Disco Infinity

Intro

Disco Infinity is a 1v1 deck building game set in a far off galaxy where an enterprising real estate developer discovered a planet where the patrons of his disco club could dance while time stands still. Rumors of the time manipulation possible on this planet have attracted several factions to come and compete to invent time travel.

Objective

The goal of the game is to accumulate 10 Research, inventing time travel. The game ends immediately as soon as either player gains their 10th Research.

There is a secondary win condition as well. If a player is unable to place a card on their turn, they immediately lose the game.

Research are represented by tokens that are put on the board in the space where they were gained.

Deck Building

You and your opponent each start the game with a 14 card deck where each card is unique. At the end of each round, you have the option to add a new card to your deck. From the start, each player's strategy will be dependent on the cards they start with, and this will influence the decisions you make about what cards to add to your deck.

Whenever you acquire a new card, it is first placed in your discard pile, and any time you are unable to draw a card because your deck is empty, shuffle your discard pile to form a new draw pile and continue to draw as needed.

Game Structure

• 2 players sit across from one another with the play space between them.
• Each player has a draw pile, a hand, and a discard pile.
• The game board consistes of 3 rows. In the center is the timeline where cards are placed. Then each player has an orbit row between them and the timeline. This is where satellites (persistent effect cards) go after they have been placed in the timeline. (More on satellites later).
• Players take turns placing cards in the timeline until all timeline spaces are filled.
• Starting from space 1, timeline effects of each card are triggered in order from space 1-8.
• The game ends immediately when a player meets any of the win conditions.

Start the Game

Shuffle all the cards, and deal 14 cards to each player. Each player may look at their cards and then shuffle them and put them face down into the spot for their draw pile. The pile of cards remaining that are not dealt to the players is placed into the spot for the draft deck.

Randomly choose which player will go first. Both players draw 6 cards from their draw pile and begin the game.

Playing a Round:

Round Structure

Each round consists of the following phases:

• Start of Round
• Placement Phase
• Resolution Phase
• Draft Phase

Start of Round

• At the start of each round, draw 6 cards from your draw pile into your hand.

Note on Hand Mechanics:

Any time you are unable to draw a card because your deck is empty, you shuffle your discard pile to form a new draw pile and continue to draw as needed. - Whenever a card tells you to draw a card, always draw from your draw pile.

Placement Phase

• During placement phase, players take turns placing cards into timeline spaces until all timeline spaces are filled.
• You are allowed to slide a card out of a space in order to place a card there. You may not slide a card off the board.

Resolution Phase

• Starting from space 1 and moving down the row, resolve the timeline effect of each card in order.

At the end of this phase, all cards from your hand and from the timeline (except those in the orbit row or trashed) move to your discard pile.

Important: Only shuffle your discard pile into your draw pile when you actually need to draw a card and your draw pile is empty—not before. This matters because newly acquired cards go to your discard pile first.

Game Board

The central piece of the board is the timeline. The timeline is 8 spaces, numbered 1-8. These are called Timeline Spaces. This is where you and your opponent will compete to create sequences that advance your agenda and stop your opponent from advancing their agenda. Once a round starts, you and your opponent take turns placing cards into the timeline. Every time you place a card, you may place your card in any timeline space, and if necessary you may slide other cards out of the way.

This means that before the last card is placed, the timeline space that a card occupies is ambiguous. It also means that the player going last in the round has the advantage of being able to place the final card and guarantee the timeline space it is placed in. Players take turns going first each round.

TODO: Create some really nice diagrams of this!

Some cards have an effect that triggers on Placement. This is denoted by the card section "Placement:" in the yellow section. If you place a card with such an effect, do what the card says in the Placement section when you put it in the timeline. Often these effects can help you rearrange other cards in the timeline or have other immediate impact on the game such as moving a satellite or getting a card out of the trash pile.

Once all 8 cards have been placed in the timeline, their timeline effects trigger in order from Space 1 to Space 8. Begin in Space 1 and do what the card says in the ">>:" section, and go in order to Space 8. After the cards in all 8 Spaces have been triggered, the Resolution Phase is over.

Satellites

One type of card has the ability to stay on the board at the end of the round. Satellite cards' default timeline effect is that they launch into your Orbit Row. This is the row between you and the timeline. The satellite launches into the orbit space aligned where it was triggered. The satellite will generally stay in that place until it is either destroyed or moved.

Note: Satellites can stack! There can be multiple satellites in one Space.

The orbit effect of satellites is

Damage

When you take damage after shields have been applied:

1 Damage: Draw 1 card from your draw pile and trash it.

Missiles

Missiles have two main functions: - Damage your opponent - Blow up your opponent's satellites

Cards that launch missiles. By default, the missile is launched from the space where that card is triggered. Some cards specify other spaces to launch from.

