Whether you need a way to blow off steam from work, are waiting for your model to train or want to be able to talk to your family about the things you do, this game, developed in Barcelona and designed in Mallorca, is the ideal one.

Use it as a catalyst to make your witty comments about that boss who gets on your nerves, AI hype or simply as a pretext to explain to your nearest and dearest what is NLP, MLOps or why all the work comes at 6 o'clock.

Index

1. How to plai
2. Extra modes
3. Card statistics
4. Product roadmap

1. How to plai

plAI is a game designed for 2 to 6 players. More might also play and it will be more challenging. For 2, see the extra modes section.

​Objective

You’ve decided to be self-empowered and have founded an AI startup which aim is to wipe all competitors and become a monopoly in this dynamic environment.

The number of cards in your hand are your company’s assets and will allow to attack to get more cards, defend yourself and mess with the other startups. Do not let it reach 0 but beware if you have too many!

​End of game

The game ends in those situations:

• Monopoly: Only one startup is left with cards (the winner)
• Trough of Disillusionment: There are no more cards available in the draw pile and there are more than one plaier. No one will remember you

If a game finished with Monopoly situations and there are cards left, you may start a new game this way without reusing the discarded cards. That’ll be great for you card counters.

​Card types

There are four (4) types of cards, each one with a different role:

• Adversaries: Used for attacking other startups and crushing them.
• Use Cases: A description of "the problem" (– you sell–) you solve. Use them to defend against adversaries.
• Buzzwords: popular words or phrases in the AI world. Use them with adversaries or use cases to step-up your battle. Some of them have powerful effects for extra strength and/or affecting the rival's plaied cards.
• Special: Wild effect cards to play in your turn (or in. The description will explain more what each card does.

​Setup

Give each plaier 6 cards. Then ask your Virtual Assistant who will start and the direction. Or just decide throwing a coin, by who has more cats or by random sampling, it’s more eco-friendly.

If you want to follow your own rules, it’s now time to decide and agree which will they be.

​Turns

On your turn, you can do one of the following:

• plAI one special card
• Do a funding. But do not take the cards immediately. Leave them next to the pile in case someone wants to attack you.
• Hostile Takeover: Attack a rival in a death battle (only if you have an attack card). The winner gets all the looser remaining cards.

After everything is done, evaluate if any plaier has 0 cards. If that’s the case, their startup is bankrupt and cannot continue on the market.

​Funding

To rent more brain and compute power you need funding! There are 3 types you can end your round with:

• Family funding: (fools and friends) draw 1 card. You can do it max 2 turns in a row. If caught trying to do it more turns, you loose 4 cards.
• Regional pitch: 2 cards but you can be attacked by the next plaier.
• Venture Capital: go bullish on you: 3 cards but you can be attacked by anyone.

If no one wants to attack you, recover the funding.

Remember to not take the cards directly, just leave them besides the deck face down to let people attack you if they want.

​Attack

It’s how you can gain extra cards and crush other startups. There are two ways to attack:

• In your own turn using a Hostile Takeover: you fight for each other's cards and one of you will be out of business.
• When someone does a funding that gives you the opportunity to attack. In this case you'll fight for the funding.

You can plai up to 4 battle cards face down. Use Adversaries if you are on attack and Use Cases if you are on defense. In both cases you can also add Buzzwords.

Considerations:

• For an attack/defense to be successful, there must be at least one Adversary/Use Case.
• You can ask for help to any other plaier.
• You can choose not to defend yourself.
• Some Buzzwords can have effects changing the battle entirelly.
• Some Special cards can be thrown mid battle those do not count for the max of 4 cards.
• You may bluff with just attacking with buzzwor cards. However, if they defend you've lost the battle.

​Battle Resolution

1. The defendant turns its Plaied cards face up and applies the effects.
2. Attacker turns cards face up and effects are applied.
3. The attacker wins if it has more points than the defender. All cards will be lost.
4. The winner takes the drawn cards if it’s a funding or all the looser hand if it’s a hostile takeover.

2. Extra modes

We've designed it so it can be used in more than just one way. Try them out (alone or combined) and if you invent any other mode, share it with us!

• Botifarra (2 plaiers): Do multiple rounds. The winner of each round gets all used cards and when the deck is finished, the one with more cards wins. TIP: strategically loose rounds if you don’t have a good hand at first.
• Truth-teller: When attacking, you have to do a “pitch” explaining what you attack with. Use your imagination to bluff or tell the truth to make them back down,  but if you get caught, you’ll lose one of the plaied cards.
• Speed plai: you have a 10 minutes to become a monopoly, if not, the hype has passed and you all loose.
• Consultant: once a plaier has lost their startup, provide consultancy services to other plaiers... for a fee! Like giving you a card next round. It’s your call.
• Cosplay: the plaier dressed more like a startup owner starts with an extra card. Just remember to tag us in any photo you upload to any social media site!
• 10x DS: Not really a card game, but an exercise for you, eager data scientists. Split use-case and buzzwords. Mix them. Select 1 use-case and 2 buzzwords. Build a model to “solve” the use case and think about the ethical implications

3. Card statistics

I know you'll just want to see the numbers so here they are

4. Product Roadmap

As PO I always tried to give the teams and stakeholders a transparency of where the product is going. And now I want to share with you the different options I have in mind.

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