Smartphone Inc.

Build your smartphone empire

From BGG:
In Smartphone Inc., you become a CEO of one of the largest smartphone-producing companies in the time when smartphones were only beginning to conquer the world. Research technologies, develop your factory, build your worldwide office network, and outprice your competitors to become the most profitable and successful smartphone company in the world. Smartphone Inc. is an economic simulation Eurogame. Over five rounds, players program their decisions about price, production, research, and expansion. The game features a unique mechanism of planning, which combines patching mechanisms with bidding and action selection. Each of the rounds consists of eight simple phases: planning, pricing, production, development, research, expansion, selling, and profits. In the planning phase, all players simultaneously make decisions for the next year by overlaying ("patching") their two plan cards and all of their development tiles. The actions they plan on their cards and tiles in this phase will determine what actions they can perform during all of the later phases. In the pricing phase, players change the price they charge for their smartphones based on their plan. A lower price helps to go earlier and sell more smartphones on the market, but a higher price, while risky, helps players to earn more money. In production, all players produce smartphones. In development, players take development tiles, which expand their planning possibilities in future rounds. In research, players discover new technologies. Each technology not only expands players' ability to sell smartphones to customers, but also gives them special powers they can use during the game. In the expansion phase, players open offices in neighbor regions, which allow them to sell in that region and develop their network of offices to more regions in further turns. In the sale phase, players sell the phones they produced in regions where they have offices. But there is limited space in each region - and if your price is too high, cheaper rivals can block you from selling. In the profit phase, players get income for their sales. Players gain the sale prices for all of their sold smartphones, and the player who sold the most phones in each region gains a bonus for controlling the accessory market. At the end of this phase all sold smartphones are discarded from the map - and a new round begins. After five rounds, the richest player wins.

Setup

1. Place the game board.
2. Place the markers at the beginnings of the round and phase tracks.
3. Place the victory point board near the main board.
4. If there are less than 5 players, place Retailers:
  - 2 Players: Cover China, Canada, and the Caribbean, as well as all the medium-sized regions without a player's Office. marker.
  - 3 Players: Cover Europe and the RSA, as well as all the medium-sized regions without a player's Office.
  - 4 Players: Cover Canada and the 1 medium-sized region without a player's Office.
5. Place the patents on the matching spaces.
6. Place the Technologies next to the matching patents. Decide which side up or choose one at random.
7. Shuffle the Improvements and place 5 of them face-up in the Improvement area. Place the rest in a face down pile near the board.
8. Place the goods tokens near the board.
9. Each player should do the following:
  1. Choose a color and take a tray with their Progress, Office, and Goods markers.
  2. Take 2 Pads, 1 with the white symbol and 1 with the black.
  3. Take the screen matching their color.
  4. Using the info on the player screen:
    - Place an Office marker on the 1st Office space of their home region.
    - Place a Goods marker on the VP scorecard in the space matching their color.
    - Take the Improvement matching their color.
  5. Place a goods marker on the "5" space of the Price Block. The order should match the order on the VP board.

