Preliminary remarks: this game was born as an experiment during the third edition of the event “Create a Game from Scratch” that took place during the game con Mucca Games 2005 in Tarquinia Lido (Italy).
We will talk about it better (even better “In Depth”) in this issue of GiocAreA On Line...

It’s the dead of the night. At the radar post of a military base in the Senevada desert, a series of unidentified flying objects are sighted. The military attaché is worried: is this an alien invasion? Shall the base launch an alarm and shot the approaching targets, or there is only the risk to wake up the general for a harmless... owl?
(The Italian word for owl is “gufo”; the pun is untranslatable, an English title could have been something like UFOwl – translator’s note.)

Components
To play gUFO you need a 52-card poker deck.

Preparation
Remove from the deck all the heart cards, the aces and the kings. The remaining 33 cards will be the Invasion deck: shuffle it and place it face down on the table.
Choose who will be the Invader: the other player will be the Radar Operator.

The Radar Operator puts the hearts ace in front of her, to indicate her base; she shuffles the 12 remaining heart cards and places seven of them in a row above the base: all of those cards are face up, but the 4th and the 6th, as shown in the picture.
Each of these cards represents a different altitude (the ace is altitude 1, the farthest card from it altitude 8). The face down cards represent a cloud bench, that makes the visibility more troublesome.
The Radar Operator takes three cards at random from the remaining heart cards, and removes from the game the two remaining cards, without looking at them.
The Invader, in the meantime, secretly chooses one of the three aces, and places it over the 7th card; then he places the three kings aside of this card. The leftover two aces are removed from the game (the Radar Operator may not look at them!).
The UFO of the suit of the chosen ace is an Alien Spaceship, the other two UFOs are only two harmless owls, but only the Invader knows their true identity. The goal of the Invader is to reach the base with the Alien Spaceship, while the Radar Operator tries to contrast him.

The game
The game is played in turns, starting with the Invader.

The Invader turn
During his turn, the Invader reveals the first two cards from the Invader deck. He chooses one of them and moves down toward the base the UFO of the suit of the chosen card. The movement is done according to the line of cards that represents the 8 levels of altitude.
At this point, the Invader can try to move again with the same UFO; in order to do this, he reveals the first card of the Invader deck.
If the revealed card has a value strictly greater than the card used to advance (the suit is not important), then the UFO moves down another space. The cards are considered in the sequence A, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, i.e. from the ace (the lowest card) to the king (the highest card).
The Invader can continue to reveal new cards (of increasing value) to try to continue to decrease altitude, until he reveals a card lower or equal in value to the previous one. In this case the descent stops, and all the cards revealed during this procedure (including the 2 beginning cards) are permanently removed from the game.
On the other hand, if the Invader chooses to stop the descent voluntarily, he chooses one of the cards that he revealed and removes it permanently from the game, after having shown it to the Radar Operator. In this case the other cards utilized during the descent are put in the discard pile. If the Invader deck is exhausted, a new one is made by shuffling the discard pile.

The Radar Operator turn
Then it is the Radar Operator turn, who must do one - and only one - of the following actions:

- launch a Bengal light
The Radar Operator plays a numeric card (from 2 to 10) from her hand to illuminate all the UFOs that are at a certain altitude. The played card must have a number greater or equal to the altitude that she wants to examine. The Radar Operator switches the cards: she adds the card corresponding to the chosen altitude to her hand, and places the played card in its place.
If the sky at that altitude is cloudy (i.e. the card is face down), the Bengal light can be launched only by playing a card of exactly the same value of the altitude. The two cards are switched as usual, but the played card is immediately placed face down.
All the UFOs that are at the altitude illuminated by the Bengal light are chased away and they go up (i.e. back) one space.

- launch a special Bengal light
The special Bengal lights are the three face cards (J, Q and K): they can be played as any other bengal light, at any altitude. The UFOs hit by the special Bengal go up two positions. The card is removed from the game: the Radar Operator continues the game with one less card in hand.
If the Radar Operator remains without cards, she cannot launch Bengal lights or carry out radar scanning, but at her turn she will have to shot at an UFO.

- carry out a radar scanning
The Radar Operator exchanges one of her cards in hand with any of the seven cards representing the altitude.
If the card is face down, the exchange must be done face down.

- shoot an UFO
The Radar Operator points at an UFO: she thinks she has discovered the real menace.
The Invader reveals his ace: if the Radar Operator has hit the Alien Spaceship, she is the winner; otherwise she has shot a harmless owl and she loses the game.

End of the game and victory
The Radar Operator wins if one of these conditions is met:
- she shoots the Alien Spaceship;
- the Invader deck is exhausted for the second time;
- an owl reaches the base.

The Invader wins if one of these conditions is met:
- the Radar Operator shots an owl;
- the Alien Spaceship reaches the base.

The looser chooses who will be the Invader in the following game. The first to win two games in a row, or three games total, is the winner.

EXAMPLE: The Invader has chosen the first two cards: a 2 of spades, and a 3 of diamonds. He chooses to try the descent with the king of spades (even if he knows that his real Alien Spaceship is the king of diamonds; he does not want to attract attention at his first move...). After the 2 of spades, he reveals a six of clubs, and then a jack of clubs. He has been lucky: the value of the cards is always rising (2 < 6 < J). He decides to stop in order not to risk to loose many cards, and he discards the 2 of spades. Now it is the turn of the Radar Operator: she has a 7 of hearts, she will exchange it with the 10 of hearts to pull back the UFO...

CREDITS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
* The authors of this collective game, strictly in alphabetical order and all essentials, even to have seated at the same table for one hour, are:
Roberta Barletta,
Eligio Cazzato,
Domenico Di Giorgio,
Gabriele Falcioni,
Luigi Ferrini,
Emiliano Sciarra,
Silvano Sorrentino,
Giorgia Pandolfo,
Roberta Torella.
We apologize if someone escaped our attention, and we tribute honour to Luigi Ferrini, who drew up the rules of the game in written form.
If you think to modify the game, for example by following the hints that you can read in the “In Depth” section, send us a copy of your version of the rules!