three stones on the board, but it usually makes no sense to place more than one when you are not completing a pattern. Stones are also victory points that you are trying to collect, so don't waste them for no benefit!

After the first round, the board may look like this.

Each player cannot have more than two bets in the queue, so the queue will not grow any further. If you want to change one of your bets, the new one will go to the end of the queue.

What are your opponents betting on? No one can say for sure, but you may try to guess based on the other players' moves. Note that by placing a stone a player may not only help to build "their" pattern but several others. With some luck, you can have other players inadvertently helping you reach your goal!

We keep adding one stone at a time for another round.

Now the Green player realizes that they can add two more stones and complete the CITY pattern. (Did you see it coming?)

This is not what most players were expecting. In fact, another player was preparing to complete LIKE this turn. (Can you find it on the board?)

If you haven't found it yet, here are the stones that matched the CITY pattern, highlighted:

All bets on CITY are revealed. CITY is labeled with the number 2, so the 2s in the queue are turned face up.

The Green player takes a stone from the prize pile, and six stones off the board. Out of these stones, they only need to give two to the Blue player as they had the second bet in the queue. The rest of the stones the Green player keeps for themselves.

Thus they spent 2 stones to finish the pattern but got 5 stones back, gaining 3 stones this turn. The Blue player also did well, receiving 2 stones out of turn only for having number 2 in the betting queue!

Finally, we replace CITY with a new card (it turns out to be TREE this time), the Green and the Blue players make new bets, and the game continues until there are no stones left in the prize pile.