Gameplay

The game consists of 5 rounds and each round has 8 phases. Phases are played in order from left to right.
Phase 1. Planning (Simultaneous)
- Players overlap their 2 pads in this phase to set their desired actions to take this round. This should be done in secret behind their screens.
  - Pads must be parallel or perpendicular to each other.
  - 1 Pad must overlap 1-4 spaces of the other Pad.
  - You may place Improvements on top of the Pad(s).
  - Improvements must cover 2 spaces (they can't hang off a Pad).
  - Improvements may overlap other Improvements.
  - A Pad may overlap part of an Improvement.
Phase 2. Set Prices (Simultaneous)
- - All prices should be set to 5 at the beginning of this phase.
  - Each "-$" reduces the price by 1 and each "+$" increases the price by 1.
  - Prices will determine player turn order in future phases. See the section on Priority Rule for more info.
Phase 3. Production (Simultaneous)
- Players produce Goods to sell later. Move Good cubes from the supply in their token tray to the available Goods portion.
  1. Move 1 Good for each black Good symbol showing on their pads.
  2. Move 1 Good for each covered cell on their Pads. Note that you only count the cells covered by another Pad, and NOT cells covered by Improvements.
  3. Each yellow Good token produces 1 Good.
  4. Each unused Improvement (face down, not on your Pads) produces 1 Good.
  5. Some researched Technologies or Retailers may also produce additional Goods.
Phase 4. Improve Production (Priority order)
- - If a player has the yellow Improvement symbol active (showing), they take 1 Improvement of their choice from the board.
  - If a player does not have the yellow Improvement symbol active, they take a yellow Good token instead.
  - New Improvements/Goods cannot be used until the NEXT round.
Phase 5. Research Technology (Priority order)
- 1. Players take as many Progress markers as they have purple Progress symbols on their Pads.
  2. On their turn, the player places their Progress markers in the "spinner" space below the patent space of the Tech. they wish to research.
  3. If the number of Progress markers matches the number in the top of the patent space, the player has researched that Tech. and places an Office marker in 1 of the spaces below the Tech. They should remove their Progress markers.
    - If the player is the 1st to research the tech, they also take the Patent tile (VP at the end of the game).
    - Important: Taking the Patent tile may mean that other players will also immediately meet the new cost of that Tech. and place their own Office marker.
  4. Each Tech. will grant players who have researched it a bonus of some sort. They will also allow players to sell to customers seeking that Tech.
  5. Any unused Progress markers are returned to the player's token tray.
Phase 6. Logistics (Priority order)
- 1. Players take as many Progress markers as they have blue Logistics symbols showing on their Pads.
  2. On their turn, the player places their Progress markers in the "spinner" space next to the Logistics symbol for a region(s).
  3. If the cost to enter that region (number in the Logistics symbol) has been met, the player removes the Progress tokens and places an Office marker in the left-most space for that region.
    - If there are no empty Office spaces for the region, players CANNOT add an Office to that region.
    - Each player may only have 1 Office in a region.
  4. Any unused Progress markers are returned to the player's token tray.
Phase 7. Selling Goods (Priority order)
- In this phase, players place Goods from their available Goods they produced during the Production phase.
  - On their turn, the player may sell goods to buyers in regions where they have an Office that does not contain a Retailer.
  - Each square in the region is a buyer.
    - To sell to the red (numbered) buyers, the player's price (set in Phase 2) must be <= to the price printed on the buyer.
    - To sell to the purple (symbols) buyers, the player must have researched the matching Tech.
  - Any unsold goods are lost and returned to the supply in the player's tray.
Phase 8. Receive VP (Simultaneous)
- - Each player multiples the number of Goods on the main board by the price set on the board and receive that many VP.
  - Controlling Regions:
    - If a player has the most Goods in a region, they receive bonus VP.
      
      They receive the number of VP specified in the right-most occupied Office space (can be any player's Office).
      
      If there are 2 VP numbers for the Office space, the player with the most Goods receives the top number and the player with the 2nd most receives the bottom number.
      
      If there is a tie, it is broken by the player with a good on the furthest left buyer.
End of Round
- - All players return all goods on the board back to their Goods supply area of their tray (not in the available Goods portion).
  - Remove any Improvements on the game board and put them back in the box. Add 5 new Improvements.
  - Reset all prices back to 5.
  - Move the round marker to the next round.
  - Reset the phase marker back to phase 1.

End of the Game

After 5 rounds, players add VP to their existing total for:
1. Any VP for Patents they've collected.
2. Any VP earned from Retailers.
If there is a tie, the player with the most Tech. researched wins. If there is still a tie, the player with the most Patents wins. If there is still a tie, tied players share the victory.

Priority Rule (player turn order)

The "Priority Rule" is used to define turn order during a round after prices are set. Similarly, this is also used for tie breaks. Priority/turn order is resolved in this order:
1. The player with the lowest price.
2. (if tied) Then, the player with the lowest VP count.
3. (if still tied) Then, the player lower in the order of the starting spaces printed on the VP board.
Important: Priority/turn order may change during phases as prices may change.

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Credit:	Jay Deiman
Version:	1.0