Each player starts with a standard deck of ten cards:
- The Developer (x5)
- The IT Pro (x4)
- The Architect (x1)
Product owners and scrum masters are not in the standard starting deck, nor do they appear in any of the cards played in the center row (The Event Stream) as they add no intrinsic value. Just like in real life!
The game is meant to be played in a co-no-op fashion. In some cases, it may benefit you to aid another player who is under attack, and in others it may benefit you to join that attack. Only cards marked with the “Options” symbol (
) can be used to aid an attack or defense. Options can only be used once per game, so carefully consider if—and when—you should exercise them.
The same holds true for certain abilities (see Traits) that Leader cards have. Tokens can be used to signify that an ability has not been used. For example, any Leader with the Envy Trait can poach one card for free. Once this has been exercised, the token denoting that Leader’s ability would be removed from the card.
Each player’s turn consists of three segments.
- The first is Sprint Planning, where any cards on the Bench are discarded, and five new cards are drawn from the player’s draw deck. Any items in the New column of the Backlog will be moved into their corresponding columns at that time. Tally up any additions to the Purchase Pool from cards that have just been placed on the Bench.
- The next is Sprinting, where cards are played, and moves are made. Card effects, attacks, defenses, events, purchases from the Event Stream, or outages must be reconciled during this segment.
- The last segment is Sprint Review. This allows the active player to review the Bench, the Board, the Backlog and make any last-minute adjustments, assuming that player can. Any cards on the Bench at the end of a player’s turn will remain there until the start of the next round.
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