You asked
How do I play?
Answered counted as answeredAsked with: Magic Mazebg-209778-en-1e
3. When all four Hero pawns are simultaneously on their respective Item spaces, they steal the items, the alarm is triggered, and the four Hero pawns must quickly reach the exit without being caught (i.e. without the sand timer running out).[1] At this moment, flip the Theft tile B-side-up.[1]
**Rules and Mechanics:**
* **Turns and Actions:** There are no "turns".[2] You act whenever you notice that one of your actions may be useful.[2] You can perform the action(s) depicted on your own Action tile at any time and as often as you wish, but you cannot perform any actions that are not on your Action tile.[2]
* **Using Action Tiles:** Using only one hand, you must reveal the Action tiles one by one onto a discard pile until the action you wish to use is visible on top of the discard pile.[3] You can then use that one action with any number of the Hero pawns, and as many times as you wish.[3] To perform another action, you must continue to reveal and discard the other Action tiles from the deck until the action you want comes up.[3] If you empty the deck, flip the discard pile face down (without shuffling it) and start revealing tiles again.[3] Whenever you flip the sand timer, you must shuffle the deck and discard pile together to form a new deck.[3]
* **Movement:** The Move action allows you to move a Hero pawn as many spaces as you want in the direction indicated by the arrow.[2] A Hero pawn's movement must end before it hits an obstacle (wall, another hero, etc.).[2] Hero pawns can only move on corridor spaces and can never move into illustrated areas.[2] Hero pawns can neither pass through walls nor other heroes, and there can never be two Hero pawns on the same space.[2][4]
* **Other Actions:** The Use a Vortex action allows you to move any Hero pawn from wherever it is to any Vortex space of its colour.[2] The Take the Escalator action allows you to move a Hero pawn from one side of an escalator to the other, regardless of orientation, but a Hero pawn can never stop on an escalator.[2]
* **Exploration:** To explore a passage to an unexplored tile, a Hero pawn must be on an Exploration space of its own colour.[4] After the passage has been explored, any hero can pass through in both ways.[4]
* **Communication:** Once the sand timer is turned over, you cannot communicate in any way whatsoever.[3][5] You must play without giving any visual or audio cues to each other.[1] (Note: Certain scenarios may have different communication rules [6][7][8]).
* **Defeat:** If the sand timer ever completely runs out before the Hero pawns escape, all players lose the game.[1]
[1]
RULEBOOK
[2]
RULEBOOK
[3]
RULEBOOK
[4]
RULEBOOK
[5]
RULEBOOK
[6]
RULEBOOK
[7]
RULEBOOK
[8]
RULEBOOK
🔧 debug — where this ruling came from
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- corpus profile
- live,vps
- answerer pin (deploy-frozen, attribution only)
- gemma4:26b think:false 5571076f3d70
- timings
- search 115 ms · ask 5333 ms · total 5451 ms
- single-flight (PR-5)
- queued 0 ms · generation 5451 ms
- retrieval refs (raw) — what the PASSAGE SEARCH returned, not what the answerer read
- [{"page": 3, "score": 0.04866, "snippet": "Follow the instructions for the scenario you choose to play, which will tell you how to set up the Mall tile deck , usually face down; start with Scenarios 1 - 7 (initiation campaign), then continue with Scenarios 8 - 17. After that, feel free to come up with your own scenarios! Place the starting t", "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 3, "score": 0.047883, "snippet": "You can chat, plot, and scheme as much as you want during the setup. As soon as everyone is ready, turn over the sand timer to begin your heist. Now silence and subtlety are required: You cannot communicate in any way whatsoever! TIP Are there too many of you to fit around your table? Not everyone c", "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.047131, "snippet": "Explore the shopping mall, steal the items, then flee through the only exit (purple). Once a Hero pawn has fled through the exit, place that Hero pawn at the right place on the Theft tile. If you wish, for this introductory scenario, you are allowed to talk as much as you want, throughout the entire", "headingPath": "Shuffle Mall tiles 2 - 9, and place tile 1 A-side-up. · SPECIAL EXCEPTION · REMEMBER THE ESSENTIALS · SCENARIO 2 ◆ Several exits Ignore the Loudspeaker symbols. · NEW PERMANENT RULE", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 