Variations of the game

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Variations of the game

The Berd game has many game options:

Short path simple game – this is a basic Berd game played on the side of the folding board with a shorter path. This game lasts about 25 minutes (4 players x 9 tokens). The duration of the game can be shortened with fewer players and/or using fewer tokens
Long path simple game – this is a basic Berd game played on the side of a folding board with a longer path. This game lasts about 35 minutes (4 players x 9 tokens)
Game with color protection – both 1 and 2 games can be played with color protection. Players can use colored squares on the board for protection from being captured by the opponent’s token. For example: Blue color player’s single token or unprotected tower will be protected on the Blue square. Other players can’t capture the Blue token on the blue square, and they can’t land on the blue square if it’s occupied by the Blue token. The rest of the game rules are the same as for the basic Berd game.
Game with points – games #1, 2, and 3 can be played with points. Each color token has different weights/scores (10; 20; 30; 40; 50; 60; 70; 80 and 90), shown on the tokens. This option of the game provides more possibilities for moves. The winner will be the player who collects the highest total score. In order to play this version of the game, you need to attach stickers with numbers. There are lines on the sides of the token for even attachment.
Game with hidden numbers – games #1, 2, and 3 can be played with tokens that have hidden numbers (numbers are not displayed outside; they are attached inside). This game is similar to game #4 with the difference that only the player who possesses a token can see the value of that token. This feature introduces more intrigue and uncertainty about the result of the game. Also, this version of the game allows players to bet.
Berd game without dice – this game is quite different from the race game on the path, though the Berd playing concept is the same. It is a two-player game and is played on a small two-sided square board. This game can be played on a 3×3 board with 5 tokens per player or on a 4×4 board with a maximum of 6 tokens per player. The goal of the game is to collect more tokens than your opponent. At the beginning of the game, players set up their tokens on baselines (the first line from each side) opposing each other. Players collect token(s) when crossing the board and finishing – passing the opponent’s baseline. On their path to finish, players can capture the opponent’s token(s). Players move their UT (single token or Unprotected tower) one square at a time forward or laterally. You can’t move your UT diagonally or backward. While you can move your UT laterally, you can’t do more than three consecutive side moves. After the third consecutive side movement, a player must do the next move forward. After the forward move, you can do side movements again. You can’t land on a square occupied by your opponent’s Berd. A player can capture an opponent’s UT by landing on the square occupied by UT. A player will recover captured token(s) from opponent’s UT by landing on that tower. In this case, the player will re-stack tokens and place their own tokens on the top, creating a Berd. In order to play a token from the Berd, you have to split the Berd and play a single token or unprotected tower. If there are captured tokens in the Berd, they must be attached at least under one of your tokens. The game is over when only one player has active token(s) left on the board. Now players can stack their collected tokens and see whose tower is taller or who collected more tokens.
Berd game without dice with color protection -this game is similar to game #3 in terms of the color protection
Berd game without dice with points – this game is similar to game #4 in terms of number consideration
Berd game without dice with hidden numbers – this game is similar to game #5 in terms of number consideration.
Berd Team game – this game option can be played by two or more teams. Each player will play with his/her color tokens. The goal of the team is to collect the most tokens (or points). Players of the same team can land on the squares occupied by teammates and stack the tokens in one tower. If there is a Berd on that square, it will protect all tokens of the team. The team can share the captured tokens. That is a great advantage for the team, since they can decide when and how many captured tokens to move. When finishing a token, only rival team members will pay token(s). The game is over when only one team has active player(s).
Game with trading options: In this game, players can trade captured token(s) with other players. All players will start the game with the same count of tokens and some cash. The goal of the game is to accumulate the most capital (cash + value of collected tokens). Each token at the end of the game will be worth a certain amount of money predetermined at the beginning of the game. During the game, players can redeem captured token(s) by paying cash or swapping with other token(s). The market value of the captured token will vary depending on the location on the board and the possibility of recovering it. Because the captured token will have a fixed value when finished, a player who captured the token can negotiate a higher price. On the other hand, a player who wants to redeem his token may want to pay a higher price because active tokens can potentially capture other tokens. Players can negotiate a trade only on their turn. After redemption, a token must be started from the starting corner. When a player finishes a token, all other active players have to pay one token or pay cash for the finished token. Depending on the board situation, each player will decide what method of payment is better. The winner of the game will be a player who accumulates more capital => (Number of collected tokens) x Price + Cash.
Game with points and trading options: This game is similar to the Berd game#11 with one difference => when a player finishes a token, other players will pay by token or pay the price indicated on the finished token. At the end of the game, players calculate the total value of collected tokens + cash. The value of a token is a number/price on the sticker. The winner is a player who collected the most capital.
Game with a goal to collect certain numbers – in this game, a player tries to collect some certain tokens with the same number on the sticker (for example, tokens with the number 20). If there are 4 players in the game, then the maximum quantity of any number will be 4. The first player who collects all 4 numbers will win the game. If the game finishes earlier, then the winner is the player who collected the most of the specified number tokens. In this game, players follow the same Berd playing concept, but for finished tokens, other players don’t pay tokens. Also, players are not required to finish their tokens when passing their start/finish corner; they can continue playing these tokens.
Flag Game
Objective: The goal of the game is to successfully move your own Flag Token one full clockwise lap around the board and finish it at your Start/Finish Corner.
Flag Token: Each player applies a flag sticker to one of their tokens. This is their Flag Token.
Gameplay and Movement: All standard Berd rules apply
Capturing an Enemy Flag:
A player’s Flag Token can be captured when it is part of an opponent’s Unprotected Token/Tower (UT) and another player lands exactly on that UT.
When a Flag Token is captured:
• The Flag Token remains trapped inside the captured stack.
• The stack is controlled by the player whose token is on top.
• The original owner remains in the game and may attempt to recover their Flag Token by capturing that stack according to standard Berd recovery rules.
Scoring Captured Flags (3+ Players)
When a player carries one or more captured enemy Flag Tokens across their own Start/Finish Corner, each finished Flag Token is scored separately.
For each Flag Token scored:
1. The owner of that Flag Token is eliminated from the game.
2. All remaining tokens of the eliminated player are removed from the board.
3. The scoring player deploys one additional active token onto their Start/Finish Corner.
The additional active token is obtained as follows:
• If the scoring player has one of their own finished tokens available, that token returns to play.
• If the scoring player has no finished tokens available, they may take one token from the eliminated player’s scoring pile and place it on their Start/Finish Corner under their control.
If multiple captured Flag Tokens are finished during the same move, the scoring player receives one additional active token for each Flag Token finished.
When only two players remain active, the elimination rule changes.
If a player finishes the opponent’s captured Flag Token:
• The game immediately ends with No Winner,
• unless the player finishes their own Flag Token at the same time.
During the final two-player stage:
• A player must protect their opponent’s captured Flag Token while attempting to finish their own Flag Token.
• A player holding an opponent’s Flag Token may intentionally finish it to force a No Winner result if they cannot win.
Victory: A player wins immediately upon finishing their own Flag Token after completing one full clockwise lap of the board.
🪙 Berd [Target Score: e.g., 500, 300]

