Gameweave

The Museum Job

The doors closed four hours ago and the Quayside Palace is dark. Somewhere inside it, one person is moving from room to room without being seen — and everyone else in the game is the night watch, sitting in front of a floor plan with three guards on it, seven security cameras, a Security Office full of monitors, and no idea which of the two hundred squares to look at. They will not be told. They will have to work it out from what the Thief leaves behind: a frame on the wall standing empty, a camera feed gone to static, a wing whose monitors went dark, a door that was locked at the start of the night and is not locked now.

The objective

The Thief wants to leave the building before dawn carrying at least 4 in value.
Security wants to stop that — by walking a guard onto the Thief, or simply by keeping them inside until dawn breaks.

The table

The game is for 2 to 4 players.
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Seat 1 is the Thief. They play alone and everything they do is hidden.
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Every other seat is Security. Security plays as one side, talks openly, and shares everything it knows.
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There are always three guards, however many Security players there are. With one Security player they run all three; with two, one runs two guards and the other runs one; with three, each runs one. Who runs which is decided during setup, and does not change.
Security is a team. Deciding where a guard should go is a conversation the whole table can hear — that is the game. Only the Thief keeps anything to themselves.

At a real table

This is a board game, and every rule below is something people sitting round a physical copy would do. The Thief keeps a secret route pad behind a screen; nothing is ever announced by a sound, and the Thief is never asked to volunteer where they are. Instead:
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Security asks, and the Thief answers truthfully. "Guard 2 is looking down this corridor — are you in it?" "Guard 3 is on the monitors — are you on any camera? Is any feed dead?"
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The Thief lifts things off the board. A stolen artifact comes off its case the turn after it was taken.
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The Thief puts a token down. Lifting a crown while the vault alarm has power means placing the Alarm token on the vault, there and then.
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A guard who walks up to something asks about it. "Guard 1 is on the West breaker — is it cut?" "Is this door open?"
The digital game does all of that asking and answering for you, and draws every answer on the map.

What is on the map

Hover over any square on the floor plan — or press and hold it on a phone — and the game tells you what is there, what it does, and anything Security has learned about it.
The floor plan. Twenty squares across and fourteen down: the Quayside Palace, a U of three wings around a central court, with a long south wing facing the river. Solid squares are walls, pillars and the backs of cabinets — nobody walks through them and nobody sees through them. The five wings are North, West, South, East and the Court.
Three guards. Tokens on the floor plan. They are the only figures on the board — the Thief is never drawn at all, on any screen but their own.
Nine cases. Each holds one artifact, shown on the map with a token carrying its value, and in full on the placards under the map: a name, a value, and what kind of case it stands in.
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Two vault cases in the North wing hold the two crowns, worth 4 and 3 — a crown on its own is enough to leave with. Both crowns are heavy. The vault's alarm runs on the North wing's breaker (see The vault).
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Seven display cases are dealt from the collection at random, so no two nights put the same value in the same room. Two of their artifacts — the tapestry and the bronze — are heavy too.
Seven cameras. Numbered 1 to 7, each hung over a square and watching straight lines from it — the tinted squares — up to five squares, until a wall. A camera cannot see the square right under it. Every wing has at least one. A camera sees for Security only while a guard is in the Security Office.
The Security Office. The block of six squares in the middle of the Court, where the monitors are.
Five breakers. One panel in each wing. A wing's breaker powers that wing's cameras — and the North wing's breaker powers the vault alarm too.
Four guard posts, where guards can start the night.
Seven exits. Doors, windows and a skylight, all locked. The Thief forces one of them to get in and may work the lock on any other.
The dawn track. It starts at 18 and falls by one at the end of every round. When it reaches zero, dawn breaks.
The evidence. Everything Security has learned, written on the map as it happens:
Token
Where
What it says
Last Seen
the square
the Thief was here at the end of this round — and how Security knew
Empty frame
a case
its artifact is gone, taken in this round
Cut camera
the camera's square
found dead, cut somewhere in these rounds
Dark
a breaker
found cut, somewhere in these rounds; its wing's cameras are blind
Alarm
a vault case
the vault alarm went off in this round
Forced Exit
an exit
a guard found it open in this round and locked it again