2, "score": 0.04598, "snippet": "Magic Maze is a real-time, co-operative game. You can control any of the 4 Hero pawns whenever you wants in order to make that hero perform your very specific action, to which other players do not have access: move north, explore a new area, ride an escalator… all of this requires rigorous co-operat", "headingPath": "GAME CONCEPT · GOAL OF THE GAME · GAMEPLAY", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 8, "score": 0.045805, "snippet": "Now that you know all the rules of Magic Maze, you are ready to face challenges worthy of your abilities! Here is a series of scenarios at different difficulty levels. Each of them appears on the scoresheet ( The Great Book of Challenges ) on its own line with a series of increasingly difficult leve", "headingPath": "SCENARIOS · SCENARIO 8 ◆ Divination · SCENARIO 9 ◆ Follow the leader! 3 players or more. · REMARK · SCENARIO 10 ◆ Trick the Guards · SCENARIO 11 ◆ Rearrangement mode · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 6, "score": 0.03125, "snippet": "If the sand timer runs out, you have lost the game! But each time a Hero pawn is moved onto an available Sand Timer space, you must immediately flip the sand timer, regardless of whether that gets you more or less time. Important: Do not use a regular timer instead of a sand timer; the result is not", "headingPath": "TIME RESTRICTION · COMMUNICATION RESTRICTION · REMARKS · TIATION CAMPAIGN INITIATION CAMPAIGN", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 5, "score": 0.030769, "snippet": "If you have the Explore action, you have the responsibility of adding new tiles to the board. You can only do this when a Hero pawn is standing on an Exploration space of its own colour that leads to an unexplored area. The four types of Exploration spaces. First Brian, who has the NORTH arrow, move", "headingPath": "EXPLORE · SPECIAL CASES · STEALING IS NOT AN ACTION!", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 7, "score": 0.030303, "snippet": "Shuffle Mall tiles 2 - 12, place tile 1 A-side-up, and follow the previous permanent rule. Every time the sand timer is flipped, the players pass their Action tile to the player on their left. Make sure the North arrow on the Action tiles stays oriented in the same direction as the one on the starti", "headingPath": "SCENARIO 3 ◆ Pass your Action tile Ignore the Loudspeaker symbols. · NEW PERMANENT RULE 2 players or more · SCENARIO 4 ◆ Dwarf & Elf special abilities · NEW PERMANENT RULE · SCENARIO 5 ◆ Mage special ability · SCENARIO 6 ◆ Barbarian special ability", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}]
- citations (raw) — what the answer cited, chosen from a retrieval this page cannot show
- [{"page": 2, "quote": null, "headingPath": "GAME CONCEPT · GOAL OF THE GAME · GAMEPLAY", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 4, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP · MOVE · REMARK · USE A VORTEX · IMPORTANT · TAKE THE ESCALATOR", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 6, "quote": null, "headingPath": "Shuffle Mall tiles 2 - 9, and place tile 1 A-side-up. · SPECIAL EXCEPTION · REMEMBER THE ESSENTIALS · SCENARIO 2 ◆ Several exits Ignore the Loudspeaker symbols. · NEW PERMANENT RULE", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 3, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SETUP", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 7, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SCENARIO 3 ◆ Pass your Action tile Ignore the Loudspeaker symbols. · NEW PERMANENT RULE 2 players or more · SCENARIO 4 ◆ Dwarf & Elf special abilities · NEW PERMANENT RULE · SCENARIO 5 ◆ Mage special ability · SCENARIO 6 ◆ Barbarian special ability", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SCENARIO 13 ◆ Multidimensional mall · SCENARIO 14 ◆ No communication · SCENARIO 15 ◆ You have beautiful eyes · SCENARIO 16 ◆ Vortex out of service · SCENARIO 17 ◆ Groups forbidden", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}, {"page": 8, "quote": null, "headingPath": "SCENARIOS · SCENARIO 8 ◆ Divination · SCENARIO 9 ◆ Follow the leader! 3 players or more. · REMARK · SCENARIO 10 ◆ Trick the Guards · SCENARIO 11 ◆ Rearrangement mode · …", "sharpsignalDocId": 670}]
- boost provenance — errata + base rulebook (E2/E3)
-
no registered errata card matched this query; base rulebook doc 670 boosted; rulesage.errata.boost-enabled=true, rulesage.errata.supersedence-enabled=true
base rulebook doc 670 boosted
- answered-before recall
-
