Handmade Rök Wooden Board Game
Rök
Rök is a small Swedish church community which guards a huge rock decorated with runes.
Rök is also a cozy, great quality board game in which players throw rocks with rune marks engravings into the middle of the table and then they try to collect as many pairs as they can in lightning speed.
It is the most important to find our opponent player’s special pebble’s pair because if we manage to do so, we can get the stones of the same color that they already collected in previous rounds.
The winner is the person who collects most of the rocks by the end of the game.
Runes have had esoteric power for thousands of years, promising domination and vision into the future to those who can interpret them. These powers can be yours now but you have to fight until the end with your opponents! Be ruthless, use your monitoring capabilities, act fast, so that you can be the master of rune art – and in the end you will be the chosen one!
Contents of the box:
49 runes: Rune of Destiny (lightly colored panels marked with a dot) and 48 runes in 3 colors with a rune mark engraved in each one (8 rune pairs for each color).
Rules of the game
The essence of the game
The winner is the person who has the most runes by the end of the game.
Preparations
We place the Rune of Destiny in the middle of the table and we put the other runes in the bag. Each player pulls a rune from the bag and places it down with the engraved rune part facing up, this is the balance rock. If two players pull the same rune then they place them back and pull a new one. They repeat this until there are no matching runes on the table.
The process of the game
The youngest player starts (in the first round we call him the first player) and all the others follow clockwise. Each player pulls out a certain amount of runes from the bag:
in case of
2 players each person pulls 5 runes
3 players each person pulls 4 runes
4 players each person pulls 3 runes
5 players each person pulls 2 runes.
Players do not have a look at their runes, they hold them closed in their palms hidden them from themselves and from everyone else. On the sign of the first player each player throws their stones towards the middle of the table. Then everyone tries to collect as many pairs as possible.
But!
-each person can use only one hand to collect runes,
-it is forbidden to turn up runes that are facing down,
-balance stones in front of other players cannot be touched,
-each person must place scooped up runes behind their own balance rock: these are his/her treasures,
If one of the thrown runes matches a person’s balance rock:
-if the owner of the balance rock collect the matching rune then he/she puts the pair among his/her treasures
-if someone else scoops up the matching rune then he/she can put it among his/her own treasures until the end of the round.
We repeat the pulling from the bag, throwing the runes and then pairing them multiple times.
When we collected all pairs:
Players check that noone collected faulty, non-matching runes. If a person made a mistake, he/she puts the faulty pair back to the bag and as a penalty, he/she also puts a pair back of his/her collected runes (if he/she has already collected pairs, if not then he/she doesn’t have to pay penalty). He/she repeats this as many times as many faulty pairs he/she collected.
If two players scooped up 2 parts of a matching pair of runes then these two pieces must go back to the bag.
If someone collects the matching pair of an opponent player’s balance stone then he/she gets the player’s balance stone and all matching color runes that the player has as treasures.
If multiple people collect a certain color of rune that matches balance stones (so not the owner of the balance stone and not the same player) a key issue is in what order do players collect their opponents’ matching pieces. (E.g. if player „A” collected the matching rune of player „B”’s white runes and after player „B” collected the matching piece of placer „C”’s white balance stone then it does matter whether first „A” collects white runes from „B” and then „B” collects all the white ones from „C” or first „B” collects the white ones from „C” and then „A” can have it all! To solve this situation, all affected players („A” and „B”) flick the scooped up balance stone towards the Rune of Destiny. The aim is to get close to the Rune of Destiny without touching it. Whoever’s stone gets closest to the Rune of Destiny without touching it, can decide the order of collecting the runes. (If all runes touched the Rune of Destiny then everyone can have another turn).
Those players who lost their balance runes (either because they were taken away from them or because they are in their own treasures) must replace them. At the end of the round, these players have to take those runes closest to the Rune of Destiny that are facing up. All of the new balance stones has to be different from one another. If there are no runes facing upwards in the round then the players will be left without a balance stone until the next throw.
Then, all the runes facing down have to be placed back into the bag. The Rune of Destiny and all other runes facing upwards stay on the table.
The first player gives the bag to the player on his/her left side: during the next round he will be the first player. Each player pulls again and the next round starts.
Side note: players pull from the bag until there are no more runes. Towards the end of the game some players might not be able to throw but all other rules stay the same.
The end of the game
The game is over when the runes in the bag is not more (so equal or less) than the amount of players. Then the game is instantly over (there is no need to throw), everyone counts the number of treasures they have and the winner is the richest player.
In case of a draw, affected players have to stand another test: we put the Rune of Destiny on the table and each affected player flicks one of their runes towards it. The aim is to get close to the Rune of Destiny without touching it. The person who gets closest (without touching it) is the Master of Runes.
It is a clever gift idea for children and adults, women and men!
When we play games, we in fact role play real life situations. Playing games teaches us to live, in all cases. I think that is the reason some people can't or won't play: they forgot how to live. They don't even realize it, they slowly sink into the grey everydays.
These logic games are for all ages but especially for adults because they teach us to think like children: to think differently. We need to start to step off the well trained path and start to view things from a different angle.
Children usually solve these puzzles before adults because they don't try to overcomplicate them. They start one path, one way of thinking and if that doesn't work, they change paths. These toys are perfect for teaching that not everything is black and white, not everything is what it seems.
When you start playing, you will start searching for the solution and you won't be able to stop until you find it! One of the miracles these puzzles offer is that after a short while you will be able to switch off the world and enjoy the game for itself.