“Mouse Rules” (as well as their mascot, Geek the Mouse) come directly from a survey with the same name appearing in the latest volume of the fanzine “Un’Altra Cosa”, a close relative of our paper magazine GiocAreA.
We propose you a selection of some of the best “mouse rules” by the GiocAreA staff, plus something completely new as a bonus. If you want, send us your ideas to bring this survey back to life again...


Atlantis
by Julian Courtland-Smith
You can make this nice surviving game a bit less luck-driven adding one of these rules, or both.
Each time you sink a portion of the island, choose – as long as possible – an unoccupied portion, i.e. a portion without any man on it. In this way, less random casualties due to sharks and monsters will occur.
In addition, when a monster (with the exception of the dolphin) submerges, it can resurface on any place in the sea, provided it is empty.

Dice Run
by Spartaco Albertarelli
The “somersalut” rule, which allows to reroll an entire group of dice, maybe it is too devastating in some cases. You can change it with a “softer” rule: when you use the somersault, choose any one group (excluding the leading one) and reroll all dice either of the same color or of the same value, at your choice.
Additionally, if you are playing with two players you may modify the scores in this way: at the end of the race, each player marks (using paper and pencil) as many points as the number of dice in the most advanced group either of the same color or of the same value of his secret goal; also, he scores 2 extra points for each die identical to his secret goal (i.e., the die must have both the same color and the same value).

Focus
by Sid Sackson
A very simple variation to avoid unpleasant loops during the game: if a player uses one of his reserves to gain control of a tower in play, the opponent during his turn cannot take back the same tower playing one of his reserves of his color.

Formula Motor Racing
by Reiner Knizia
In the last round of cards playing, there is obviously a typical kingmaking problem.
To solve it, Emiliano Sciarra suggests that all players should play simultaneously the last card of each round face down; then, according to the players’ sequence, each one reveals his card, applying the normal effects of it. In this way it will be more difficult to entirely upset the arrival order in the very last seconds of the game.

Lupus In Tabula
by Mucca Games Team
Here is a suggestion on how using the Leonardo card included in the game box, taken directly from the daVinci website.
After the very first night, the master gives the Leonardo card to the person sitting to the left of the first victim. During the day, Leonardo will vote together with his owner: therefore, a vote by the owner of Leonardo is worth two votes instead of one.
After the lynching, the player owning Leonardo (if he is still alive) passes the card to one of the players sitting to his left: he must choose a player either one, two or three seats away. If the player has been lynched instead, or if the current owner of Leonardo dies during the following night, Leonardo will go the first player to his left still alive.
Werewolves basically decide where Leonardo is going to enter the game: make use of this information!

Mamma Mia!
by Uwe Rosenberg
An option for playing with 2 players without drastically reduce the game deck: each player uses the cards taken from two “orders” of different color, shuffled together to make a single deck. Before starting, discard only one ingredient of each kind.

Pueblo
by Michael Kiesling & Wolfgang Kramer
This amusing game surely acquires a more strategic value if you employ the “taboo places” variation suggested by the original rulebook.
To make the whole thing even more interesting, give a “taboo place” token to each player along with his starting set of pieces. During his turn, anyone can play, instead of a normal piece, a taboo place, at ground level or on top of one of his blocks, provided it covers them completely.
From that moment on, not only it will be impossible to build on taboo places, but in the second case it will be also impossible to see the color of the three colored squares covered by the token.

6 Nimmt!
by Wolfgang Kramer
This variation resembles a rules which is found in what could be considered a sequel of this game by the same author (which is not called 7 Nimmt, you witty guys, but instead a less mnemonic Hornochsen!).
If you play a card whose number is so low that you cannot place it in any row according to the normal rules, instead of taking the whole row as a penalty, place that card at the end of the row which shows as the last card the one with the highest value, and proceed play normally.
In this way, if you have very low cards in your hand (e.g. 1, 2 or 3) you are not almost forced to take penalties as in the original game.

Street Soccer
by Corné van Moorsel
Many players proposed several variations to make this nice soccer game less luck-driven.
We suggest to try different alternatives to dices such as tokens, action points and so on; however, our official “Mouse Rule” tries to keep the original spirit of the game.
Simply, during your turn roll two dice instead of one, and choose the die you think it is more appropriate for your needs.


Tortuga
by Piero Cioni
The two Event card played at the end of each turn sometimes are a bit unbalanced and they could be too in favor of one player or the other one.
To keep balance, choose the cards normally during the first round, and just exchange them between the two players in the second round.

Viva Pamplona!
by Wolfgang Kramer
To make the game more balanced, let the player on the left of the last starting player to be the new starting player during each round. Additionally, move the bull only after all players have played one after another.