🎯Objective: Be the first player to reach the mutually agreed-upon Target Score (for example, 300 or 500 points) in your permanent scoring pile. Points are earned strictly by dragging captured opponent tokens across your designated Start/Finish corner.

📦 Component Setup & Token Values

Weighted Tokens: Each player uses an identical pool of interlocking tokens. Each token has a specific point value pre-assigned via stickers (e.g., 10, 20, 50, or 90 points).
Starting Stack Freedom: All players pile their starting tokens into a single tower on their designated starting corner.
No Fixed Order: Players are completely free to arrange their starting stack in any order they choose. You do not have to move tokens from top to bottom.

🎲 Core Mechanics & Movement

Movement & Splitting Freedom

On your turn, roll two dice. You may move a single stack the combined total, or split the values between two different stacks.
All movement must travel strictly clockwise around the track.
When moving or splitting from a stack, you can choose any of your active tokens, snap any or all of your currently captured opponent tokens directly underneath it, and move that newly formed stack forward as a single unit.

Stacking & Protection

Unprotected Tower (UT): Any single token, or any stack where the top token is a different color than the token directly beneath it. A UT belongs to the player whose color is on the top. UTs can be captured by opponents landing exactly on their square.
Berd (Protected Tower): A stack topped by two or more tokens of the same color. A Berd cannot be captured, and opponents cannot land on its square. To move out of a Berd, you must split it, leaving at least one of your tokens behind to guard the remaining stack.

⚔️ Combat, Scoring & The Finish Tax

A player triggers a scoring phase only when a stack under their control successfully loops the entire track and reaches or passes their own designated Start/Finish corner.

Cashing In Captures

Upon crossing your finish line, you instantly score the face value of all captured opponent tokens contained inside that moving stack.
These captured tokens are permanently removed from the board and placed into your scoring pile.

The Finish Incentive (The Tax)

To keep the game fast-paced and competitive, crossing your finish line forces every other player to immediately pay you one token from their sideline or the board.

The Runner’s Reset

Your own tokens that transported the cargo do not score points. Instead, they are immediately uncoupled from the captured pieces and placed back on your starting square to begin a brand-new loop around the board.

