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Nucleosynthesis

A stellar game for the masses 

A card game to be played on the chart of nuclides

 

Where can I buy them?


The full deck of game cards is presently printed by MPC and can be purchased below

Buy now!   


To play the game you will also need:
o A copy of the chart of nuclides to play the game on
o Pieces to represent players (4 players or less is best)
o A six sided dice



 

How to play


Place the shuffled deck face down.

Each player must choose a playing piece (anything that will fit inside the squares coins etc. ).

On your first turn you roll the die to choose your starting row number ("Z" - number of protons), and then again to choose your column number ("N"- number of neutrons).
Your square now represents an atomic isotope. End your turn.

After your first turn, at the start of each new turn draw a card from the top of the deck and add it to your hand. You may play any number of cards per turn. The moves on these cards represent the stellar nucleosynthesis processes occuring in galaxies.
If the move would land you outside of the chart then stop at the furthest possible square.
Place played cards in a seperate pile face down.

Once you have moved according to the cards, if you land on a coloured square then you must roll a dice.
You must then move by the number and direction of 'steps' depending on the colour of the square, as:

Red ("Beta-plus decay"): Move down by one row and up by one column number (Z-1, N+1)
Orange ("Proton emission"): Move down by one row (Z-1)
Dark blue ("Beta-minus decay"): Move up by one row, down by one column (Z+1, N-1)
Light blue ("Neutron emission"): Move down by one column (N-1)
Yellow ("Alpha decay"): Move down by two rows, move down by two columns (Z-2, N-2)
Black ("Stable"): Do nothing you can't move! End your turn.

Do these 'steps' as many times as the number on your dice e.g. if you roll a 3 on dark blue then move up by one row, down by one column three times.
BUT if your step takes you to another colour then you must move according to that colour for the remaining number of steps.
(These steps are also shown on the front of the pack of cards)
This represents the nuclear decay process which occurs in stellar nucleosynthesis.
End your turn.

The first player to reach 238 uranium wins! (row 92 (Z=92), column 146 (N=146))

If you do not play any cards you end your turn and do not need to do anything else.

If no cards are left in the pile, shuffle the discarded pile of cards and continue to play from that pile.

 

 

adamvernon at outlook.com