Rules
We will upload a PDF version of the rules very soon. On the Day & Night boardgamegeek.com page, there are rulebooks available in several languages.
Introduction
Have you ever wondered where Day is resting during the Night or where Night recuperates when Day is visiting us? Which place is so beautiful that both Day and Night would want to stay there forever? It is a place where normal human beings like you and me are unlikely ever to set eyes upon, let alone visit; you can be sure of that! I can, however, tell you a tale about it, ... and what a tale it is.
My best friend's girlfriend's second cousin's sister in law's brother had a daughter. She had 14 sons, the youngest of which met a grumbling old man early one morning. The old man had babbled something about a ravine spanned by a bridge, on which Chance had allowed an enormous tree to grow. If you climb this tree long enough you will come to a place where, for about a second every thousand years, it is possible to catch a glimpse of a waterfall. This waterfall is fed by an overflowing lake which has an island with a colossal castle, right in the middle.
Inside that castle—which you will never be able to see this way, not even with your best binoculars—is where my story takes place. For it is this palace—because it is more a palace than a castle, really—where the Ladies Day and Night reside. They rest there in turns whenever they have fulfilled their duties on Earth. Of course they never rest at the same time. Imagine that! Day and Night resting at the same time! What would happen on Earth if that were to occur? Earth without Day or Night...
But five billion years of doing the same work has caused the sisters to tire of their job. “I'm fed up with this!” Night whispered to Day, late one evening, when Day came to relieve Night shortly before sunrise. “Let's never work again!” Day responded, a little louder. “Why don't you take a nice holiday sis, while I take care of the palace...” Night added darkly. “I'm not leaving our gorgeous palace!” Day cried while throwing her sister a disgruntled look. Day was angry, she did not want to leave, and she certainly did not want to leave in order to please her sister, Night. “Why don't you leave? You can take your stinking owls with you, while you’re at it! You know I'm allergic to them, don't you!” Day yelled. Night bristled at that remark. Her older sister did not impress her. She did not take long to think. “A duel...” Night said mysteriously. “A duel.” Day confirmed.
Contents
1) Night Book of Spells
2) Night Discard Pile
3) Night-Tiles
4) Crystallize-Counters
5) Night Temple-Counters
6) Day Book of Spells
7) Day Discard Pile
8) Day-Tiles
9) Mystify-Counters
10) Day Temple-Counters
11) Valley of Emptiness Board
12) Night Pawn
13) Day Pawn
Contents of the Box
70 Night Spells
70 Day Spells
44 Tiles
1 Board
2 Day Pawns
2 Night Pawns
1 Rulebook (24 pages)
8 Mystify-Counters
18 Day Temple-Counters
12 Crystallize-Counters
12 Night Temple-Counters
Preparations
Day and Night stand on opposite sides of the valley of emptiness, a spine-chilling place with floating boulders, used ever since the Dawn of Time and Memory to battle for Justice.
The goal is to build two Temples and in doing so honour the gods and enforce justice. Naturally, neither party will let the other go about their business. They will have many opportunities to thwart the plans of the other. For in order to build a Temple, they will need to gain control of their surroundings.
1.1 Choosing a Character
Both players choose a character and take the matching pawn from the box.
1.2 Book of Spells
Both characters have a unique set of cards or 'Book of Spells'. Day uses the Book 'Mystify' and Night uses ‘Crystallize’. Each Book of Spells consists of 70 cards or 'Spells'. To begin, shuffle your Book of Spells and put it on the table with text facing down.
1.3 Discard Pile
Whenever a Spell is cast, place it onto a separate pile with text facing up. This is the discard pile. Both players are allowed to go through both discard piles during the game to review which Spells have been cast already.
1.4 Starting Situation
At the beginning of the game, the pawns for both players should be placed, one in the bottom right corner and the other in the top left corner of the board: diagonally opposite to each other. All of the squares on the board are empty. Empty squares are called 'neutral-tiles'. Both players start the game with drawing the top five Spells from their Book of Spells. Day always begins the game.
Rules
2.1 Phases of a turn
A turn consists of four phases: (1) Awakening, (2) Spell Casting, (3) Travelling and (4) Retreating.
Phase 1: Awakening
Day as well as Night has 12 hours to spend on activities each turn. A player does not have to spend all of the hours; he can also choose to retreat and end his turn.
Phase 2: Spell Casting
During this phase a player efficiently uses the Spells in her hand. Each Spell has its own duration in hours. This is the number in the top left corner. Every time a player casts a Spell, deduct these hours from the total amount of hours left. A player can cast as many Spells each turn as possible, but cannot spend more than 12 hours. After having cast a Spell, it is put on the discard pile with text facing up.
