How to Play

  • 0:00 - Game Intro
  • 1:03 - The Basics
  • 2:20 - Full Pancake Mode
  • 6:18 - Mini Muffin Mode

The Basics

There are four types of cards. You can tell them apart by the icon in the upper right corner of each card.

  • Aliens (spaceship icon): you want to capture them
  • Breakfast Heroes (donut icon): Use them to capture the aliens
  • Treasures (diamond icon): They help the breakfast heroes capture the aliens
  • Disasters (tornado icon): They do bad things

Your job is to capture the aliens. Here's how you do it:

Each breakfast hero has one or more of four characteristics that make them awesome:

  • Courage (red)
  • Wisdom (blue)
  • Respect (purple)
  • Effort (yellow)

Each alien has one or more of four characteristics that make them not awesome:

  • Fear (red)
  • Dishonesty (blue)
  • Rudeness (purple)
  • Laziness (yellow)

If you have one or more breakfast heroes that at least have the color-matched characteristics of an alien, you can capture it. Discard the appropriate breakfast heroes and any treasures they have, and put the alien in your jail pile.

Each alien is worth a specific amount of points indicated on the card—the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

There are two ways to play:

  • Full Pancake Mode (more strategy): ages 8+
  • Mini-Muffin Mode (more simplicity): ages 3+

Playing Full Pancake Mode

The colored bars at the bottom of treasure and disaster cards are ignored in this mode.

Make sure you read the non-italic text on each card, it will dictate what each card does in the game.

Prep

  1. With a newly shuffled deck face up, deal out three breakfast heroes to each player. These are the player's starting cards. Players cards stay face up for the duration of the game.
  2. Reshuffle the deck and place it face down. This is now the draw deck.
  3. Place the top three cards from the draw deck face up next to it. These are the play cards. If a disaster is drawn at this point, put it at the bottom of the draw deck and select another card (disaster cards are not allowed in the play cards).
  4. Select a player to go first, then turns go clockwise.

Play

The first thing a player does on their turn is refill the play deck to three cards, if there are less than three. If the player draws a disaster card or a card that says "Play Instantly", they must do what is written on the card. Your turn is then over if it was a disaster card.

Next, the player can do one of several things on their turn (only one per turn):

  • Capture an alien from the play cards
  • Select a breakfast hero or treasure card from the play cards and add them to your cards
  • Use a breakfast hero or treasure card based on the text on that card
  • Draw from the top of the draw deck (everyone gets to see the card you draw).
    • If you draw an alien, you can attempt to capture it. If you can't or don't want to, put it at the bottom of the draw deck
    • If you draw a disaster or card that says "Play Instantly", you must do what the card says
    • If you draw a breakfast hero or treasure, add them to your cards

Finally, some cards indicate that you can play them at any time. Any player can use those cards during their turn or another player's turn, and it doesn't affect your normal turn actions.

The player that draws the last card in the draw deck finishes their turn, and then the game is over.

The player with the highest number of captured alien points wins!

Playing Mini-Muffin Mode

The text on the cards is ignored in this version of the game.

Prep

  1. With a newly shuffled deck face up, deal out three breakfast heroes to each player. These are the player's starting cards. Players cards stay face up for the duration of the game.
  2. Reshuffle the deck and place it face down. This is now the draw deck.
  3. Select a player to go first, then turns go clockwise.

Play

Players take turns taking a card off the top of the draw deck. All players get to see the card that is drawn.

  • If you draw a breakfast hero, add it to your cards
  • If you draw a treasure, add that treasure card to any hero you have and that hero now has an extra characteristic color based the colored bar on the treasure card. You can add multiple treasures to a single hero. If you don't have a hero when you pick a treasure, it gets added to the next hero you draw.
  • If you draw a disaster, set it next to the draw deck. It adds an extra characteristic color (based on the colored bar on the disaster card) to the next alien draw so it's harder to capture that alien. You can have multiple disasters on an alien.
  • If you draw an alien you can attempt to capture it. If the alien has disaster cards associated with it, you capture those cards as well (they are worth one point each). If you can't or don't want to capture the alien, the next player has a chance to capture it, going clockwise until all players have a chance. If no players capture the alien, it escapes face up to the escape pile and the disaster cards are discarded. Play then continues clockwise from the play that originally drew the alien.

The player that draws the last card from the draw deck finishes their turn, and then play continues clockwise with each player have a chance to capture any one alien from the escape pile (the escape pile is visible to all players). Play continues clockwise until no players can capture any additional aliens.

They player with the most points wins. Aliens are worth the points indicated on the card, and disaster cards are each worth one point.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the rules, please send us a message and we'll get back to you! https://breakfastvsaliens.com/pages/contact