Welcome to the help file for Spacer.

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How to Play Spacer?

The Meaning of the Cards?

The Meaning of the Board?


Spacer’s Rules
Playing Spacer is fairly complicated, but can be understood after a few things.  First of all, if you don’t understand the cards or the board, I suggest you go to The Meaning of the Cards or The Meaning of the Board.

As it is, the cards are grouped in such a way that there are three kinds--attack cards, shield cards, and number cards.  You play a card on the active pile, on the left, by matching the color or symbol or it being a wild card.  You play a card on the inactive pile, on the right, by matching the symbol or it being a wild card.  If you can’t play or don’t want to, click on the pile in the center.  The number cards are played as normal cards.  The shield cards reverse the direction of play and / or attack.

The attack cards are something else altogether.  The Void card will skip all players.  The Comet card is a skip-draw-two card.  The Meteor Shower card is a draw-two card.  But it’s not just as simple as that.  The Shields will repell the attack back at the player before you unless they have a sheild card as well.  Another attack card adds 2 to the count, the next player may have to draw 2, 4, 6, 8, up to 16.  The shields only effect one space, so the shooting star attack may end up attacking someone previously uninvolved.  You can match symbol in an attack or color for the shields.  Of course, the Super Shield will not have to be matched by color, but that’s the only one.  NOTE:  After the shield cards have started coming out, you CANNOT play another attack card!

The other attack card, the Sonic Boom card, will seriously mess everyone up.  It makes all other players draw three.  The only counter to this is a Super Shield.  Now, this card will reverse it onto the player who started it, then keep going in that direction.  It ends up with the player who doesn’t draw being the one who played the last Super Shield or the Sonic Boom card.  NOTE:  You CANNOT play a Sonic Boom on another Sonic Boom!  The only way to play a Sonic Boom card is to play it when the active pile and the inactive pile match the colors on the sides.

Every once in a while, the word “CLONE!” will appear on the screen.  This means someone had an exact match for the card on the screen.  Then, the player gets another turn.  Then, the game continues on as usual with the next player after the player who played the clone playing.  NOTE:  It automatically plays clones for you.

Scoring takes place in the following manner--the player who goes out ends the hand.  The other players get points based on what’s in their hands.  WARNING:  If you went out and got a score, don’t be shocked--the player who goes out gets the total score of the top cards of the two piles.  The game ends at 500, with the lowest score winning.  Points are measured as follows:

1-10:                     Face Value

Meteor Shower:   20

Comet:                 20

Shield:                  20

Void:                    30

Wild Comet:        30

Wild Void:           50

Super Shield:       100

Sonic Boom:       100


Spacer’s cards
The cards aren’t too hard to understand.  There are 10 numbered cards in each color, numbered 1-10.  Actually, there are two of each in the deck, but that’s something else.  Here are the others:

This is the Red Void card.  It will skip everyone else.  There is one in each color.

This is the Red Meteor Shower card.  It makes a player draw two cards.  There are two in each color.  Details are in How To Play.

This is the Red Comet card.  It skips a player and makes a player draw two cards.  There is one in each color.  Details are in How To Play.

This is the Red Shield card.  It reverses the play and normal attacks.  There is one in each color.  Details are in How To Play.

This is the Red-Blue Sonic Boom card.  The other one is Green-Yellow.  It causes all others to draw three cards.  Details are in How To Play.

This is the Super Shield.  It can reverse anything, including a Sonic Boom card.  And it allows you to pick the color.  There are two in the deck.  Details are in How To Play.

This is the Wild Void.  It’s the same as the Void card, except it allows you to select a color.  There are two in the deck.

This is a Wild Comet.  It’s the same as the Comet, except it allows you to select a color.  There are two in the deck.


Spacer’s Board
The board for Spacer is fairly easy to understand.  The turned-over card in the middle of the screen is what you select to draw.  Your hand is at the bottom of the screen.  The arrows that you might see on the sides are to move your hand around for if you have more than eight cards, which will happen, I’m sure.  It has happened to me and I designed it!  Anyway, the pile on the left is the active pile, and the one on the right is the inactive pile.  You place cards on these.  The upper-left hand corner has the number for the current player.  NOTE:  You are player 1.  The upper-right hand corner has the number of cards the current player has.  It stops at 6, saying just >6 when it’s more than 6.  Also, some messages will appear at the top at times.  CLONE!  means someone cloned.  Sonic Boom means a Sonic Boom attack is going on.  Fire!  means someone played an attack card.  Shield! means someone played a shield card while under attack.

The menus are pretty much self-explanatory.  If you try to restart the hand in the middle of it, you will just start a new game.  From the scoreboard, though, you’ll just start a new hand.

You may see screens where the computer says it’s drawing, or it says “Draw!”  These are just to let you know what’s going on, and will be gone in a second.  The screen with four colors and a message is self-explanatory--you played a wild card, so click on a color and we can continue playing!  The scoreboard pretty much just shows the tally for 5 seconds, then goes to the scores.  From there, about all you can do is select a menu option.  When you play on the inactive pile, it moves to the left and becomes the active pile, while the active pile replaces the inactive pile.