If a missile is launched from a space where a satellite it in orbit in the opponent's orbit row, it will hit that satellite. If there are multiple satellites, the player launching the missile gets to select which one to hit.

If there is no satellite in the orbit row above the missile, then the missile does 1 damage to the opponent.

Blowback

If a card is trashed due to damage from a missile, if the card has Blowback, then the card that launched the missile is also trashed, and it stops launching additional missiles. Example: Player A triggers a card that launches 2 missiles. If the first card trashed by Player B has blowback, Player A's card is also trashed, and it does not launch its second missile.

Example 2: Player A triggers a card that launches 2 missiles. Player B has a satellite in orbit above the missile card with blowback. Player B's satellite is trashed by the missile, and Player A's missile card is trashed after launching the first missile. It does not launch a second missile.

Energy

Several cards generate Energy, and Energy is always attached to a card. At the end of a Round, any Energy on cards in the timeline will go away with those cards. So if you want to accumulate Energy, you need to do so using satellites, because they stay on the board round over round.

Research

While Energy is attached to cards, Research is attached to the Space in which you gain it. If you gain a Research in Space 2, that Research is located in that Space. Some cards scale based on the number of Research in the space where they are triggered. Other cards can steal or destroy Research in the Space where they are triggered. You should think carefully about where you want your Research to be.

However, regardless of which Spaces your Research are in, you win immediately if you ever accumulate 10 total.

Missile Cards

Missile Cards exist primarily to do damage to your opponent, but Missiles can also be used to shoot down satellites. You must trigger the Missile Card from the Space in the same column as the satellite(s) you want to shoot down (unless otherwise noted on the Missile Card!). This means that a satellite in Space 3 of your opponent's orbit row may only be shot down by a Missile Card triggered from column 3. If there are multiple satellites stacked, they are all destroyed (unless there is a satellite with some special defensive ability that protects the others).

Round Structure Part 2

Start of Round

At the start of each round, you and your opponent both draw 6 cards, and do the Start of Round effects on any satellites you have in orbit.

Placement Phase

Take turns placing cards in the row. Ends after every space in the row is filled.

Resolution Phase

Timeline effects on cards are triggered starting in space 1 and moving to space 8.

Draft Cycle (optional)

Optionally, take 3 cards from the top of the Draft Deck, choose one and add it to your discard pile. The other two are moved to the cycled deck.

Card Specific Round Effects

• Some cards have an effect that says "end the round immediately" which does as it says and skips all remaining parts of the round. After this effect is triggered, the next thing that will happen is the Start of Round phase of the next round.

Game Terms

Research

• Research accrues to the board space of the card that gains it.
• If you reach 10 Research you immediately win the game.

Missile

• Missiles do 1 damage each.
• If an opponent satellite is in orbit in the column a missile is launched from, it will hit the satellite and destroy it rather than doing damage to the opponent. If there are multiple satellites stacked, the player who is launching the missile decides which satellite to hit.
• If no satellite is in the way, the missile deals 1 damage to the opponent.

Damage

• When you take 1 damage: draw 1 card and trash it.
• If you do damage to your opponent, and they have no cards in their draw pile or discard pile to draw, you gain 1 Research for each point of damage.

Gain

• Gain a new Research in the space where the card that is gaining the point is triggered.

Generate

• Generate a Energy and place it on any card in play unless otherwise noted.

Transfer

• You may move Energy from one card to another. The instructions on the card will specify which cards are eligible for you to move Energy from.

Spend

• When you spend a Energy, you remove it from the card it is on. Cards with this effect will specify which tokens are eligible to be spent.

Timeline Space

• This is used to refer to a specific space in the timeline. Once there are 8 cards in the timeline, you can tell what space each card is in, but before that, the space that a card is in is fluid.

Orbit Space

• orbit space refers to the static space in a player's orbit row that sits above the timeline space of the same number. This just means that orbit space 1 is above timeline space 1. And each player has their own orbit space 1 through 8.

Column

• A column is comprised of an timeline space and both of the orbit spaceS above it. Cards that refer to a column are referring to all of the contents of the timeline space and both orbit spaceS. For example, if a card does damage equal to all of the Energy in column 3, you would sum the Energy on satellites in both players orbit space 3 plus any Energy on the card in timeline space 3.

Draw

• Draw a card from your draw pile. If there are no cards in your draw pile, shuffle your discard pile into your draw pile and draw. If both are empty, nothing happens.