When casting a Spell, perform as much of the instructions as possible.
For example: Night is standing on a Night-tile and casts the Spell “Mimic”, which says “change two tiles bordering on Night’s location-tile”. If two or more of the bordering tiles can be changed, Night must change two of them even when it is not in her favour. If only one of the bordering tiles can be changed, the Spell will change only this one bordering tile.
Important: A player does not have to cast Spells every turn! He can choose to skip the Spell Casting-phase entirely and go straight to the Travelling-phase.
Phase 3: Travelling
Some Spells only affect the direct surroundings of a player. This means he will want to move his pawn to different areas on the board. A player can move his pawn to any tile 'bordering on' (not diagonally) the tile he is standing on ('location-tile'). For every tile he travels, he must deduct three hours from the total amount of hours he has left.
A player cannot travel across a tile twice in one turn, including the tile he started on. So it is not allowed to go back and forth between two tiles.
Travelling is the common way to gain new Spells. For every tile visited a player must draw a Spell from her Book of Spells. He cannot choose to travel without drawing Spells.
For example: Day decides not to cast any Spells this turn, so she still has 12 hours left for travelling. This makes: 12 hours = 4 x 3 hours; Day travels four tiles this turn and draws four Spells from her Book of Spells. Again, she does not have to spend all of her hours. She can also choose to travel one, two or three tiles. She would then draw less Spells and would end her turn with hours unspent.
Phase 4: Retreating
During this phase, a player checks if he has more than five Spells in his hand. If so, he takes the five Spells he wants to keep most of all and puts the rest on the discard pile. He has to discard down to five Spells before ending his turn. If he already has five Spells or less in his hand, he ends his turn without discarding any Spells. A player cannot use unspent hours in his next turn.
2.2 Building a Temple
The goal of the game is to build two Temples. A Temple consists of a pattern of nine of a player’s type of tiles (Day/Night) bordering on each other. Whenever a player succeeds in creating such a pattern, he puts nine 'Temple-counters' on those tiles to show that the tiles are part of the Temple. These tiles cannot be turned over or changed any more for the rest of the game!
If, after a player casts a Spell, a Temple is created of more than nine of his own tiles bordering on each other, the player chooses nine of those tiles to place Temple-counters on. Note that the nine chosen tiles must form a Temple together, so they must be bordering on each other.
After a player has built his first Temple, the game continues and the player finishes his turn as usual.
For example: At the beginning of her turn, Day has a pattern of eight Day-tiles bordering on each other. She then changes another two tiles into Day-tiles bordering on the other eight tiles. Those ten Day-tiles are bordering on each other either horizontally or vertically. Now Day chooses nine of those tiles, which together form a pattern of nine tiles bordering on each other. She puts a Temple-counter on each of those nine tiles, while the tenth tile remains a normal Day-tile and could be used for her next Temple.
2.3 Book of Spells
Whenever there are no Spells left to draw, reshuffle the discart pile and use it as a new Book of Spells.
Reference
Each Spell works in its own unique way. The following clarifications of terms used on Spells are needed to fully understand the effect of each Spell.
Standard terms are printed in bold.
Standard actions are underlined.
Conditions are printed in italics.
3.1 Standard Terms
Day: Refers to the pawn used by Day.
Night: Refers to the pawn used by Night.
Neutral-tile: A square on the board with no tile on it.
Day-tile: A tile with the Day-side of the tile facing up.
Night-tile: A tile with the Night-side of the tile facing up.
Location-tile: A tile on which a pawn is standing. Both players can be on the same tile, so they can have the same location-tile.
For example: The tile on which Day is standing is Day's location-tile.
Bordering on: Refers to tiles that are directly connected to a tile horizontally or vertically (not diagonally).
Surrounding: Refers to tiles that are connected to a tile, either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. So tiles that are bordering on a tile are also surrounding it.
Spell: Every card is a Spell. There are four types of Spells: Minor Spells, Miracle Spells, Crystallize Spells, and Mystify Spells. Each type counts as a Spell.
Book of Spells: A set of 70 cards with a special theme. Day's Book of Spells is called “Mystify” and Night's Book of Spells is “Crystallize”. When there are no Spells left, shuffle your discard pile and use it as your Book of Spells.
Temple: A pattern of nine tiles of the same type (Day/Night), bordering on each other. A tile that is part of a Temple has a Temple-counter on it and can no longer be turned over or changed. It still counts as a Day/Night-tile.
