The words
Verbs — tapped (tunneling), verved (energy), boo'd (measurement), twigged (entanglement), riffed (interference).
Qualifiers — up, down (spins), through (a pass), out (decay).
Nouns — kiki (fermion, size 3; you can't hold two kikis in one spin), bouba (boson, size 2, +1 per other bouba you have in the same spin), lulu (carrier, size 2; each lulu on your table adds 1 to verved through).
A sentence is verb, qualifier, noun, in that order. Up or down leaves a state with a spin. Through or out leaves a bare particle. Nouns are played face-down: hidden until seen, known once seen, measured once boo'd. Sentences that use N flip the noun face-up (known).
Turn
- Draw one card. Empty deck: you lose.
- Play any number of cards, one at a time, in chain order. At most 3 open chains. You may close an opponent's complete chain with your noun, paying verve equal to its size; the result is theirs and known.
- Discard down to 7.
- Leak: lose 1 verve per open chain. Verved up adds 1; verved down makes it 0.
Losing: 0 verve, or drawing from an empty deck. Or, at the start of the opponent's turn, having no hidden nouns, no live links and no open chains (not checked on either player's first turn). An empty board counts.
The sixty sentences
| up | down | through | out |
|---|
| tapped |
Pay 1. Push an opponent's state to up; an entangled partner goes down. |
Pay 1. Push an opponent's state to down; an entangled partner goes up. |
Pay 1. Coin: heads, opponent loses N. Reveals. |
Pay 1. Examine a non-entangled thing of theirs (known). If its size ≤ N, discard it. Reveals. |
|---|
| verved |
Gain N. Leak +1 this turn. Reveals. |
Gain 1. No leak this turn. |
Gain N + 1 per lulu on your table. Reveals. |
Opponent loses N; you lose 1. Reveals. |
|---|
| boo'd |
Measure a hidden, non-entangled thing of theirs; its spin becomes up. |
Same, spin becomes down. |
Sweep: measure every hidden, non-entangled bare particle of theirs. If none, measure one hidden state, spin unchanged. |
Reveal and discard a hidden, non-entangled thing of theirs. |
|---|
| twigged |
Link to one of your own unmeasured, unlinked things. This is up; partner becomes down. |
Mirror: this is down; partner becomes up. |
Link to an opponent's unmeasured, unlinked thing. This is a spinless state; partner keeps its spin. |
As twigged up, but the link is fatal: if either half leaves, both go. |
|---|
| riffed |
Target an opponent's state with a spin. Up: both grow by N. Down: both are discarded. Reveals. |
Mirror: down grows, up cancels. Reveals. |
Nothing happens. A bare particle is left. |
Discard any thing of theirs, and this noun. Nothing is left. |
|---|
A sentence with no legal target has no effect but still leaves its noun (cover). Tapped costs its 1 verve regardless.
Entanglement
A link joins two things. Neither can be boo'd, examined by tapped out, or twigged again while linked. If both halves have spins they are always opposite; pushing or collapsing one flips the other. When either half leaves the table the link breaks: a fatal link takes the other half with it; otherwise the survivor goes dark, becoming a hidden bare particle.