TaxicabTextVersion

This is an AutoGeneratedTextVersion of Taxicab

Taxicab A game for piecepack by Mark A. Biggar
Version 1.1, March 2003Copyright © 2003 by Mark A. Biggar2-4 players, 60-90 min
Equipment• A cup or bag for drawing coins• ~150 tokens used to represent ticks on
taximeters and money• Optional: the board at the end of the rules

BackgroundWelcome to Pp City, where you are making your living as a taxicab driver. In
fact youhave done so well at your chosen profession that you have been invited to
participate inthe Pp City’s annual “Best Taxicab Driver of the Year” contest. You and
the othercontestants will be given one eight-hour shift to see who can earn the most
money. Anobserver will ride along with you to see that you don’t cheat and that you
strictly followall the traffic laws. In addition, bonuses will be rewarded based on how
many passengerseach contestant delivers.
Downtown Pp City was designed by a city planning commission with some very strangeideas
for city layout. Instead of naming the streets like normal, they decided to name
thecity blocks instead. They also decided that each city block would have at most
eightbuildings built around a central open space. Instead of using building numbers
theydecided to use compass-point directions to label each building on a block. So the
addressof a building in Pp City will be something like “Crown 3 NW” or “Moon Ace S”.

Setting Up The CityGive each player a pawn, blank coin and blank tile, all of the same
color. The pawns areused as taxicabs. The blank tiles are used as taximeters and the
blank coins are used asdestination markers. Put the remaining coins in the cup or bag;
this will be used as thepassenger pickup and destination drawing pool. Each player
places the blank tile in frontof them suit-side up and places their destination marker
suit-side up on the tile. Duringthe game having a destination marker on a taximeter
means that the player's taxicab is notcurrently carrying a passenger. Put the tokens in
a pile with in reach of all players.
Construct downtown Pp City with the remaining 20 tiles (all but the blank tiles) suit-
sideup in a four-row by five-column grid in any pattern you like. See diagram 1.
Tilesshould be placed about two-thirds of a tile width apart to leave room for the
roadnetwork. Rotate all the tiles so that the top of each tile is oriented to the top
of the grid.The top of the grid will be considered north. Placing the tiles in a
systematic manner(such as each row is a single suit in order from ace to 5) will make
finding addresseseasier.


Diagram 1.City setup and road Network
Either pretend that the road network of squares exists or print out the board at the
end ofthese rules. If no board is used, then represent the position of a taxicab by
placing thepawn against the edge of the closest tile, touching the tile at a spot
corresponding to thesquare, i.e., against the center of the edge, the edge near the
corner or just touching thecorner. For taxicabs in the outer lane of the outside ring
road, pretend there is a tileoutside the city and place the pawn accordingly.

Pp City Traffic Laws Traffic laws in Pp City are strictly enforced. On each player’s
turn a taxicab moves up toeight squares and must obey the follow traffic rules.
1. All taxicabs must be driven on the right side of the road (Pp City is a US city,
ifyou really want to play an English city please flip everything left-for-right inyour
head).
2. Taxicabs may not pass other taxicabs.
3. All turns must be made as shown in diagram 2 below. Note that none of thelegal turns
involves a taxicab entering the second square of the intersectionthat the taxicab would
enter if it were going straight; if a taxicab enters thatsecond square, it is too late
to make a turn in this intersection and the taxicabmust continue straight. Note
specifically that taxicabs are not allowed tomake U-turns in the middle of the block.
4. A taxicab must use all eight squares of its movement if possible.


Diagram 2. Rules of the Road
Finding Passengers and Destinations The 20 coins corresponding to the city blocks (all
but the blank coins) are kept in a cup orbag called the address pool. The following
procedure is use to locate the address forpassengers to be picked up and to determine
destination addresses for those passengers:
1. A coin is drawn from the address pool after mixing thoroughly. The suit andnumber on
the coin determine which city block (tile) contains the address.
2. Roll two dice (after stating which die corresponds to the rows and which to
thecolumns) and consult the Address Table below. The passenger pickup ordestination
address will be the corner or edge of the tile specified by the table. Aresult of 'C'
means that the player is free to choose any of the eight addresses onthe tile.
3. For a passenger, the drawn coin is placed on the specified address on the city
block(tile) number-side up; it now represents a passenger available for pickup. For
adestination, the drawn coin is put back in the address pool and the
player'sdestination marker is placed on the address suit-side up instead. See Diagram
3for the corresponding locations on the tile.
It is all right if a passenger and multiple destinations are located at the same
address.

