Compensating: The Wizard on Top

This game is about five failed wizard who now meet up to decide on who has the longest, biggest most magnificent tower. The game is called Compensating.

I the beginning the five wizards went to Warthogs school of Wizardry. Since they all failed their exams they tried to compensate by excelling in the outside world.

The Blue Water wizard shifted shape into a salamander and couldn't change back. Since the salamander is a symbol of fire  she has lost all her magical power, but she’s a great swimmer.

The Red Fire wizard is afraid of fire after accidentally having burnt down his family house when practicing.

The Brown Earth wizard used to have a white robe that was way too big for him. He stumbled when showing off and was drenched in mud. Now his closest friend is a mole that lives in his robe and everyone sees him as a brown wizard due to the color of his dirty robe.

The Green Plant wizard accidentally picked up a snail instead of his hat after bathing and now has a living hat friend who steals all of his magic.

The Pink Life wizard turned himself into a magnificent unicorn to celebrate beauty and has no urge to turn back because he loves his own image in the mirror too much.

When the failed wizards gather to build the longest, biggest most magical Tower they need to muster every ounce of magic and cunning (and a bit of sabotaging) they have to prove once and for all who is the greatest wizard among them!

This is a strategic, tower building game for 3-5 players, where they score points by placing blocks of their own colour on their own towers, and sabotage their rivals by moving or destroying their blocks or simply adding blocks of the wrong colour to their towers.

One game takes about 25-35 minutes and is played in rounds, where one round is when every player has placed or moved one block.
At the start of each round except the first, an event card is drawn. These cards will add effects, change the course of the round or give players a choice to make. There are three types of event cards which are explained further down.

What you need to play the game. A flat, broad lego board.
20 square blocks of each of the 5 colours, which are Brown, Red, Pink, Green and Blue.
5 small bags.
6 small lego pieces of each colour.
15 cards or pieces of paper in the same shape to write on.

How to play the game
Setup: Each player chooses one Wizard to play which are represented by one colour. You then decide who goes first however you see fit, be it by rock, paper, scissors or gladiatorial combat. (we don’t recommend the last option) The first player is then given the First Player Token.
Everyone starts with 1 block of their colour on the board. This is the base of their tower.
Everyone takes a bag and adds one small brick of every colour to it, then adds another one of their own colour to it. Randomly pick 10 Event Cards (you can add or subtract cards if you want to game to be shorter or longer)
Organize the block pile by sorting the blocks in colour and put them within easy reach for everyone.

Playing: To play the game the first player reaches into his/her bag and without looking takes out 2 blocks. He/she then have a few options:

1) Add one block of one of the colours you drew on top of any tower
2) Move the top block from one of the colours tower to the top of the other. (If you for example drew a red and a blue block, you can take the top block from the red wizards tower and add it to the blue wizards tower, or the other way around.
3) If you drew both blocks of your own colour you can instead of the above add one block of any players colour to any tower, or switch out the top block of any tower into a block of your colour. (remove the block you chose, and place a new block there from the block pile)
After every round, the First Player Token is moved to the player to the left of the last First Player and then that player starts the new round.

Starting from the second round, the First Player draws one Event Card and reads it aloud and resolves the effect of the card.
There are 3 types of Event Cards:
1) Instant: An instant event cards effect takes place immediately when the card is drawn.
2) Ongoing: And ongoing event cards effect is in play for the entire round.
3) Choice: A choice card has 5 option, starting with the first player he/she chooses one option and executes it then draw their blocks if allowed to do so. Then the next player does to the same but cannot choose and option which a previous player has chosen,  and on it goes.

Some Event Cards will add black blocks to the game, these blocks are worth -1 point and can be moved or switched around just like other blocks.
The game ends after round in which the last Event Card is drawn.

How to win the game.
After the game is finished, you count the blocks in your tower. Every block not of your colour is worth 1 point, black blocks are worth -1 point.
However, the blocks in your tower that are your own colour have a base worth of 1, but if you have several of those blocks connected to each other, each block has the value of the number of connected blocks. For example, if you are the Red Wizard and you have 2 red blocks that are connected in your tower, each of those are worth 2 points for a total of 4. If you have 3 connected red blocks they are each worth 3 and so on.
The player with the highest score wins.

Optional Rules: If you want to make the game a bit more complex, you can add any of these optional rules to the game. They are not recommended if you have not played this game before or if you are new to the game.

1) The switch: When playing with the switch you have to really think about where you place your blocks because it might switch out the block you place it on instead of just being placed on top of it. The order is: Brown switches out red, red switches out pink, pink switches out green, green switches out blue, and blue switches out brown. If you are less than five players then you change the order by removing the colour/colours from it. For example, if you have no Brown wizard in the game then blue will switch out red instead. If you have no brown and no red wizard, then blue switches out pink and so on. If you switch the position of blocks by and event card then this doesn’t apply since those blocks are moved and not placed on other bricks.
This rule will make the towers shorter, the game longer and add a deeper level of tactical play.

2) The Jack of All Trades: This is an extra point system where you can gain extra points by having one of each player colour block in your tower. (if you are less than five players you only need one colour of every participating wizard.) If you have reached this criteria, and only then, you gain an additional point for each colour of blocks in your tower. For example: If you are 3 players and have at least one block of those 3 colours in your tower when the game has ended, you gain an additonal 3 points. If you are 4 players, you can gain up to 4 points, and a maximum of 5 points if you are 5 players.

Here are the Event Cards: