Unity Players Guide What is Unity Unity is an exciting, original biblically based card game that is a blast to play with your family, friends, youth group, or church group.
We all love a fun game with the above elements, but Unity is much more than just a fun game.
The Festivals of the Lord One if the main purposes of Unity is to inspire Christians to learn more about their Jewish Roots. There are three ways that this is done. The first way is to use the name "Yeshua" instead of Jesus on the game cards. Yeshua is the Hebrew name of Jesus. It is the name that he was known and called by. The word Yeshua, translated to English, means Salvation. He is actually Yeshua HaMashiach, which means Jesus the Messiah, or Jesus Christ. It is all the same person. The second way to inspire Christians to seek an understanding of their Jewish Roots is by including the Twelve Tribes card category. These are the twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob is the son of Isaac, and Isaac is the son of Abraham. The Jewish people are the descendants of these 12 sons. The third and most important way is by including the Festival Cards, which are the holy festivals of the Lord that were given to Moses and recorded in Leviticus 23. The most important thing to remember is that each festival has been fulfilled or has yet to be fulfilled by Jesus. Let us briefly examine each Festival card to determine what it means. Sabbath Add 1 point to every human righteous card for the rest of the game. Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you. Six days you shall do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. Deuteronomy 5:12-14 There remains, then, a Sabbath rest for the people of God; for anyone who enter God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his. Hebrews 4:9-10 The fulfillment of the weekly Sabbath is the rest that we find in the Messiah Yeshua. Therefore each human righteous character that has entered into the rest becomes a little bit stronger for the rest of the game. Passover Exchange any evil card in your hand with the next righteous card in the discard pile. It is the Passover sacrifice to the Lord, who passes over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians. Exodus 12:27 Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast – as you really are. For Messiah, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 1 Corinthians 5:7 Passover marks the first of the spring festivals. These festivals have all been fulfilled by the first coming of Yeshua. In Passover, the Angel of Death spared the Israelites because their doorways were marked with the blood of an innocent lamb. The lamb died so that they would live and be redeemed by God. In the same way, Yeshua, the innocent Passover lamb, died so that we could be redeemed and have eternal life. The death of Yeshua fulfills the Passover. The result is that when we place our trust in Yeshua, our old evil self dies and a new righteous self is born. Therefore exchanging an evil card for a righteous card symbolize this. First Fruits Take the next righteous card from the discard pile. But Messiah has been indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 1 Corinthians 15:20 The biblical festival of First Fruits is the true resurrection day of Yeshua! It was on this festival that he rose from the dead. Therefore bringing a righteous card back into play from the discard pile represents this. Feast of Weeks Simultaneously give one righteous card to the next person. From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the Lord. Leviticus 23:15-16 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. Acts 2:1-2 During the Feast of Weeks, which is known as Shavuot (weeks) in Hebrew and Pentecost to the church, God gave the righteous gift of the Holy Spirit (Ruach Hakodesh) to the followers of Yeshua. Therefore, we symbolize this in the game by giving a righteous card as a gift to another player. Feast of Trumpets Remove any human righteous card from your hand or the next righteous card from the discard pile and set it aside for the rest of the game. The Lord said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts." Leviticus 23:23-24 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Messiah will rise first. 1 Thessalonians 4:16 The Feast of Trumpets is the first of the fall festivals. These festivals will be fulfilled in the second coming of Yeshua. The fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets will be the rapture of the church. Therefore removing a righteous player from the game symbolizes the rapture. Day of Atonement Discard any evil card and take the next face down card. Do not work on that day, because it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the Lord your God. Leviticus 23:28 God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reflect the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. Romans 2:6-8 The day of Atonement was a day when God judged the nation of Israel according to what they had done. Yeshua is now our judge, and each person must face his judgement. Every person that hears the gospel has a chance to repent of their sins and place their trust in Yeshua. Some people do repent, and many others never repent and are judged accordingly. This is symbolized by discarding an evil card and taking the next face down card. If the card that is picked up is righteous, then it represents a person repenting and putting their trust in Yeshua. If the card is evil, it represents a person who continues to follow evil. Feast of Tabernacles Place one human righteous card from your hand down in front of you to be played as a permanent card in your hand. This card does not need to be used to win the game. Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. Deuteronomy 16:13 Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Messiah and will reign with him for a thousand years. Revelation 20:6 In the book of Zechariah, chapter 14, it talks about the messianic age, when Messiah Yeshua will reign on earth. The people of the earth will come to Jerusalem each year to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This period of time will last a thousand years, and believers will not die, but reign with Yeshua. Placing a card in front of you as a permanent card represents a righteous person living for a thousand years. Unity Instructions Summary General
Evil Attack
Enter into Righteousness
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. How does the Unity card work? A. The Unity card is a powerful card that can be used in several different situations:
A. The Sword of the Spirit card can be played by itself
Unity Scenarios Following are several scenarios to show how Unity is played. It is important to read this in order to get the most fun out of playing Unity.