Setup

1.
The two crowns go into the two vault cases. The other seven artifacts are shuffled and dealt one to each display case.
2.
Security posts its guards. One at a time, for guard 1, then guard 2, then guard 3: choose a free guard post for it, and choose which Security player runs it. There are four posts and three guards, so one post is always left empty.
3.
The Thief breaks in. They choose one of the seven exits, in secret. It is now forced open, and it is where they are standing when round 1 begins. Security is told nothing.
Every camera works and every breaker is on.

The order of play

Each round, in this order:
1.
The Thief's turn. One action.
2.
The Thief's turn ends. Anything the Thief lifted in an earlier round comes off the board. Then the Thief is Spotted if a guard can see them — or if a guard is in the Security Office and a working camera can. A guard in the Office also checks the monitors (see The Security Office).
3.
The Security turn. Guard 1 moves and makes its checks, then guard 2, then guard 3.
4.
The end of the round. The dawn track falls by one. If it has reached zero, dawn breaks and the heist is over.

The Thief's turn

Exactly one of these, every round:
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Walk. Move to any square up to 4 steps away — or 2 while carrying anything heavy. Arriving, you may also:
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Cut the camera or breaker you have arrived at, or
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Escape through the open exit you have arrived at, if your satchel is worth at least 4.
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Hold. Stay where you are and do nothing.
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Lift. Stay where you are and take the artifact out of the case you are standing on. You have to have started the turn on the case.
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Pick. Stay where you are and work the lock on the exit you are standing on. It is now open.
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Cut. Stay where you are and cut the camera or breaker you are standing on.
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Escape. Leave through an open exit you are standing on, if your satchel is worth at least 4.
"Steps" means walking distance — how far you would actually have to walk, around walls, not how far it looks across the room. The Thief can never walk onto a guard's square, and can never walk through a wall.

Guards

On its turn, a guard moves to any square within 3 steps of where it is standing. Walls block it exactly as they block the Thief. Staying where it is counts as a move.
If a guard finishes its move on the Thief's square, the Thief is caught and the heist is over. Only the square a guard finishes on matters. A guard that walks straight through the Thief's square on its way somewhere else has not caught anybody — nobody, on either side of the table, is ever told what route a move took.
Then that guard makes its checks, before the next guard moves:
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Is the Thief in sight? If so, they are Spotted.
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What is it standing on? An open exit is found and locked again. A cut breaker is found and reset. A cut camera is found and repaired.
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Is an empty case in sight? Its theft comes to light early.
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Is anyone on the monitors? If a guard is in the Security Office, the monitors are checked again.

Sightlines and Spotted

A guard sees straight along its row and straight down its column, in all four directions, until a wall stops it. It does not see diagonally, and it does not see round corners.
Being Spotted writes the Thief's square onto the board as Last Seen, with the round and how they were seen: by a guard, on a camera, at the vault alarm, or caught in the act of cutting. It is a photograph, not a spotlight: the Thief is not caught, and the moment they move again, Security only knows where they were.

The Security Office

While any guard stands in the Security Office, the monitors are watched — at the end of the Thief's turn and after every guard's move. The monitors show three things:
1.
Every working camera. If one of them can see the Thief, the Thief is Spotted on it.
2.
Every dead feed. A cut camera, or a wing whose breaker has been cut, is found at once. It goes on the map with the rounds it could have happened in: since the last time the monitors showed it working. If it was cut this very round, the Thief is still standing at it — and is Spotted there.
3.
Every empty case a working camera can see. Its theft comes to light early.
With nobody in the Office, the cameras see nothing at all, and nobody notices a cut. That is the choice Security makes every round: a guard on the monitors is a guard off patrol.