X: If a Spell has a cost of ‘X’ hours, the value of that ‘X’ is explained in the text of the Spell.
Distance: If a Spell mentions the distance between two tiles, it refers to the lowest number of tiles a pawn would have to travel in order to get from one tile to the other.
For example: At the beginning of the game the distance between Day and Night covers 12 tiles (five horizontal and seven vertical).
3.2 Standard Actions
Turn over: Day- and Night-tiles can be turned over. A Day-tile will become a Night-tile and vice versa. Neutral-tiles cannot be turned over.
Change: When the square which is to be changed has a tile on it, that tile is turned over. Alternatively, if it is a neutral-tile, the player places a tile of his own type on it (if the player is Day, a neutral-tile becomes a Day-tile).
Draw a Spell: A player takes the top Spell from his Book of Spells and places it into his hand.
Move: To change the location of a pawn. By moving a pawn through the use of a Spell, it does not count as Travelling. Therefore, a player does not lose the regular three hours per tile for travelling and does not gain any new Spells. Furthermore, a player is still in the Spell Casting-phase and may continue to cast Spells after having moved his pawn.
Mystify: Day has special Spells which Mystify Day-tiles. Mystifying a tile consists of three steps:
1. Day places a number of Mystify-counters on a Day-tile, equal to the number mentioned on the Spell.
2. At the beginning of Day’s turn a counter must be removed from every tile which has Mystify-counters on it.
3. When the last counter is removed from a tile, the tile changes into a Day Temple-tile. Day then puts a Day Temple-counter on it. This tile can no longer be turned over or changed for the rest of the game.
Important: When a mystified tile is turned over, all Mystify-counters are removed from it and it becomes a regular Night-tile.
To show the difference between a separate Day Temple-tile and a Day-tile that is part of a Temple, Day places the Temple-counter on a separate Temple-tile with its flat side up.
Crystallize: Night has special Spells which Crystallize tiles. Crystallizing a tile consists of two steps:
1. Night places a counter on one or more tiles. When a tile is Crystallized, Day cannot change it or turn it over. Furthermore, Day can no longer travel across these Crystallized tiles. When Day's location-tile is Crystallized, then Day is unable to travel to any other tiles.
2. At the beginning of Night's turn, all Crystallize-counters are removed from all tiles.
There can never be more than one Crystallize-counter on any tile. Whenever Night casts a Spell that Crystallizes a tile which already has a Crystallize-counter on it, nothing happens. If this Spell Crystallizes several tiles at the same time, only those tiles which do not have a Crystallize-counter yet, will get one.
Crystallize and Mystify do not effect each other in any way. A Day-tile can have Mystify-counters and Crystallize counters on it at the same time.
3.3 Conditions
Sometimes a condition must be met before a player can cast a Spell. When a Spell has any conditions, then they are printed in italics as the first line of text on the Spell.
For example: 'This Spell can only be cast when Night is on a Night-tile'.
Finally, Day and Night are not allowed to cast any of each other's Theme (Mystify/Crystallize) Spells.
For example: Day casts “Steal Passion”, Day looks into Nights hand and chooses the Spell “Crystallize”. Day cannot cast this Spell, so according to the text of the Spell “Steal Passion“, it will be discarded.
End of the Game
There are three different endings to the game. During the game, one of the following situations will come up:
4.1 Normal Victory
A player wins the game when he has succeeded in building his second Temple.
4.2 Draw
When at some point one player has built a Temple, and the other player succeeds in creating a Temple as well, it may have become impossible for either player to build a second Temple. That is because there is simply not enough space left on the board. In this case the game has ended in a draw, since there is no more possibility for either player to win the game.
4.3 Victory for Day by Default
When at the beginning of Day's turn a mystified Day-tile transforms into a Day Temple-tile, it could occur that Night no longer has the possibility to create her second Temple. Since there is no place on the board where Night can create a pattern of nine Night-tiles bordering on each other. From then on, only Day is able to win the game by building her second Temple, and Night has lost her chances of winning the game. Therefore, the game has ended and Day is declared the winner. Both players will have to be alert to see if this situation comes up, and it is up to Night to try and avoid it.
For example: Day starts her turn and removes the last Mystify-counter from a Day-tile. It then changes into a Day Temple-tile. This Day Temple-tile closes the gap between another day temple tile and the center of the board. Now there is no place left on the board where Night can create a Temple, but for Day there still is, since Day can include her Day Temple-tiles in her Temple. Now Day wins the game.