Indus Valley (2011)

A card game for 2-7 players. Each player represents a city of the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), also known as the Harappan Culture. The IVC flourished (in present day Pakistan) 3300 - 1300 BCE. The game is conducted over 10 turns. Each turn represents 200 years. Players share a common deck. Each card has the trait of one or more scoring categories of seven different types: 1. Farming 2. Animals 3. Materials 4. Products 5. Trade 6. Building 7. Culture Each turn has 4 Phases: 1. Draw Phase - Each player draws 3 cards OR fills their hand to 7 cards. 2. Trade Phase - Players may trade Cards and Points with each other. Trades do not have to be equal. 3. Meld Phase - Each player may make 1 or more melds in this phase. A meld must consist of 3 or more cards in the same category. A meld scores points in that category equal to the square of the number of cards in the meld. 4. End Phase - Max hand size is 5. Discard excess cards. At the end of the game each player looks at his 7 point categories. A player's final score is equal to his score in his lowest scoring category. The player with the highest final score wins.