The Original Cliff Divers
"Leaping Lemmings was the surprise hit of the convention (CSW Expo 2007); everyone is saying good things about it to me."
- John Kranz - CSW Expo Convention Director
Leaping Lemmings is a humorous hobby or family game for 2-6 players. Each player controls a cloned clan of lemmings that have been specially trained to compete with the other lemming clans, all trying to scurry down a canyon and hurl themselves over a cliff. Distance and style points are important. One lemming diving with style and élan is worth as many as five of the more mundane divers. But beware the hungry eagles circling overhead or your lemmings might not even make the cliff edge!
Playtime: 30-90 minutes (15 minutes per player)
Objective: The player with the most victory points wins the game. To earn victory points, players dive their lemmings over the cliff edge and/or collect Lemming Chow Pellets.
The Board
The game board is a hex-based map representing the canyon down which up to six separate lemming clans will travel. The canyon ends with the cliff edge, which is the lemmings' ultimate goal. There are three basic types of hexes on the map:
Clear hexes, which do not protect lemmings from becoming eagle chow.
Brush hexes, which do protect lemmings from becoming eagle chow but restrict stacking and cost more movement points to enter.
Lemming Chow Pellet hexes represent possible tasty rewards for the lemmings, and can tempt them into the more dangerous clear hexes.
Lemmings
Each player controls 10 lemmings. You are trying to move your lemmings towards the cliff, making use of covering terrain while trying to force your opponents' lemmings into becoming eagle chow.
Movement Cards
Each turn a movement card is revealed which will allow for 2-5 lemming movement points. Card luck is mitigated in that all players use the same card to move that turn. Only the top lemming in each stack is allowed to move, so covering your opponents' lemmings is one tactic used to slow them down. The down side of this tactic is that the eagles always snatch the top lemming of each stack when they strike. Lemmings generally move forward but are also allowed to move one hex sideways.
Example: The Eagle Player (green) reveals a '4' movement card. He chooses to move into the brush hex straight ahead, which is three zones away from the red eagle's current position, thinking that he should be fairly safe there. The purple clan moves next, and thinking that he should be the Eagle Player on the next turn, he opts to move full steam ahead, scorning the brush to move as far forward as he can. The blue clan moves last, and he wants to end up in the completely safe sanctuary hex, and since he is allowed to move one hex sideways during his move, he accomplishes the feat as shown. Note that he could not enter the red eagle's zone of control.
Lemming Chow
There are 32 Lemming Chow Pellet markers in the game, 16 of which are placed on the map during setup, and the rest may come into play via pellet resupply which happens throughout in the game. Each pellet marker is worth 0, 1, or 2 VPs.
Special Actions
Special Actions allow players to alter the normal rules of the game to their advantage or to their opponents' detriment. Players are dealt Special Action cards during setup. Each Special Action card may be used only once, so you need to save each one for its best use to help you towards victory. Three of the 18 different Special Actions are shown below to whet your appetite.
BOO! - One Active or Covered lemming of the Special Action Player's choice is startled by a sudden noise behind it and the Special Action Player moves this lemming two movement points forward. If this moves the lemming over the cliff, award one point to the owning clan, as the lemming was too startled to receive any points for technique.
ROCK SLIDE - The edge of the cliff collapses and all lemmings (Active, Covered, and Burrowed) currently within a cliff edge hex tumble down with the falling rocks and the owning clans are awarded only one Victory Point for each lemming.
ROMANCE BURROW - The Special Action Player places a romance burrow on any two lemmings that are from different clans and that are currently alone together in the same brush hex. These lemmings may not move until the burrow is removed, which happens the next time any Eagle Player rolls a double-hover on the eagle dice or when a brush fire affects their hex. Burrowed lemmings count against the stacking limits.
Eagles
There are two eagles in the game, each circling the board within its own color-coded hunting circle. Players take turns controlling the eagles. Hunting Eagles can attack any clear hex within their zone of control.
Example: The Eagle Player (yellow) rolls a '2' on the blue eagle die. Since the blue eagle started in zone 'D', it could be moved to either zone 'B' or zone 'F'. The eagle is moved to zone 'F', as moving to zone 'B' would result in yellow being forced to eat his own lemming. In zone 'F' he chooses to send the red lemming to the Eagle Chow Box (alternately, the eagle could have taken the green lemming, but not the Covered brown lemming), and he must scatter the rest. He scatters the green and brown lemmings over the cliff, resulting in 1-point dives for the green and brown clans. His own lemming he decides to scatter sideways, covering the blue lemming already in zone 'A'.
Cliff Diving
When a lemming dives with the exact number of movement points needed to cross over the cliff edge, it scores 1 VP. But, it's well…a pretty ordinary dive, almost like falling off by accident. If a lemming has additional movement points available when it crosses the cliff edge, it will impress the judges and earn more VPs.
Example: With a '5' movement card revealed for the turn, the green lemming jumps off with two movement points to spare, earning 3 VPs for the green clan; one for the dive itself and two more for the extra movement points. The red lemming completes the best possible cliff dive, diving with four movement points to spare, earning 5 VPs for the red clan (this is a magnificent dive, with twists and flips, possibly even sticking the landing).
Components:
1 Rulebook (8 pages)
1 map board (13 ½" x 24")
2 eagle dice
104 die-cut cardboard counters
6 Clan Player-aid Cards
1 Quick-start Player-aid Card
1 deck of 55 Cards
DESIGN & RULES: Rick Young & John Poniske
DEVELOPER: John Foley
