How to play In Front of the Elevators, a game of strategic queue jumping.
Watch the Video
Read the Rules
The aim of the game
To win, score the most points, making sure cards of your family end up in front of the elevator doors.
To set up
- Sort the elevator cards by colour, turn them to the appropriate side for the number of players and stack them in a column, with the I on top, II in the centre and III on the bottom.
- Give each player a coloured Family reference card, In a 2 player game, take 2 each.
- In a 2 or 4 player game, you’ll use all 5 families, in a 3 player game remove one colour entirely, then choose 1 card at random from the colour that doesn’t belong to anyone and return it to the box.
- Shuffle the remaining person cards and deal each player 2 cards of their family colour. In a 2 player game, make sure it’s one of each. If both cards you draw are lost children, return one to the deck and draw a new card.
- Finally, place 1 person card from the deck face up to the right of each elevator, split the rest into 3 piles and place them facedown to the left of each.
The person who most smoothly got onto an elevator recently begins.
To play the game
On your turn, choose a card from your hand to add it to any escalator queue, placing it to the right of the line.
Each person has a cut in ability, marked on your family card. Girls cut in front of boys, boys in front of mothers, mothers in front of fathers, fathers in in front of grandmas, grandmas in front of grandpas and grandpas in front of girls.
For example, if I placed a boy and a mother was in the queue, he would cut in front of her, being placed on her left hand side. And this Grandma cuts in front of the Grandpa. If there are multiple family members to cut in front of, choose the one closest to the elevator door. For example, if i placed this father, he would cut in front of the grandma furthest to the left.
If you place a lost child, choose a card of the same colour from the line (if there is one) and move it back to the right of the child. Lost children can’t cut in, only drag cards back.
If placing a card makes it so that there are 3 of the same type of person in the queue, the player that placed it removes them all from the line and places them in front of them.
If you place 3 lost children, apply the lost child ability first, then remove all 3.
Finally, after placing a card draw a new one from one of the face down piles. If one pile runs dry, use a different one.
Game end & scoring
Keep placing cards, skipping queues, making sets and drawing new ones until all 3 piles are empty. Each player places 1 more card, then scoring begins.
Each elevator has a capacity, marked on the bottom and a bonus multiplier on the top.
For example, this elevator can hold 4 people. The person closest to the door gets in first and scores 2 points, the second and third person in the queue, score 2 and 3 points and the 4th person in the queue scores 4 points as they get on last and can exit first!
If any of the passengers are fathers on grandpas they score double points!
Lost children may board the elevator, but always score 0.
Finally, players score 1 point per set of 3 family members infront of them and 2 points for each set of lost children.
After totalling scores, return the top elevator from each row to the box and reshuffle all the person cards and draw a new hand. The player who scored the most points in the previous round starts the next one.
Whoever has the most points after 3 rounds wins!
If it’s a tie, share the victory.
That’s In Front of the Elevators, a game of competitive queueing.
Enjoy!