Select

• When a card has an effect that operates directly on another card, this term is used to signify how you choose the card it will operate on. This is important, because some cards may protect others from being selected, and some cards could have an effect that is triggered by them being selected.
• Any card that is selected, immediately spends half the Energy (rounded up).

Launch

• This is the standard action of every satellite card when it is triggered in the timeline. It needs to launch into orbit before its various satellite effects begin to take effect.

Owner

• When a satellite is in a player's orbit row, they are considered to be the owner of the satellite.
• If a card is in a player's draw pile, hand, discard pile, or on

Stack

• When more than one satellite is in the same orbit space, they are stacked with each other.

Switch

• When there is some type of item in a specific space that one player owns, switching it moves it to the other player.
• In the case of research, one player loses 1 research in the space, and the other player gains 1. If there is no research in the space, nothing happens from switching.
• In the case of satellites, a satellite is moved from one player's orbit row to the other player's orbit row in the space.

Swap

• If a card says to swap two spaces, move the contents from one space to the other and vice versa. If one of the spaces is empty, just move the contents of the other space into the empty space. If both spaces are empty, nothing happens.
• In the case of satellites, swapping them means to move each satellite into the orbit space that the other satellite is in.

Reverse

• A missile that has been reversed launches in the opposite direction.

Energy

• Energy are always on a card. When you spend them, they are removed from the board.

Transfer

• Move Energy from any card you have in play to some other card.
• Some cards will allow you to transfer from cards you do not own, but by default you may only transfer from your own cards.

Draft

• Take 3 cards from the top of the Draft Deck, and choose 1 of them. Place it in your discard pile.

Discard

• Put a card into your discard pile. During a round, some cards have effects that cause you to discard a card.
• At the end of a round, all the cards in your hand that were not placed and all the cards still in the timeline move to your discard pile.

Trash

• Cards that are trashed during play are moved to a shared, face up trash pile. Certain cards in the game allow a player to get a card out of the trash, and both players' cards are moved to the same trash pile if they are trashed.
• If multiple cards are being trashed simultaneously, the active player may choose what order they are trashed in if there are some trash effects where ordering would matter.

Downstream

• The flow of the timeline flows downstream. For example, space 2 is downstream of space 1.

Upstream

• Opposite of downstream. A card upstream of another card is triggered before that card.

Next

In different contexts, the term next can mean different things.

• The next space is the space immediately downstream. For example, space 4 is the next space after space 3.
• The next card placed is referring to the next card sequentially that is placed during the Placement Phase.
• The next missile launched/satellite launched/shield card triggered, all refer to during the Resolution Phase, the next time a specific event happens, and it does not have to do with the space where it happens.

Stealth Mode

• Placing a card in stealth mode means you place it face down in the row. It cannot trigger placement effects if you do this.
• The card must be turned face up during timeline resolution when its space is resolved. You must do this regardless of effects being applied to the card such as negate.
• Stealth cards also must be revealed if some card operating on it depends on its type. Example: "Trash the card in the next space if it is an Alien Tech card."

Reset

• Reset the draft deck means you take the trash and the cycled cards from the draft deck and shuffled them all back into the draft deck.

Trigger

• This is the term used to indicate that an effect happens.
• A placement effect is "triggered" when the card is placed.
• A timeline effect is "triggered" during the Resolution Phase when the sequence gets to the card.

Alien Tech

• These cards all have a "value" that is written on the card next to the Alien Tech symbol in the top right.
• This is a class of card that often manipulate the board or move other cards around in unusual ways.

Draft Deck

• This is the shared deck that both players draft cards from. Every time a player does a draft cycle, they do it from this deck, and the cards not chosen go next to it in a cycled deck.
• If there is a situation where you go through the entire draft deck during your game, the cycled deck is shuffled, and it becomes the draft deck.

Orbit Row

• Each player has an orbit row between them and the timeline. This is where satellites are launched into.

Timeline

• All cards are placed into the timeline.
• After there are 8 cards in the row, the timeline effect of each card is triggered in order starting from space 1 and moving downstream until reaching space 8.

Special Situations

• If a card in the timeline is trashed during the Resolution Phase, this does not result in any reordering or movement of cards from their spaces, unless the card effect specifies this.

• Any time an effect is triggered that ends the round immediately skips all the remaining parts of the round and players go directly to the Start of Round phase of the next round.

• When drawing cards for damage, if both your draw pile and discard pile are empty, shuffle all cards in your hand and draw from those shuffled cards to resolve the damage effect.

• When taking damage of 2 or more, if you only draw 1 card total (due to deck size), your opponent must choose that card to trash. You may also optionally choose to trash it (which would have no additional effect since it's already being trashed).