🔄 Hardcore Variant: The Burning Resource Track

For a highly strategic, accelerated game focused on strict resource management, players can mutually agree to play this advanced alternative variant:

The Rule: When your token crosses your finish line, it is permanently removed from the game along with the captured pieces it carried. It does not go back to the start.
The Sacrifice Strategy: Because crossing the line permanently burns your own token, finishing a piece without any captured opponents inside it is completely worthless and shrinks your active army. You must calculate the most efficient path to the target score by packing as many captured opponent blocks underneath your tokens as possible before sacrificing them at the finish line.
Elimination: If you completely run out of active tokens on the board before anyone hits the target mark, you are out of resources and instantly eliminated. The remaining players continue racing to the target score.

🏆 How to Win: The game ends immediately when a player reaches or exceeds the designated Target Score in their scoring pile, claiming sole victory.

16. 💵 Berd: Profit & Losses

🎯 Objective: The winner is the player with the most cash at the end of the game. Cash is accumulated by generating dividends from corners, extorting tolls from weaker passing towers, collecting finish taxes, and poaching assets at emergency liquidations.

📦 Component Setup & Initial Bank

Starting Cash Balance: Players play with cash (fake paper money or a digital ledger). At the beginning of the game, each player receives an equal amount of cash in their private starting bank.
The Mutual Fund: Out of their initial cash, every player injects an equal upfront cash investment (e.g., $1,000) into a central Mutual Fund escrow pool. If the Mutual Fund runs empty during the game, at the end of the game every player must add an equal, predetermined amount of cash into the fund, as agreed upon at the beginning of the game.
Weighted Tokens: Players use tokens with pre-assigned numbers/values attached via stickers on the side walls (e.g., 10, 20, 50, 90). All players start the game with an identical pool of values.
Starting Stack Freedom: Players stack all starting tokens into a single tower on their designated starting corner. You are completely free to arrange your starting stack in any order and may begin moving from any token.

🎲 Core Movement & Stacking

Standard Game Concept: The foundational Berd game concepts are applied fully here (including movement, dice usage, splitting, capturing, and base protections), with the specific exception of the submission option (please read below).
Unprotected Tower (UT): A single token or a tower (stack) where the top token is a different color from the one directly beneath it. A UT is controlled by the player whose color is on top and it moves as a whole unit. It is vulnerable to standard enemy capture.
Berd (Protected Tower): A tower topped by two or more matching color tokens. A Berd is completely immune to capture; opponents cannot land on its square normally. A Berd cannot move as a whole unit. Tokens from the Berd are played separately and must be split to move forward.

⚔️ Economic Combat & Toll Mechanics

Moving around the track generates dynamic cash flow based on the positions and point valuations of the stacks you pass.

Passing a Corner Berd (Bank Dividend):

When your active moving token passes any corner square currently occupied by a Berd, you are paid an investment dividend directly from the central Mutual Fund.

The Payout: You receive cash from the fund equal to the exact face value of your own passing token.

Passing a Track Berd:

When your moving stack (UT) passes an opponent’s stationary Berd located on a standard track square (not a corner), a dynamic power struggle occurs. Compare the total combined point value of your moving stack against the total point value of the stationary Berd:

If the Passing Stack has MORE points: The owner of the stationary Berd must immediately pay the passing player the exact mathematical difference between the two totals in cash.
If the Stationary Berd has MORE points: The passing player must immediately pay the owner of the stationary Berd the exact mathematical difference between the two totals in cash.
If the points are EQUAL: It is a financial deadlock; no money changes hands.

🛡️ The Submission Option

Under standard rules, you cannot land on an opponent’s Berd. However, you have an option to submit your UT to the Berd owner only if you can use a die value to stop exactly on the square occupied by that Berd.

The Rule: If a single die value allows you to land directly on an opponent’s Berd, you cannot stay there as a separate piece, but you may choose to willingly surrender your entire UT stack to that Berd owner to avoid a passing toll.
Absorption: The Berd owner takes all tokens from your submitted UT and snaps them directly underneath their existing Berd stack.
Asset Recovery: If the submitted UT contained any tokens matching the Berd owner’s color, the Berd owner immediately recovers those tokens and places them back on the very top of their fortress, reinforcing its defensive size.
The Debt Forgiven: Your movement ends immediately on that square, your stack is absorbed, and you are completely absolved of paying any cash tolls for that turn.

🎲 Example of Play

The Scenario: Your 50-point UT is sitting exactly two squares behind an opponent’s massive 300-point Berd. On your turn, you roll a 6 and a 2.

