The Finguz Board

A thumbnail image of the Finguz board, a prototype version

Wait. That's the board? It's sort of crazy looking.
Well, it's a party game. What did you expect?

You're right. Let's take a quick tour of the Finguz board.

START!

Turns go clockwise around the board, so place your markers in that order on the numbered START! spaces starting with the player who won the mass Flickoff.

NO POKING ZONE

In the beginning, there is the NO POKING ZONE. Past this zone, players are immune from poking when they're on their own color spaces. (Except, of course, for when they're in Poke City. More on this later...)

The offense player wants to move to a certain space, and the defense player is trying to guess what offense will play, to slow offense down or even make them go backwards. The difference between the two players’ numbers, that’s how many spaces offense moves. It doesn’t matter who plays the higher number, it’s just always the difference.

If offense or defense plays a five and the other player plays a one, offense moves the difference: four spaces. A five versus a four means a gain of only one space for offense. You get it already, right?

You can see that the closer defense comes to guessing the number offense plays, the fewer spaces offense gets to move. But what if defense guesses exactly? Then offense moves back three spaces! It doesn’t matter if it’s five versus five or one versus one. Offense always has to move back three.

DOUBLE DRAW ZONE

Land on your own color and draw two cards from either pile, or one card from each pile.

Not playing with cards? Just ignore this part.

PLUS THREE ZONE

Add three extra spaces when you land on your own color space.

Yes, you also get a draw a card.

DOUBLE TROUBLE ZONE

Double everything that happens here:
Poking. Flickoff results. Drawing cards.

Yup, even playing a Pointer against someone here will get you two cards instead of one.

CARD CATASTROPHE CANYON

Welcome to Card Catastrophe Canyon! Here's where you really want to land on your own color space. Land on anyone else's and you have to give up one of your cards.

You can pick which of your cards you lose.

POKE CITY

Ain't nobody safe in Poke City! Yes, I know ain't ain't a word. Whatever.

Anyway, you're not safe from poking here, even if you're on your own color space.

THE DANGER ZONE

Oh, man. Things were going so well.

Life is flipped in The Danger Zone. In here, you do not want to land on your own space. Do this and you move three spaces back. See you later.

THE HOME STRETCH

You're so close you can taste it. Not recommended, though. The board is, well, original flavor.

Anyway, no special rules to help or hurt you here. But don't be surprise if someone throws a Flicker card at you right when you think you've won.


You're lucky if you happen to have a Kicker card hidden in your hand. Then you still win!

Moving

Players move from space to space. You flick off against the player whose color space you're already on. If it's your color, you get to pick your opponent.

Offense can go past spaces with other players on them already. There is no blocking in Finguz, but there’s something even better: poking!

Poking

When you land on a space with a player on it, you “poke” them. You stay where they were and they go back two spaces. Haha.

Gameplay

See the rules for now (this page under construction!).

No Dice?!? But...

Random is as random does. If you just can’t take the fact that Finguz packs strategy into what would otherwise be a random roll of dice, that’s okay. You can use a single die from any other game and re-roll a six during Flickoffs.

By the way, this is how you play a one-person game, too. You pick your number and roll a die for your "opponent."

Cards

Yup. There are cards.

Cards  add even more strategy to a Finguz game.

3-Player Version

So your fourth player went AWOL. No worries. For the color spaces without a player, just treat those like your own color spaces. Land on one and you get to pick your Flickoff opponent. Other than that, it's all the same.

2-Player Version

Hey, where is everyone? Same as the 3-Player version. Make sense?