Emerald

The game
This game is all about treasure hunting - and a very protective mother dragon. Your mission is to collect as much gold and gems as possible in the cave. The problem is that the dragon need food for her newly born baby dragon that loves to eat small knights for breakfast. At the same time the dragon loves gold a litle bit more than she loves her baby it seems, so you can bribe the dragon by giving it some gold instead of your life.

Moving your knights
Your knights start out from the towers at the castle located on the top of the board. Each time it is your turn you can move up to two knights. But your turn ends after you have been picking a treasur or entered the inner treasure chamber (the four spots after the main part of the cave wher the treasures are located). If you are able to pick a treasure you have to pick one. This mean that you should try to first move one knight that can't take a treasure and then a knight that take a treasure.

Your knigth moves as many spaces forward as the total number of knights (yours and others) in the space where he start out from. To get your knight to move, just click it. Same goes for picking gem or gold, just click it.

Example:
In the picture below it is now GHopkins (orange) turn to move. How far each of his knight can move is indicated by the arrows. But if he first move the knight indicated by arrow number 3 he can thereafter move the knight indicated by arrow number 2 one space longer since the number of knights at space 2 then will be increased by one.

But if he want to take a treasure and at the same time move two knights he should first move 2, 3 or 4 and then one of the knights indicated by arrow number 1.

Dragon movement
The dragon roams along the four space white line you see right under the gems. This "dragon track" is initialy placed next to the entrance, but each time the dragon moves, the dragon track is moved one space to the right. The dragon moves each time a knight lands somewhere under the "dragon track". Then the dragon moves 1 - 3 spaces in the direction it is headed (it turns in the ends and continues back). Should the dragon end its move on a space where there is a knight, the knight will automatically be killed of if he has no gold to bribe the dragon with. If the player has gold he gets the option to become baby dragon food or to bribe the dragon with some gold. You have to hold the mouse over your name to bring up the bribing interface. Here you click either baby dragon or a gold card to give the dragon (the dragon doesn't care about the gold value).

The dragon can only handle one knight at the time so if knights of several different players are located on the space where the dragon lands the player that caused the dragon to move has to choose which of the knights is to be given to the dragon. This is handled in the way that a white "buble" will show up beside the baby dragons nest. Here the player click the color of the knight he wants the dragon to have.

Scoring
- Each gold card counts a point value equal to the number printed on the card ( = might not be a good idea to give the highest valued gold to the dragon)
- Each gem counts 1 point
- Bonus for gems:
* 4pt for majority (alone) in one color
* 4pt to the one that first acquires gems in all the four different colors.
- 5pt for reaching one of the four spots in the treasure chamber (the four spots you see after the end of the main cave where the gold and gems are located).

The gold you are holding you will see by holding the mouse over your name. The gems are visible to all under each players name.

When does it end?
The game ends when all the four spots in the treasure chamber are filled or when one of the players only has one knight left.

A cute litle game that it should be playable in less than 20 minutes.

Comments and/or corrections can be sent to nikita@noia.no