this ruling was answered, so past rulings were not offered
similarity threshold in force: 0.55 (rulesage.answered-before.similarity-threshold; the exact-question tier is not gated by it)
- answer fence
- passed — letter density 0.91037 of 2488 non-space chars (floor 0.45); 0 glyph-index tokens (max 2)
- debug row retained until
- Nov 15, 2026 07:48
retrieval — what the passage search returned
what this block IS: the PASSAGE SEARCH's own results — the same search that fills this page's closest-passages list — and NOT the passages the answerer read. Answering runs its OWN retrieval: a far wider candidate pool, re-ranked down to a final handful, plus floors this search never applies — the base rulebook, surviving errata corrections, and one slot per book on a multi-book read. Each of those armed only if THIS ask sent what it needs: the boost block names the ids it forwarded, and the scope line names the books it read. A document the answer CITES that no row here names is therefore EXPECTED, not a defect: two searches, two candidate pools, two orders. The answerer's own final rows are shown in their own block below, beside these and never mixed into them.
score = the fused retrieval score (reciprocal-rank fusion over the search arms) — NOT a cosine similarity. This ruling ran the THREE-ARM fuse (full-text + vector + the doc-priority boost arm, which carried the base rulebook and/or the errata corrections this query matched), whose arithmetic ceiling is 0.04918 — all three arms ranking the same chunk #1 (ceiling = arms/(k+1) at k=60). The measured healthy band 0.016–0.033 was measured on TWO-arm asks and does not bound this one: its high end is the two-arm ceiling, and a third arm has room above it. A chunk only one arm ranked highly lands near 0.016 (that one arm's #1 vote), so 0.03 here is an excellent hit, not a 3% match.
per-arm ranks (the rank each search arm gave a chunk): NOT DISCLOSED by the gateway. Fusion happens gateway-side and only the FUSED score crosses the wire, so rulesage cannot show them without a gateway change. The rank column below is the FUSED rank (position in the returned list), which is real.
token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.
| fused rank | document | heading | page | fused RRF score | snippet chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SETUP | p.3 | 0.04866 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SETUP | p.3 | 0.047883 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
| #3 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | Shuffle Mall tiles 2 - 9, and place tile 1 A-side-up. · SPECIAL EXCEPTION · REMEMBER THE ESSENTIALS · SCENARIO 2 ◆ Several exits Ignore the Loudspeaker symbols. · NEW PERMANENT RULE | p.6 | 0.047131 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | GAME CONCEPT · GOAL OF THE GAME · GAMEPLAY | p.2 | 0.04598 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
| #5 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SCENARIOS · SCENARIO 8 ◆ Divination · SCENARIO 9 ◆ Follow the leader! 3 players or more. · REMARK · SCENARIO 10 ◆ Trick the Guards · SCENARIO 11 ◆ Rearrangement mode · … | p.8 | 0.045805 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
| #6 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | TIME RESTRICTION · COMMUNICATION RESTRICTION · REMARKS · TIATION CAMPAIGN INITIATION CAMPAIGN | p.6 | 0.03125 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | EXPLORE · SPECIAL CASES · STEALING IS NOT AN ACTION! | p.5 | 0.030769 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
| #8 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SCENARIO 3 ◆ Pass your Action tile Ignore the Loudspeaker symbols. · NEW PERMANENT RULE 2 players or more · SCENARIO 4 ◆ Dwarf & Elf special abilities · NEW PERMANENT RULE · SCENARIO 5 ◆ Mage special ability · SCENARIO 6 ◆ Barbarian special ability | p.7 | 0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | 300 |
what the answerer read — the passages it actually had in front of it
what this block IS: the passages the ANSWERING read put in front of the answerer, in the order it read them — the other half of the two reads described above, and the one that decides what the answer could possibly say. Each row names the book it came from and where in that book it sits, what it scored when the search arms were fused, which arm carried it there, and whether the re-ranker chose it or a floor guaranteed it a slot. A row here that no passage-search row names is EXPECTED: a far wider pool, re-ranked, with floors the passage search never applies.
