Race Condition™ Instructions

You can download the latest version of the instructions, version 2.0, right here.

If you already own the game, you may want to check this page from time to time to see if the instructions have been updated. (And of course if you lose the instructions that came with your deck, just download and print yourself another copy.)

If you don't own the game yet, reading the instructions will give you a sense of how the game is played.

Alternate Instructions

While we like our original rules the best, we're interested in finding other ways to play with a deck of Race Condition™ cards. If you've invented a rule variation that works, and would like to share it, please let us know! ( ) We're only posting a couple variants for now:

Reduced Deck

Because Race Condition™ is a complicated game, you may want to ease into it by playing a simplified version of the game for your first few games. The easiest way to simplify the game is to remove certain cards from the deck. If you're going to remove cards with the goal of simplifying game play ...

Our first recommendation is to remove the two "NEW THREAD" special action (pink) cards. These cards spawn multiple threads of execution, which may be a difficult feature to understand, especially if you are not an experienced programmer.

Our second recommendation, to further simplify the game, is to remove the loop construction cards (the four blue instruction cards featuring the word "while" and the "break" card), as well as the "else" card. Without while loops, the only control flow instructions left in the deck will be conditionals ("if" cards).

Our third recommendation, if the game still seems too complicated, is to remove the remaining control flow instructions (the conditionals, i.e. "if" cards). This means that the only instructions (blue cards) left in the deck will be assignments (cards with the "=" icon). It also means that when building the program, no indentations can occur; the program will be a single vertical column of cards. We don't recommend playing with a deck this reduced for very long, because you won't be able to build very interesting programs!

Bridge Variant

While Race Condition™ was designed to be a two player game, it can be played by four players in what we call the Bridge Variant. The rules are as in the original instructions, except that "Negative" and "Positive" are each played by a team of two players, instead of one player. The players sit in alternating order (Negative, Positive, Negative, Positive, etc.) such that play alternates between the two teams. Team members may not discuss the contents of their hands. If the "Trade Hands" card is played, it can be applied to any one of the other player's hands.