If you play the 6: Your UT moves past the Berd. Because you overshot the fortress, you must immediately pay the Berd owner $250 (the difference between 300 and 50).
If you play the 2: Your UT lands exactly on the Berd’s square. You can invoke the Submission Option, willingly surrendering your 50-point UT to the Berd owner. Your piece is absorbed, your turn ends, and you pay $0 in cash tolls.

🔨 Bankruptcy & The Emergency Token Auction

If a player is hit with an overwhelming toll or tax but has zero cash left to settle their debt, they must liquidate assets immediately to stay afloat.

The Auction: The bankrupt player selects any token under their physical possession (active on the board or already finished) and puts it up for a live cash auction.
The Bidding: All other active players participate in a live bidding war. The highest bidder pays the bankrupt player, who uses that cash to immediately settle their debt.
Buyer Deployment: If the buyer bought a token matching their own color, they may instantly deploy it as a new active piece on their Start/Finish corner. If they bought an opponent’s color token, they add it to their finished stock to be cashed out at the end of the game.

🏁 Game End & The Final Cash-Out

The game ends immediately when only one active player has pieces remaining on the track.

Every player calculates the total point values on the side-wall stickers of the tokens in their finished stock (including any captured opponent tokens). Players sum all these personal totals together to determine the Total Global Scored Points of the match.

The final payout from the Mutual Fund is calculated through a single mathematical process:

1. If the Mutual Fund ran completely empty during the game, at the end of the game every player must add an equal, predetermined cash into the fund, as agreed upon at the beginning of the game.
2. Determine the Point Factor: Divide the final cash balance of the Mutual Fund by the Total Global Scored Points: Point Factor = (Final Cash in Mutual Fund)/(Total Global Scored Points)
3. Calculate Personal Cash Value: Each player multiplies their personal finished token points by this Point Factor to determine their final payout amount.
4. Determine the Winner: Each player adds their calculated payout value to the remaining physical cash they currently have in hand. The player with the highest total amount of money wins the game!

17. ⚔️ Berd: Special Features Expansion

🎯 Concept Overview: This expansion introduces special thematic capability stickers, hidden end-game scoring assets, and a rubber-band “Chance Card” mechanic to inject high-tension combat and variable rewards into any baseline version of the game.

📦 New Components & Setup

Thematic Stickers: 9 distinct tactical stickers attached to the outer side walls of the tokens (Shield, Sword, Gun, Catapult, Knight, Crossbow, Tower Destroyer, Warrior).
Hidden Treasure Stickers: A special golden coin chest sticker hidden entirely inside the hollow core of specific tokens.
The Chance Deck: A separate deck of modifier cards drawn exclusively by players who suffer a battlefield loss.

💥 New Combat Rules

The “Tower Destroyer” Siege Rule

Under standard rules, a fully formed Berd (Protected Tower) is completely immune to enemy landing and capture. The Tower Destroyer sticker shatters this defense:

The Equation: An attacking Unprotected Tower (UT) can successfully assault and capture a protected Berd if the number of Tower Destroyer stickers inside the moving UT matches or exceeds the height (stories) of the Berd.
- Example: A moving UT containing two Tower Destroyer tokens can land exactly on and capture a 2-story Berd.
- Example: A moving UT containing three Tower Destroyer tokens can smash open and conquer a massive 3-story Berd.

🪙 Endgame Scoring Upgrades

The Hidden Treasure

Because the Treasure sticker is hidden completely inside the token, opponents cannot see which block contains it during active play.
When a stack containing the hidden treasure safely reaches the finish pile, it remains hidden until the final game tally.
The Payout: At the final score count, revealing a successfully scored Treasure token instantly awards that player an additional 100 points.

Set Collection Weapon Bonuses

Collecting and scoring specific combinations of weapon stickers yields exponential point multipliers at the end of the game:

Two-of-a-Kind Set (e.g., Swords): Collecting two matching weapon tokens grants the player twice the minimum value points of those two tokens combined.
Three-of-a-Kind Set (e.g., Swords): Collecting three matching weapon tokens grants the player an additional bonus equal to three times the minimum value points of those three tokens combined.

🃏 The Chance Card Rubber-Band Mechanic

To prevent a runaway leader and give a trailing player a fighting chance, the game introduces a catch-up card deck:

The Trigger: Whenever a player loses an Unprotected Tower or has a token captured by an opponent, that player immediately draws one Chance Card from the deck.

The Options: These cards hold unique tactical rule-breakers (such as extra movement steps, temporary shields, or diagonal movement privileges) that the player can hold and utilize during a future move to exact revenge.

All the above game variations can be played with a different number of tokens. You can upgrade your Berd game by acquiring additional tokens and more colors => please click here.

Variations of the game

The Berd game has many game options:

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