Hand to Hand Wombat Rules
Hand-to-Hand
wombat
THE RULES
Original game design by Cory O’Brien Developed by Exploding Kittens
HEY!
DON’T READ THESE RULES!
Reading is the worst way to learn how to play a game.
Instead, go online and watch our instructional video:
www.handtohandwombat.com/how
CONTENTS: PLAYERS: 3-6 AGES 7+
• 3 Wombat Towers (3 Spindles of 6 Stacked Bricks)
• Boundary (Box Lid)
• 10 wombat cards
• 6 Reference Cards
• Score Card
• 2 Point Trackers
1 comic book (accessible version linked here)
OVERVIEW
It’s an all-out Wombat War! Be on the first Wombat Team
to score 3 points by either building or destroying 3 Wombat
Towers over a series of rounds. Just be careful not to get
voted out before the game is over!
SETUP
1 Assemble all 3 Spindles. Make sure these are secure—
they should not come apart during the game.
You need to press the spindles up through the base and press them in. This must be done 3 times
2 Give each player a Reference Card.
3 Prepare a 90-second timer on a cellphone
or other device. Make sure it has a loud
sound or vibration to indicate when time’s up
because your eyes will be closed when the timer ends.
4 Place the Boundary (Box Lid) within reach of all
players, set the Score Card off to one side, and place
each Point Tracker on its start circle on the Score Card.
5 Place the Spindles upright inside the Boundary.
Randomly scatter all the Bricks inside the Boundary
around them.
51/2 PRACTICE BUILDING:
Before playing for the first time, practice building.
Everyone covers their eyes with one hand. With your other
hand, reach into the Boundary and cooperatively build all
3 Towers so that they look like the image below, with
6 Bricks on each tower going from largest at the bottom to
smallest at the top. You can use the dots on the Bricks to
figure out where they belong.
Be sure to communicate with
each other while you’re doing this.
It’s harder than you’d think. When
you’ve done it, continue reading.
6 Grab as many Wombat Cards as there are players—
include 1 Wicked Wombat (Bad Team) and the rest Basic
Wombats (Good Team). Put any extra Wombat Cards
away. You won’t need them.
For Example:
If you’re playing with 4 players, you’ll use 1 Wicked
Wombat and 3 Basic Wombats.
If you’re playing with 5 players, use 1 Wicked Wombat and
4 Basic Wombats, and so on
What are all the other Wombat Cards for?
After your first game, check out the “Advanced Play”
section on the other side of these instructions to
learn how to include the other Wombat Cards.
7 Shuffle the Wombat Cards from Step 6, then deal one
face down to each player. You can look at and make
claims about your own Wombat Card whenever you
want, but keep it face down in front of you until the
game is over so no one else can see it.
LET’S PLAY: BUILDING
FIRST TIME PLAYING? EASY MODE!
To make building a bit easier, place the
largest Brick on each of the 3 Spindles
before you begin. Continue playing with
this advantage until the Good Team wins
their first game.
Randomly scatter the Bricks inside the Boundary and set a
timer for 90 seconds. Close your eyes and cover them with
one hand, then start the timer.
When the timer starts, each player uses one hand to play.
The Good Team builds the Towers by placing the Bricks in
the correct order on each of the 3 Spindles from the largest
at the bottom to the smallest at the top. The Bad Team
secretly sabotages the Good Team’s Towers. (Flip this page
over to find tips on how to sabotage.)
YOU CAN’T:
Open your eyes.
Use more than one hand.
Place Bricks or Spindles
outside of the Boundary.
Intentionally remove the
base from the Spindles.
YOU CAN:
Communicate!
Put your hand on top of
a Tower to protect it.
Hold onto Bricks in
your hand.
Take Bricks off Spindles.
OUT OF TIME
When the timer runs out, all players
immediately stop what they’re doing,
open their eyes, and begin Scoring.
SCORING
If 3 Towers are complete,
the Good Team scores 2 points.
If 2 Towers are complete,
the Good Team scores 1 point.
If 2 Towers are incomplete,
the Bad Team scores 1 point.
If 3 Towers are incomplete,
the Bad Team scores 2 points.
Completed towers
A Tower is complete if all
6 differently sized Bricks are on the
Spindle in the correct order from largest
at the bottom to smallest at the top.
Only one team scores at the end of each round.
Use the Point Trackers on the Score Card to keep track of
the total score for the game.
WINNING
If either team reaches
3 points total, they win! When a
team wins, the game is over and you
can reveal your roles to each other.
