Dark Matter, the card game

Dark Matter, the Card Game (DM, tCG), is a fast paced card game for 2 to 4 players where you will join the exciting hunt for Dark Matter, one of the most elusive phenomena of Nature. You will need to operate laboratories, start research, and allocate resources to unveil the potential Dark Matter candidates. Discovering Dark Matter will have you win the Nobel prize!

The game is based on real science, and you will find in the rulebook (that you can download on this site for free, look on the right-hand side of this page) references on Dark Matter and its research. You can select a one-in-all rulebook in a scientific article format or in an eye-catching more easy to read format, or multiple smaller rulebooks in the easier to read format, such as the simple rulebook and others available on our webpage.

In DM, tCG you will play with the 108 cards provided:

1. 9 dark matter related cards:
   • 4 Dark Matter cards, WIMP (Weakly Interactive Massive Particle), Dark Sector, Axion, and MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics), that have identical front and back
   • 5 Dark Matter candidate cards: 4 negative ones ("this is NOT dark matter"), and one positive ("this is dark matter")
2. 51 science cards grouped into 3 categories:
   • 9 laboratory cards: 4 surface laboratories, 3 underground laboratories and 2 deep underground laboratories
   • 15 research cards: each individual card describing a different research effort
   • 27 resource cards: 9 Student cards, 9 Data cards, 9 Publication cards
3. 47 grant cards:
   • 34 money cards (from 1 to 30, and 33, 42, 50 and 100 M$)
   • 13 event cards
4. one rule card

The game goes in successions of turns. Every turn the players will first play grant money cards to determine the game order. They will then have to build a successful research for Dark Matter from science cards: they will start by owning a laboratory, then launch a research on it, and assign the needed resources. When this is done the candidate associated with that research will be revealed, leading to winning the game if it was dark matter, or continuing the game if not.

But it won’t be so easy. Only one laboratory, research or resource is available at a time, a new one being revealed only after the current one is taken by a player. Also, instead of taking one of the available science cards a player can use an event card, which may alter the game, including the ownership of laboratories and researches.

The game ends either when Dark Matter is found (and whoever found it is the winner - there can be multiple winners if they finish a dark matter search in the same turn), when all candidates are searched and are found to be negative (in that case everybody wins), or when there is no resource card available (and in that case everybody loses).

More information, including gameplay videos, can be found at the project webpage.

Note: the rulebook available is a preliminary version. You can play the game with it, but please check back on October 31 when the final ruelbook will be uploaded