2. Table of Contents
Cover…………………………………………………………………………..Pg. 1
Story………………………………………………………………………...…Pg. 2
Game Overview………………………………..…………………...…….Pg. 3
Game Components……………………………....………….……….….Pg. 4
Reading the Cards………………………………....………………….....Pg. 5
Attack Cards……………………………………….…………………..…...Pg. 6
Defense Cards…………………………………….……………………..…Pg. 7
Movement Cards…………………………………..……………...……....Pg. 8
Player Tokens…………………………………………………….….….….Pg. 9
Game Setup………………………………………………………..….…..…Pg. 11
Player Setup……………………………….………..….……......Pg. 12
Turn Order………………………………………………......……Pg. 13
Board Setup……………………………….…………….......…..Pg. 14
Game Play………………………………………………………………….....Pg. 15
Turn Sequence……….……………………………….....………Pg. 15
Start Phase………………………………………………….....…Pg. 15
Use Card…………………………………………………....….….Pg. 15
Roll Dice…………………………………………………...……...Pg. 15
Buy Card……………………………………………….…...….….Pg. 15
Movement Phase……….……………………………....……...Pg. 15
Battle Phase…………….…………………………….…...……..Pg. 16
End Turn………………………………………………..…....…....Pg.16
General Rules……………………………………………………..…..…….Pg.17
Hacker Win Condition………………………………………………….Pg.18
Card Rules……………………………………………………….………..….Pg.19
Hacker Rules……………………………………………………………..…Pg.20
Virus Rules…………….…………………………………….…….…...……Pg.21
Credits…………………………..………………………….…………....……Pg.22
Story:
In today’s world, cyber security has gotten extremely weak and
has became vulnerable to attack. Hackers everywhere are
taking advantage of this and they need to be stopped. Hackers
on both sides of the moral coin are fighting for control of the
expansive virtual space that links nations. As a result of this
countries have built teams of extremely talented hackers to
defend and keep order in our virtual world. Hackers will take
take their place in the Great Hacking Wars inside the Omni-
present World Wide Web.
The battle started with a hacker that went rogue and released
an aggressive and crippling virus that is set on an unstoppable
warpath to annihilate the internet as we know it. A group of
hackers will have to band together, use their skills, and break
some rules in order to save the cyber world from destruction.
Virus: Originally a common computer virus that continued to
evolve and eventually gained sentience, and has thus become a
malignant program that is bent on consuming all of the
internet as we know it.
Hackers: Are a team of highly skilled individuals who were
brought together to defend against a world wide virus that is
on a path to destroy the cyber world.
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3. Introduction
The Great Hacking Wars is a turn based competitive game in which a group of hackers are making an attempt to stop a rogue hacker
that has released an aggressive and crippling virus and is set on an unstoppable warpath to annihilate the Internet, as we know it.
Attack the virus core
The hackers number one goal should be to breach the firewall and take out the virus core, they can accomplish this by having at least
three colors in the mainframe.
Avoid the Virus
A players secondary goal should be to avoid the virus player at all costs, if the virus catches up to you you may end up losing your pawn
do to loss of combat. Players can prepare for a virus attack by having already bought cards for combat, before the virus catches them.
Game Overview
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4. ● 1 Game Board with Square denoted movement
spaces (22x25)
● 4 Red, blue, green, or white glass counters to
represent Hacker 1
● 4 Red, blue, green, or white glass counters to
represent Hacker 2
● 4 Red, blue, green, or white glass counters to
represent Hacker 3
● 4 Red, blue, green, or white glass counters to
represent Hacker 4
● 4 Black glass counters to represent the Virus
● 4 x D6 and 1 x D8
● Rule Book
● 16 purple paper markers
● 16 blue paper markers
Game components
● 62 cards
o 11 attack cards
o 17 defense cards
o 34 movement cards
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5. Roll #(s) to buy card:
- Each card has one or more numbers that the player can possibly
roll in order to purchase the card of their choice.
Modifying Descriptions:
- The modifiers vary from card-to-card, some have more than one
effect, and being able to use them depends on how many of that
player’s pawns are in the mainframe.
Modifier types
Movement
- The card depicted to the right is a Movement Modifying
card. Movement Modifiers allow the player to either
speed themselfs up or slow down the virus.