Cameras and breakers

Cutting a camera takes standing on the square right under it — the one square it cannot see. The camera stops working at once, but nobody knows until the monitors show it dead or a guard comes to it. A guard who ends a move on a camera's square repairs it.
Cutting a breaker takes standing on its panel. Every camera in that wing goes blind — and the North breaker takes the vault alarm with it. Nobody knows until the monitors show the wing dark or a guard comes to the panel. A guard who ends a move on a cut breaker resets it.

Cases, the satchel and thefts

Lifting an artifact is silent. For the rest of that round the case still shows it — that is what Security believes is in it.
At the end of the Thief's next turn, the artifact comes off the board. The case is left showing an empty frame, stamped with the round it was taken. That is the one piece of evidence the Thief can never avoid: Security now knows exactly where the Thief was at the end of that round.
It can come to light sooner: if a guard can see the empty case, or a working camera can while a guard is in the Security Office, it comes off the board right then.
The satchel is everything the Thief is carrying. Its value is the sum of the artifacts in it, and it never goes down — there is no way to put anything back. Carrying anything heavy cuts the Thief's walk to 2 steps a turn.

The vault

The two crowns can be lifted like anything else — but the vault alarm runs on the North wing's breaker.
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Lift a crown while the North wing has power, and the alarm goes off. The Alarm token goes on the vault, the crown comes off the board at once, and the Thief is Spotted standing there.
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Cut the North breaker first, and the vault is quiet. The crown is taken like any other artifact and comes off the board at the end of the Thief's next turn.
Either way the crown is heavy, and the vault is deep in the North wing.

Exits

All seven exits start locked. The Thief forces one to get in, which leaves it open.
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The Thief can Pick any other exit they are standing on, which opens that one too.
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A guard standing on an open exit finds it and locks it again. The board records a Forced Exit marker on it, with the round — public evidence that the Thief has been to that door, and one fewer way out.
An exit has to be open, and the satchel has to be worth at least 4, for the Thief to leave through it.

The dawn track

Eighteen rounds, one tick each. When it reaches zero the night is over and the Thief is still inside.

Winning

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The Thief wins by escaping through an open exit with a satchel worth 4 or more.
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Security wins by catching the Thief, or by reaching dawn with the Thief still inside. Every Security player wins together.
When the heist ends — however it ends — everything the Thief did becomes public.

How the digital game reads this

A few places where a physical table would ask a question and the screen has already answered it:
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Every check is automatic. Nobody has to remember to ask whether a guard can see the Thief, or whether a feed is dead: the game asks every time the rules say someone would, and draws the answer on the map.
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Escaping and cutting are part of the move that reaches the square. Press a square you can leave through, or a camera or breaker you can cut, and the game offers it together with the move. You never spend a round standing in a doorway waiting for permission.
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When Security is more than one player, the lowest-numbered Security seat makes the setup choices — the posts and the guard assignments. The decision is the whole team's; the typing is one person's.
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A guard may end its move where it started. Standing still is a legal move, not a skipped turn — which is how a guard stays on the monitors.
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Dawn is a hard stop at the end of round eighteen. The track starts at 18 and only ever falls, so there is never a nineteenth round to plan for.

What each seat sees

The Thief's screen shows everything: where they are, the route they have walked, which exits they have opened, which cameras and breakers they have cut that nobody has found yet, and what is in the satchel.
A Security screen shows the floor plan, the three guards, the cameras and what they cover, the nine cases as Security believes them to be, and the evidence — Last Seen, empty frames, cut cameras, dark wings, the Alarm, Forced Exits. It never shows the Thief, and it never can. Every one of the Thief's turns appears in the history as the same single line, "The Thief takes a turn", with no square, no highlight and no name: a walk, a hold, a lift, a pick and a cut are indistinguishable.
A spectator's screen is a Security screen. Watching the game does not let you see the Thief.
This is on-screen secrecy, the same as a private hand of cards: the values live in the saved game and on the server, and the game does not defend against a player who goes looking for them by other means. Sharing a screen with the Thief will spoil it, just as looking at someone's cards would.