Welcome to Eleusis!

In Eleusis, the game is all about using your detective skills. You’ll make guesses, test them out, and pay attention to what the other players are doing to figure out the right way to play.

Each time we play, one person will be the “god,” also known as the dealer. They’ll come up with a special rule for how to play the cards. The rule can be anything, as long as it’s possible to play all the cards at some point.

The rest of us will try to figure out the rule by playing our cards and watching what happens. If you think you know the rule, you can declare yourself a prophet and take over for the god. But be careful – if you get the rule wrong, you’ll be cast out and have to go back to being a regular player.

How to Set Up

So, here’s how it goes: first, I gotta come up with some rules for the round. These rules can be all sorts of things, like maybe the cards have to be red and black, or maybe they have to be even and odd but switch the order. The trick is to make the rules challenging but not straight-up impossible. Once I figure out the perfect rule, I’ll write it down and keep it a secret from everyone else.

Next up, I’m gonna shuffle the cards and deal each player 14 of ’em. I’ll keep the rest for myself, but don’t worry, those cards won’t count as my hand. Then, I’ll take some cards from the top of the leftover deck until I find some that I can play with. If I draw any cards that don’t fit the rules, I’ll just stick ’em back at the bottom of the deck.

Now, to decide who goes first, it’s gonna be totally random. No favoritism or anything like that.

GAMEPLAY

Let me tell you about the game. It might sound a little complicated, but it’s actually pretty simple to play. Each player takes turns and tries to get rid of their cards. To play a card, you just have to put it next to the last card that was played. Then, the god will decide if it’s a legal move or not.

If the card is a legal move, it stays in the main sequence of play and the next player can take their turn. But if the card is incorrect, it gets moved to a separate pile of wrong cards. And here’s the catch – the wrong cards have to be played right under the last correct card, and they all have to be in the order they were played.

Oh, and one more thing – every tenth card that gets played, whether it’s correct or not, gets a god token placed on it. Just to keep track, you know?

Strings and Penalties

When you’re playing the game, you have the option to play a sequence of cards that you believe is correct. If you decide to do this, your cards will be placed slightly overlapping each other to show that they are part of a sequence. However, if God determines that any of your cards are not correct, the entire sequence will be invalidated and removed from the game. Unfortunately, God won’t tell you which specific card is incorrect, only that something is wrong. The good news is that you will know the number of incorrect cards you played.

For every card that you play incorrectly, you will receive two additional cards to add to your hand. So be careful not to make too many mistakes!

Running Out of Cards

In the game, if I can’t play any of the cards in my hand, I can say that I have no legal cards to play. But then, everyone gets to see my hand, and the god decides if I’m telling the truth or not. If I am, and I have 4 or fewer cards, my cards go back into the deck and the game ends. But if I’m right and I have 5 or more cards, my cards go back in the deck and I get a new hand with 4 fewer cards.

But, if I’m wrong and I actually do have a legal card to play, then the god will pick a card for me and place it in the main sequence. To make up for my mistake, I have to take 5 additional cards as a penalty.

After 30 plays,

If 30 cards have been played and no one has declared themselves a prophet, you’ll be eliminated if you play a wrong card. Once you receive your two cards, the game will end either when all players are eliminated or when someone has no cards left in their hand. It’s still possible for prophets to be declared in these circumstances.

Prophets

Prophets are players who think they know the rule of the game. To become a prophet, you have to declare after playing a card (even if it’s not a legal move) but before the next player plays their card. There can’t already be a prophet chosen, and there must be at least two other players besides you and the person who is god. You can’t be a prophet if you’ve already been a prophet in this round.

So, when you become the prophet, you gotta do a few things. First, you gotta put your hand down and slap a prophet token on the last card that was played. And get this, every tenth card after that, you’ve gotta put another token on it. It’s your job to make sure nobody’s breaking the rules and to say if a play is legal or not. Oh, and if someone’s getting expelled, there’s a little twist – it gets delayed for 20 more plays. But don’t worry, the ones who got expelled before stay expelled.

The game keeps going until either everyone’s out, someone empties their hand, or you mess up and call a card wrong.

If you mess up and call it wrong, bam! You’re out. They kick you out, take away all your prophet tokens, and then god starts taking over from where you left off. You, my friend, get slapped with 5 extra cards and you keep playing like a regular player.

If you make a correct call and the prophet gets it wrong, you won’t be penalized. Same goes if the prophet mistakenly calls a card in a situation where there are no legal plays. They won’t get penalized either, but they will be outcasted.

The Game’s Conclusion

There are two ways the round can end. Either all players get eliminated or a player plays all their cards and has none left. At this point, players receive a score and a new round begins, with the dealer rotating to the left of the previous dealer.

The game can end when everyone agrees or when all players have acted as gods at least once. The winner is the player with the highest score.

Scoring

So, here’s the deal: when a game is done, I need to count how many cards I’ve still got in my hand. The number of cards I have left is called the high count. And believe me, that high count is super important because it’s gonna help me figure out the scores of the other players. You see, a player’s score is their hand subtracted from the high count. Simple as that. But wait, what if I don’t have any cards left? Well, in that case, I get the high count and four extra points. Not too shabby, huh?

And check this out: if I’m a prophet and I manage to stick around until the very end of the game, I get some extra points too. For every correct card that gets played after I took over, I score one point. And for every wrong card played, I get two points. Gotta love those extra points!

Now, let’s talk about God. Yep, you heard me right. God’s got a score too, and it’s determined by the highest score of all the players. Unless… there’s a prophet in the mix. If there is, well, things get a little different. God’s score is gonna be the total of all the cards, including the card that comes right before the first prophet marker. And guess what? That score gets doubled. But here’s the kicker: if that razzle-dazzle score is lower than the highest score, including the prophets, then that’s gonna be God’s score. Boom!

Oh, and one more thing. If the game ends before someone gets to be God, that person gets a sweet bonus of 10 extra points. Nice!