Attack
- Attack Modifiers allow the players to enhance their
combat abilities in ways such as adding 3 to each roll.
Defense
- Defense Modifiers allow players to be prepared for virus
attacks. In ways such as, allowing a player to move
unharmed (virus can not attack) for up to four turns.
Reading The Card’s
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12. Board Setup
- Four hacker pawns are placed on the board, one at each of the four outer corner spaces.
- Remaining pawns go in the idle pawn(s) zone correlating to their chosen color.
- Two virus pawns are placed on the board, one at each of the closest purple lane spaces near the center.
- The Memory Bank cards are shuffled and the deck is placed face down on the ‘Draw Deck’ space.
- One Memory Bank card is drawn from the Draw Deck for each of the five Memory Bank spaces and placed face-up in the empty
Memory Bank spaces. (Card One - Card Five)
Player Setup
- This game is played with 2 to 5 players.
- There are always four hackers on the board. If the hacker team is one player short, then the other players determine which
hacker team player will control the additional hacker. Two hacker players means each controls two hackers. If there is only one
hacker player, he controls all four of the hackers.
- Players start the game by first rolling 1D6 to determine the turn order. The lowest roll becomes the virus and the highest roll
goes first for the hackers. The hacker turns proceed in clockwise order around the board after that.
Turn Order
First Hacker > Second Hacker > Virus > Virus >Third Hacker > Fourth Hacker > Virus > Virus > Back to the First Hacker
Game Setup
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13. Choosing Hacker or Virus/Order:
- First players must do an initial roll to determine who will be the virus, the winner is determined by which player had the lowest
roll.
- After the virus has been established the remaining players will roll dice to determine color. The highest roll will select desired
color.
- Second highest roll chooses from the three remaining colors.
- Third highest roll selects from the last two remaining colors.
- And the fourth Hacker is the last remaining color on the board.
Memory bank
- The cards are shuffled at the start of the game and placed in a single deck, face-down in the appropriate space as the ‘draw
deck’.
- A card is pulled from the draw deck and placed face-up in an empty memory bank space until all five memory bank spaces have
cards in them. The Memory Bank spaces should never be empty.
- One card should always be in each of the five card slots at all times.
- Remaining cards in the shuffled deck should stay at the top right-hand corner of the board in the draw card deck
- Upon using a card the player should place it in the bottom right-hand corner labeled discard pile
Game Setup Cont...
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15. Use Card
At this time the player may choose to use a card, or any number of
cards they own before they begin to roll their dice.
Roll Dice
The player then rolls their perspective dice, a D6 for the Hackers
and a D8 for the Virus, to move on to the next phase.
Buy Card
The player can choose to buy a card if the card has the same
number on the card’s description as the number they rolled mon
the dice. However, doing so will then end the player’s turn.
Movement phase
This phase allows the players to move each of their pawns around
the board.
● Players can only move one pawn per action.
● The pawn of their choice must be moved the spaces
specified by the number they have rolled.
● If player’s pawn is moved onto a space that is occupied by
the opposing faction, or adjacent to it, the Battle Phase
initiates.
Turn Sequence
● Start Phase
● Use Card (if Applicable)
● Roll dice
● Buy Card (if player chooses) or Movement Phase
● Battle phase (if applicable)
● End Turn
Start Phase
The start phase marks the beginning of each player’s turn.
This phase is mainly used by the player to scan the board
and take into account the current situation in order to help
build on their strategy.
Gameplay
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16. Battle Phase
When one hacker pawn and one virus pawn have landed on the same space or on spaces directly adjacent to each other they enter into
a Battle Phase.
When the Battle Phase commences:
● Each player decides if they want to play cards from their hand (if applicable).
○ The player can decide to play zero cards or up to as many as every card in their hand.
● Next, the virus and the hacker will both roll a D6 four consecutive times, combining the rolls for one sum total.
● When all rolls are completed, card modifier effects are taken into account to adjust the roll scores.
● After all of the adjustments are accounted for, the player with the higher modified score is the winner of the Combat Phase.
○ If the virus is the winner they assimilate that hacker’s pawn for themselves; a Purple marker is placed under converted
pawn to indicate this.
