The universe has expanded since scientist discovered how to tame wormholes turning them in favorite transport medium for billions of families in several universes.

Trade flourishes in every corner but the competition is fierce and building a network of wormholes is still a risky business.

Those who built the vastest network of wormholes, space stations between planetary system will own the universe.

• 81 space tiles, which picture planetary systems, wormholes, void and scientific stations.

• 10 black holes tiles.

• 20 spaceships in 2 colors

  • Each ship can be used as battleship (planetary system defense), cargo (wormhole transport), or engineers crew (scientific stations).

• Board with a 9 by 9 grid (not supplied)

The players place space tiles turn by turn. As they do so, the wormholes, planetary systems, void, and stations emerge and grow. On these, the players can deploy their ships to earn points. Players score points during the game and at the end. The player with the most points after the final scoring is the winner.

Place the starting tile face up in the middle of the board. Shuffle the remaining tiles and keep them face-down.

Each player takes 7 ships in his color and places them before her on the table as her pool.

Place a clock with a hand for the seconds in the table where all the players can see it (digital clock showing seconds would work too).

The player who has participated in more editions of the Ludum Dare will be the starting player, in case of a draw play one round of rock, paper, scissors.

Players take turns in clockwise order beginning with the starting player. On a player's turn, she executes the following actions in the order shown:

• The player must draw and place a new space tile.
• The player may deploy one of his ships from her pool to the space tile she just placed.
• if, by placing the space tile, stations, roads, and/or planetary systems are completed, they are now scored.

The player's turn is over and the next player, in clockwise order, takes her turn in the same manner.

First player must draw a space tile from one of the face-down stacks. He looks at it, shows it to his fellow players, and places it on the table, using the following rules:

• The new tile can be placed in any free position of the board.

• If placed adjacent to another tile, the new tile must be placed so that all void, planetary system, and wormhole segment on the new tile continue to void, planetary system, and wormhole segments, respectively, on all abutting tiles (stations are always complete within single tiles).

• If the card shows, at least, one arrow in the corner you must check the quadrant occupied by the seconds hand in the clock, and align any of these arrows in the same quadrant.

• In the circumstance where a drawn tile has no legal placement (and all players agree), the player discards the tile from the game and draws another tile to place.

Opposite edges of the board are considered a continuum hence tiles in the same row or column but on opposite edges of the board are considered adjacent and players must take that into account placing tiles on the edge of the board.

After the player places a space tile, she may deploy one of her ships, using the following rules:

• The player may only play 1 ship on a turn.
• The player must take it from her pool.
• The player may only deploy it to the tile she just placed.
• The player must choose where to deploy the ship on the tile either as a :
  • battleship: in a planetary system
  • or cargo: on a wormhole segment
  • or engineer: in scientific station
• The player may not deploy a ship on a planetary system, or wormhole segment if that segment connects to a segment on another tile that already has a ship (from any player, including himself) on it.

When a player has deployed all her ship, she continues to play space tiles each turn. Although a ship may not be recalled, ships are returned to players when stations, wormholes, and planetary systems are scored. The player’s turn is over and the next player in clockwise order takes her turn, and so on.

Remember: If, through the placement of the tile, planetary systems, wormholes, and/or stations are completed, these are scored before moving on to the next player.

Black hole tiles are not placed in the board. Once played they are taken from the game. The player that gets a black hole tile in her turn can do one of these actions:

• Remove a cargo from an uncompleted wormhole. This cargo is lost in an unknown universe and cannot be recovered. Take the ship from the, game it does not return to the pool of the owner.
• Exchange the position of two tiles already placed in the board. The rules to place tiles must be enforced or the exchange cannot take place (tiles might change its orientation to facilitate this task). Any ship placed on the tile remain on the original tile.

A wormhole is completed when the wormhole segments on both ends connect to a nexus (crossing), a planetary system segment, or a station, or when the wormhole forms a complete loop. There may be many wormhole segments between the ends.

The player who has a cargo on a completed wormhole scores two points for each tile in the completed wormhole (count the number of tiles; separate segments on a tile count just once).

A planetary system is complete when the planetary system is surrounded by void space with no gaps in the planetary system nor holes. A planetary system may have many planetary system segments. The player who has a battleship in a completed planetary system scores two points for each tile in the planetary system (count the tiles, not the segments). And adds a ship to her pool.

What if a completed planetary system or wormhole has more than one ship? It is possible through clever placement of void tiles for there to be more than one cargo on a road or more than one battleship in a planetary system. In a completed wormhole or planetary system, the player with the most cargos (on a wormhole) or the most battleships (in a planetary system) earns all the points. When two or more players tie with the most cargos or battleships, they each earn the total points for the wormhole or planetary system.

Exception Planetary systems or Wormhole formed with just 2 segments earns the player 2 points, not 4.

A station is complete when the tile containing it is completely surrounded by space tiles. The player who owns the engineering crew in the station earns 9 pts.

After a wormhole, a planetary system, or a station is scored, the ships involved are returned to the appropriate player's pool. The returned ships may be used by the players as any of the possible ships in the following turns.

For wormholes, planetary systems and stations that extend over the edge of the board add 2 points to the score value.

The game ends when the turn of the player who placed the last tile is finished.

For each incomplete wormhole and planetary system, the player, who has a ship ( cargo or battleship ) earns one point for each wormhole or planetary system segment. For incomplete wormholes and planetary systems with more than one ship, use the rules for completed wormholes or planetary systems to determine who scores.

For incomplete stations, the player with the engineer crew on the station earns 1 point for the station and 1 point for each space tile surrounding it.

The player who scored more points is the winner of the game.