After Scoring, if no team has won yet, move on to Voting.
VOTING
After Scoring, all players count down from 3 and point to the
player they suspect is on the Bad Team. If you don’t suspect
anyone, point upward.
Each player announces who they are pointing to so the blind players know who is being accused by who.
Your choice isn’t final yet, this
vote is just to give you something
to talk about. Discuss your
suspicions before the Final Vote.
When all players have discussed and are ready to make a
Final Vote, count down from 3 again, then point to the person
you want to vote out of the game. Point upward to vote for no
one.
After the Final Vote:
If more than half of the players still in the game vote for
one person, that player is out of the game and can no
longer participate in Building or Voting. You can still talk,
but don’t ruin the game.
Do NOT reveal your role to the remaining players!
If no player has the majority vote (or if there is a tie),
no one is voted out of the game.
Reset the Spindles and Bricks, set the timer for 90 seconds,
and begin another Building phase.
If the Bad Team is out, the game isn’t over!
Just because the Bad Team was voted out doesn’t mean
they can’t win. Continue playing as normal through
Building, Scoring, and Voting. The Good Team doesn’t
know they’re the only ones left and might clash enough
that the Bad Team still earns points and wins!
STOP READING! GO PLAY!
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT ROLES AND
ADVANCED PLAY MODES, CONTINUE READING
Not sure how to sabotage?
Here are some tips to help you frustrate
your fellow Wombats:
• Take correctly placed Bricks off the Towers.
• Put the wrong Bricks on the Towers.
• Hand other players the wrong Bricks when they
ask for help.
• Ask for Bricks you don’t really need.
• Hide Bricks in your hand so nobody can find them
when they need them.
• Spin the Boundary around to disorient
the other Wombats.
• Pretend to be a special role that you aren’t.
• Talk real loud so nobody can tell what’s going on.
If you’re on the Good Team, try not to do these things
and be very suspicious of anyone who does them!
GOOD TEAM
BASIC WOMBAT (5)
The Basic Wombat doesn’t have
any extra rules for picking up or
placing Bricks.
CONFIDENT WOMBAT (1)
The Confident Wombat can’t remove
Bricks from Spindles. Once a Brick
has gone onto a Spindle (even if
it’s still in your hand), it needs to
stay on the Spindle until someone
else removes it. You can (and
should!) ask other Wombats to help
you when you need to take a Brick off a Spindle. You can,
however, place Bricks anywhere—either on the Spindle, in the
Boundary, or into another Wombat’s hand.
NEEDY WOMBAT (1)
The Needy Wombat can’t pick up loose
Bricks from the Boundary—you can only
take Bricks from other Wombats or from
Spindles. You can place Bricks back in
the Boundary, onto Spindles, or give
them to other Wombats.
GENEROUS WOMBAT (1)
The Generous Wombat can’t place
Bricks onto Spindles, so you need
to focus on finding Bricks and giving
them directly to other Wombats. You
can take Bricks from anywhere in the
Boundary, Spindles, or from other
Wombats.
GOOD TEAM THEN BAD TEAM
CONFUSED
WOMBAT (1)
The Confused Wombat begins the game
on the Good Team, but permanently
switches to the Bad Team the moment
the Good Team has a total score of
exactly 2 points. You win
with the team you are
currently on at the end of
the game.
The Confused Wombat doesn’t
have any extra rules for picking
up or placing Bricks.
BAD TEAM
WICKED
WOMBAT (1)
The Wicked Wombat
doesn’t have any extra
rules for picking up or
placing Bricks. Your goal
is to keep the Good Team
from completing Towers
before the timer runs out
by sabotaging their efforts.
ADVANCED PLAY
Now that you’ve played before, groups of 4 or more can
use the other roles that you haven’t played with yet!
1 Shuffle together a deck of 5 Good Team Cards by
gathering 2 Basic Wombats, 1 Confident Wombat,
1 Needy Wombat, and 1 Generous Wombat.
2 Use this chart to assemble the Wombat Cards for
your game based on the number of players, then
shuffle the Wombat Cards
and deal 1 to each player.
4 players - 1 wicked, 0 confused, 3 good team
5 players - 1 wicked, 1 confused, 3 good team
6 players - 1 wicked, 1 confused, 4 good team
Remember, you can say anything you want about your role
during the game, even if it’s a lie!
MORE GAME MODES
Interested in mixing things up even more?
Visit www.hand2handwombat.com/how to find ideas
for wild new ways to play with your fellow Wombats.