○ If the hacker is the winner the virus piece is stunned for one turn, this is indicated with a Blue marker that is placed
underneath the piece. The hacker is able to roll one additional time to move the pawn again.
End Turn
Marks the end of each players turn. It is initiated by the player either moving their pawn and finishing their actions, or by the player
buying a card.
Gameplay Cont...
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17. - Hackers start out moving throughout the outer lane.
- Hackers have to land on the slider with their color in order to move to the inner land.
- Hackers must be on one of the colored corner spaces in the inner lane in order to attempt to attack the virus’s mainframe
firewall.
- The virus pawns will start out on the edge of the firewall and move throughout the inner lane.
- Virus has to land on the top or bottom slider square to get out of the inner lane, but can use any color slider square to switch
back into the inner lane.
- Hacker must land on the slider square with their color to move from or to the outer and inner lanes.
- There are three numbers on each corner of the Mainframe firewall that correspond to each corner of the inner lane. A hacker
must successfully roll one of those numbers OR use an SQL Injection card to move into the Mainframe to down the Virus Core.
Win Conditions:
- VIRUS TEAM WINS IF: All of the hackers have no pawns on the board the virus wins the game.
General rules
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19. - Players can hold up to 5 cards maximum.
- Each card has numbers in the top-right; these are what the player must roll in order to be able to ‘purchase’ the
card with their turn’s roll.
- In the event the draw deck is empty, the discard deck is shuffled and re-added to the draw deck space.
- A player’s current cards are laid down at their sitting place, face-up and visible to all.
- Cards to be played in a turn must be played before the roll is cast.
- Likewise, in a combat phase, a card to be used during combat must be played before the roll is cast.
- Cards that last for a full turn (such as Code Ninjas) are set aside until the full turn is played, then discarded.
- Cards that are played are removed from a player’s hand and placed into a discard deck.
Card rules
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20. - Hacker players use one six-sided die [1 D6] for their actions.
- Each hacker has a single action per round UNLESS one of the hacker’s pawns entered combat with a virus pawn on her turn and
won in this case the hacker should reroll.
- A hacker’s starting place shows which color he is - this determines where additional pawns start, which spaces he can use to
change lanes.
- When a hacker rolls the dice, they can choose to buy a card with their roll (if possible) OR move a pawn.
- If a 1 or a 6 is rolled, the hacker also has the option to bring in an additional pawn as their turn’s action, up to a total of 3
times (4 pawns maximum).
- Pawns that are brought into the game in this fashion start in one of the 3 spaces in the corner that matches the hacker’s
starting color.
- Hackers do NOT enter combat when their pawn lands on another hacker’s pawn unless it has been assimilated by the virus.
- If a hacker has no in-play pawns because their pieces were assimilated, they can still roll to try and bring in another pawn
UNLESS they has already reached their 4-pawn limit.
- If a player has reached their pawn limit and has no in-play pawns under their control, they are only able to use or
purchase a card. This hacker has been locked out of the system until another hacker can free one of their pawns from
the virus’s control or they buy a card that takes the pawn back from the virus.
Hacker Rules
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21. - The virus player uses one eight-sided die [1 D8] for their actions.
- The virus player will start out with two pawns and will have two actions total per turn.
- Each virus pawn will be placed on opposite sides of the outer firewall on their labeled start positions. (Purple
squares with grey circles)
- Once the virus converts hacker pawn or uses a drawn card to acquire another pawn the virus player will have that
pawn until it is defeated by a hacker or a card is used by a hacker to convert it back from the viruses control.
- If the virus is successful in beating the hacker the virus gains another pawn.
- But if the hacker wins then the virus’s pawn is stunned for one turn; this is indicated by a blue marker that is
placed underneath that virus pawn.
- The virus then has one less action next turn.
Virus Rules
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22. Producer: Jonathan Montgomery
Story: Shawn Neal
Mechanics Designer: Lauren Holden,Anthony Cravatta, Jonathan Montgomery,
Shawn Neal, Brian Pisarczyk
Artist: Brian Pisarczyk, Jonathan Montgomery
Editor: Anthony Cravatta
Testing: Anthony Cravatta, Lauren Holden, Jonathan Montgomery, Shawn Neal,
Brian Pisarczyk
Credits
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