candidate pool: the answering read scored 13 passages, out of a ceiling of 80 set gateway-side. Both figures are reported by the gateway for THIS ask — measurements of what actually happened, not constants read out of anyone's source and printed here on faith.
floors armed for this ask: the base rulebook — armed · surviving errata corrections — not armed · one slot per book on a multi-book read — not armed. Every floor is stated on every ask, armed or not, so a floor that did not apply here is never mistaken for one this app does not know about.
arms fused for this ask: vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm. Stated separately from the rows because an arm that ran and carried nothing is a different fact from an arm that never ran.
| read at | document | heading | page | fused rank | fused RRF score | carried by | how it got its slot |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SETUP | p.3 | #1 | 0.04866 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm | the re-ranker chose it |
| #2 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | GAME CONCEPT · GOAL OF THE GAME · GAMEPLAY | p.2 | #4 | 0.04598 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm | the re-ranker chose it |
| #3 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SETUP · MOVE · REMARK · USE A VORTEX · IMPORTANT · TAKE THE ESCALATOR | p.4 | #9 | 0.014493 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) | vector | the re-ranker chose it |
| #4 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SCENARIO 3 ◆ Pass your Action tile Ignore the Loudspeaker symbols. · NEW PERMANENT RULE 2 players or more · SCENARIO 4 ◆ Dwarf & Elf special abilities · NEW PERMANENT RULE · SCENARIO 5 ◆ Mage special ability · SCENARIO 6 ◆ Barbarian special ability | p.7 | #8 | 0.030303 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | vector + the doc-priority boost arm | the re-ranker chose it |
| #5 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SCENARIO 13 ◆ Multidimensional mall · SCENARIO 14 ◆ No communication · SCENARIO 15 ◆ You have beautiful eyes · SCENARIO 16 ◆ Vortex out of service · SCENARIO 17 ◆ Groups forbidden | p.8 | #12 | 0.013889 (below 0.016, the low end of the measured band — a weak fuse (that band was taken on two-arm asks; only its low end, one arm's #1 vote, carries over to a 3-arm one)) | vector | the re-ranker chose it |
| #6 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SCENARIOS · SCENARIO 8 ◆ Divination · SCENARIO 9 ◆ Follow the leader! 3 players or more. · REMARK · SCENARIO 10 ◆ Trick the Guards · SCENARIO 11 ◆ Rearrangement mode · … | p.8 | #5 | 0.045805 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm | the re-ranker chose it |
| #7 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | Shuffle Mall tiles 2 - 9, and place tile 1 A-side-up. · SPECIAL EXCEPTION · REMEMBER THE ESSENTIALS · SCENARIO 2 ◆ Several exits Ignore the Loudspeaker symbols. · NEW PERMANENT RULE | p.6 | #3 | 0.047131 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm | the re-ranker chose it |
| #8 | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SETUP | p.3 | #2 | 0.047883 (healthy, below this ruling's 3-arm ceiling 0.04918 (the measured band 0.016–0.033 was taken on two-arm asks and does not bound a 3-arm one)) | vector + full-text + the doc-priority boost arm | the re-ranker chose it |
chosen chunks — what the answer actually cited
token count per chunk: NOT DISCLOSED — chunk token counts are not reported on the ask path. The character counts below are of the bounded snippet/quote rulesage actually received — a real measurement of what we hold, never an estimate of the chunk.