Address Table
  A 2 3 4 5
  NW NW N N NE NE
A NW NW N N NE NE
2 W W C C E E
3 W W C C E E
4 SW SW S S SE SE
5 SW SW S S SE SE


Diagram 3. Address locations on city blocks
Starting the Game Choose a first player by any mutually agreed method. Each player,
starting with theplayer to the first player's right, going around the table
counterclockwise, places theirtaxicab (pawn) anywhere in the city they choose. A
taxicab’s initial starting position maynot be placed in a position that would block any
other taxicab from making its wholemovement on its first turn.
Next, starting with the first player and going around the table clockwise, each player
addsa passenger to the city using the procedure described above. Note that there
shouldalways be as many passengers available in the city as there are players in the
game. If itis ever noticed that there are fewer passengers than there are players, the
current playershould immediately add enough additional passengers to make the number of
passengersavailable for pickup equal to the number of players.
The first player now takes his first turn. Turns go around the table clockwise. Each
turnconsists of a player moving his taxicab, being sure to obey all the traffic rules,
picking upand dropping off passengers and collecting payments. The first player is
responsible forkeeping track of the number of rounds played.

TaximetersThe blank tile of the same color as a player’s taxicab (pawn) is used to
represent thetaxicab’s taximeter. While carrying a passenger, tick tokens are
accumulated on thetaximeter to record how much the passenger owes at the end of the
trip. At the end ofeach player’s turn, while his taxicab is carrying a passenger, the
player adds a tick tokento his taximeter. In addition there is a flat fee of one token
to start any trip and anothertoken is added at the end of the trip to round the fare up
to the nearest dollar. Thesetokens will also be used to represent the money earned for
the trip.

Picking Up Passengers Whenever an empty taxicab is in a square directly next to a
passenger in the city, it mustpick up the passenger. Use the following procedure to
pick up a passenger.
1. Determine the passenger’s destination address using the procedure above. If
thedestination is only one block away repeat the procedure until you have adestination
more than one block away.
2. Place your destination marker (blank coin suit-side up) at the destination.
3. Place the coin for the passenger on your taximeter.
4. Add a tick token to your taximeter.
5. Add a new passenger to the city.

The taxicab then continues with the rest of its movement for the turn, if any.
Rememberto add tick tokens to your taximeter at the end of each turn until you drop off
thepassenger. A taxicab can only carry one passenger at a time.

Dropping off Passengers When a taxicab carrying a passenger reaches a square directly
next to its destinationmarker, it drops off its passenger using the following
procedure:
1. Add a tick token to your taximeter.
2. Count the number of city blocks (tiles) from the passenger’s pick up address tothe
destination address including both the starting and ending blocks (thecount will always
be at least three).
3. The number of tokens on your taximeter will be the base payment in dollars.
4. Compute the tip. If the base payment is more than twice the city block count,then
the passenger thinks you are padding the amount by taking a longer thannecessary route
and refuses to pay a tip; otherwise the tip is 20% of the basepayment rounded up. The
tip will always be at least one dollar.
5. Add the tip in tokens to your taximeter.
6. Remove all the tokens from your taximeter and place them aside in a pile torepresent
the payment for the passenger. Either keep each of these pilesseparate so that you know
how many passengers you have carried or keep twopiles, one to track the passenger count
and the other to keep the remainder ofyour money.
7. Put your destination marker back on your taximeter.
8. Put the passenger coin back in the address pool.
The taxicab then continues with the rest of its movement for the turn, if any.

Game Length A standard game is 32 rounds long, representing an eight-hour shift of 15-
minute turns.The first player should keep track of how many rounds have been played and
after allplayers have finished their 32 turns, the game ends and final scoring is done.
Playersmay agree on a different game length before play starts.
End of Game Scoring Each player's final score is the money (tokens) they have earned in
fares plus a bonusbased on how many passengers they carried. The player who carried the
most passengersearns a $15 bonus, the second most earns $10 and the third most earns
$5. Ties divide upthe corresponding bonuses rounded up. The player with the most money
wins the game.
Optional Rule - Traffic Jams With this optional rule, a single street segment in the
city will be blocked each round dueto an accident or other traffic jam. Taxicabs may
not enter the street segment with thejam. Taxicabs already in the segment are stuck and
may not move until the jam goesaway. The last player is responsible for determining the
new location of the jam andmoving it after each of his turns. To determine the location
of the jam, draw a coin fromthe address pool. The jam will be somewhere next to that
city block. Then roll two diceand consult the Address Table, the jams location will be
either the six-square streetsegment or the four-square intersection corresponding to
the table entry. Place one of thedice in this street segment to represent the jam. For
a more difficult game use two trafficjams, moving both at the start of each round.

Making Up the BoardThe last two pages of these rules are parts of a full size board for
playing this game.Make two copies of each page and join them together to look like the
grid in diagram 1.

History
20021102 mab 0.5 first posted version20021107 mab 0.6 added front story, minor typo
correction20021210 mab 0.7 corrections from playtest comments
20030127 mab 1.0 final version for www.piecepack.org 20030322 mab 1.1 update for web
page

Thank you for playing my game. Please report rules problems or variant suggestions
tomark@biggar.org.
Copyright 2002,2003 by Mark A. Biggar. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or
modify thisdocument under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1
or any later versionpublished by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no
Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license can be found at
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.