| # | document | heading | page | quote chars |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | GAME CONCEPT · GOAL OF THE GAME · GAMEPLAY | p.2 | no quote on the wire |
| [2] | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SETUP · MOVE · REMARK · USE A VORTEX · IMPORTANT · TAKE THE ESCALATOR | p.4 | no quote on the wire |
| [3] | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SETUP | p.3 | no quote on the wire |
| [4] | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | Shuffle Mall tiles 2 - 9, and place tile 1 A-side-up. · SPECIAL EXCEPTION · REMEMBER THE ESSENTIALS · SCENARIO 2 ◆ Several exits Ignore the Loudspeaker symbols. · NEW PERMANENT RULE | p.6 | no quote on the wire |
| [5] | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SETUP | p.3 | no quote on the wire |
| [6] | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SCENARIO 3 ◆ Pass your Action tile Ignore the Loudspeaker symbols. · NEW PERMANENT RULE 2 players or more · SCENARIO 4 ◆ Dwarf & Elf special abilities · NEW PERMANENT RULE · SCENARIO 5 ◆ Mage special ability · SCENARIO 6 ◆ Barbarian special ability | p.7 | no quote on the wire |
| [7] | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SCENARIO 13 ◆ Multidimensional mall · SCENARIO 14 ◆ No communication · SCENARIO 15 ◆ You have beautiful eyes · SCENARIO 16 ◆ Vortex out of service · SCENARIO 17 ◆ Groups forbidden | p.8 | no quote on the wire |
| [8] | RULEBOOK Magic Maze — Rulebook (corpus doc 670) | SCENARIOS · SCENARIO 8 ◆ Divination · SCENARIO 9 ◆ Follow the leader! 3 players or more. · REMARK · SCENARIO 10 ◆ Trick the Guards · SCENARIO 11 ◆ Rearrangement mode · … | p.8 | no quote on the wire |
generation — timing and the path taken
- timing split
- retrieval 115 ms · first delta 1845 ms · total 5451 ms (retrieval and first-delta both measured from the START of gateway work, so first-delta INCLUDES retrieval — do not subtract)
- full breakdown
- queued 0 ms · retrieval 115 ms · ask 5333 ms · gateway work 5451 ms · total 5451 ms
- tokens in (the prompt the answerer read)
- 3847
- tokens out (what the answerer generated)
- 721
- tok/sec
- 203.0 tok/sec — 721 output tokens in 3.551 s of generation
- live seat (read from the running child)
- answering — gemma4:26b think:false · num_ctx 32768 (live-verified 40s ago)
- stream path
- streamed — the gateway pushed at least one accumulated draft
- watchdog
- first-token watchdog: 30s per arming window (rulesage.table.first-token-watchdog-seconds), re-armed once by the passages frame — so the worst case before a reader falls back to polling is 60s. Whether it actually fired is a BROWSER-side decision that never reaches the server, so it is not recorded here. The stream path above is the server's half of that story: whether a delta was emitted at all.
- num_ctx · think posture
- both are the CHILD's settings, not rulesage's, and no ask reply carries them — an answer never states which context window or think posture produced it. The live-seat line above reads them from the running child instead, where the gateway can answer for itself; it describes the child NOW, not this ask.
disposition
- outcome
- ANSWERED — Answered
- abstain rationale (n/a — this ruling answered)
- answered — no abstain rationale applies
setup-shape — why the checklist band did or didn't render
- decision
- NOT_SETUP_SHAPED — no setup-shape pattern matched this question
errata registry — what the gate above had to match against
this game registers NO errata cards (edition 603), so "no registered errata card matched" above could never have matched one
Errata scope: the gate above matched this ruling's own edition only. When an ask also reads an expansion, that expansion's own registered errata cards stay outside the match — a stated phase-1 limitation, not a failed lookup.