Your opponent plays the evil god Dagon for an attack of 17 points You have in your hand: Righteous King - Jehosophat (5 points) Righteous King - Uzziah (5 points) Angels - Michael "Play this card with any huan righteous card to defeat any evil attack. After defeating the attack, you have a free turn" Righteous Object - Belt of Truth "Add 10 to righteous points" Demons - Satan 20 points "You can play this card in a counterattack (reversing direction of play) immediately after defeating an evil attack. You must draw one card as a penalty." First of all, since you can defeat the attack with cards in your hand, you cannot draw cards. Possible ways to defeat the evil attack: Michael + Jehosophat (The angel card helps you to defeat any evil attack. after defeating the attack, you now have a free turn) Michael + Uzziah (same as above) Jehosophat + Uzziah + Belt of Truth. This gives you 20 points (Jehosophat and Uzziah can be played together because they are both of the same category. The Belt of Truth adds 10 points to help defeat any evil attack. In this case, you need more than 17 points to defeat the attack) God's Judgement (This reverses that attack back to your opponent and now he must defeat that evil attack of 17 points) Satan (This defeats evil with evil and you must draw 2 cards as a penalty) After you have defeated the evil attack, if you still have Satan in your hand, you can now counterattack your opponent with Satan. You must draw 1 card as a penalty as stated on the card. Your opponent now must defeat Satan. Your opponent plays the evil person Jezebel (15 points) and the evil king Saul (14 points) along with an Asherah Pole that lets you combine the two evil characters for an attack of 29 points. You have in your hand John - Twelve Apostles (5 points) Issac - Righteous Person (6 points) Rebecca - Righteous Person (5 points) "+ 5 righteous points if played with Isaac" Helmet of Salvation - Righteous Object "Add 10 to righteous points" You do a mental calculation. If you played Issac and Rebecca together, it is worth 16 points because you get the extra 5 points by playing them together (per the instructions on Rebecca's card). You can also use the Helmet of Salvation which adds 10 points for a total of 26 points. This is not enough! You need to draw cards. You draw a card and it is a Unity card! You can now use the Unity card to bring John in to help overcome the attack. If you add John's 5 points, then you have a total of 31 points which is enough to overcome the attack. If you have no evil or festival cards in your hand, then you have played more than one righteous card in one turn and have won the game!
You have in your hand Matthew - Twelve Apostles (5 points) Reuben - Twelve Tribes (5 points) Ahab - Evil King (14 points) There are three of you playing. Player 1 has a free turn and plays the two Righteous Person cards Jacob and Isaac. This extends an invitation to enter into righteousness. Player 2 then plays the Righteous Person card Paul. It is now your turn. Since you don't have any Righteous Person cards in your hand, you must draw 3 cards because 3 cards (Jacob, Isaac, and Paul) have been played so far. You draw 2 evil cards and 1 Festival card. Therefore you are unable to repent and enter into righteousness and you break the righteous chain. It is now player 1's turn again since you took the last turn by drawing 3 cards and broke the righteous chain. You have in your hand Matthew - Twelve Apostles (5 points) Ahab - Evil King (14 points) There are three of you playing. Player 1 has a free turn and plays the Righteous Person cards Jacob and Isaac. This extends an invitation to enter into righteousness. Player 2 then plays the Righteous Person cards Paul and Noah. It is now your turn. Since you don't have any Righteous Person cards in your hand, you must draw 4 cards because 4 cards (Jacob, Isaac, Paul, and Noah) have been played so far. You draw 2 evil cards, 1 Festival card, and the Trinity card Yeshua. The Yeshua card says on it "Defeats all evil + attacker draws 4 cards. After defeating the attack, you have a free turn. This card can be used to enter into righteousness with cards of another category". Since the Yeshua card can be used to enter into all righteousness, you play it and complete the righteous chain! It is now player 2's turn because although both player 1 and player 2 entered into righteousness with 2 cards, player 2 was the last to do it.
General Strategy
Making evil attacks
Defeating evil attacks
Entering into Righteousness
Unconventional Strategies
This game was designed according to the following Biblical Principles:
The Lord said to Moses, "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: These are my appointed feasts, the appointed feasts of the Lord, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies." (Leviticus 23:1-2) In Unity, there are special festival cards that allows all players to celebrate the festivals. These are: The Sabbath, Passover, Firstfruits, Feast of Weeks, Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles. Each festival is described in detail in Leviticus 23. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. (Luke 10:19) They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the work of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. (Revelation 12:11) Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:21) In Unity, righteous cards are used to defeat evil cards. How good and pleasant it when brothers live together in unity! (psalm 133:1) For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them. (Matthew 18:20) Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:12) In Unity, righteous cards of the same category are played together in unity to defeat evil cards. Also, players can extend an invitation to enter into righteousness by playing one or more righteous cards of the same category. The next player can enter into righteousness by playing cards of the same category. However, knowing what they were thinking, Yeshua (Jesus) said to them, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not survive. If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself; so how can his kingdom survive? (Matthew 12:25-26) Repay no one evil for evil, but try to do what everyone regards as good. (Romans 12:17) In Unity, you are allowed to overcome evil with evil, with the consequence of drawing two cards.
How good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity! (Psalm 133:1) Introduction Unity is a biblically based, strategy card game where righteous cards are played in unity to enter into righteousness with other players and to defeat evil attacks. There are also festival cards that allow all of the players to celebrate each biblical festival. Object of the Game The object of the game is to win the game by playing all of your cards, where the final cards you play are two or more righteous cards or a single Unity card. Game Cards There are three categories of cards in this game: righteous (good cards), evil (bad cards), and festival cards. The righteous card categories are: Trinity, Righteous Person, Righteous King, Twelve Tribes, Twelve Apostles, Righteous Object, Attribute of God, and Unity. The evil card categories are Demon, Evil God, Evil Person, Evil King, Evil Object, and Evil Attribute. The festival cards represent the festivals that are described in Leviticus 23. Many of the cards have special instructions written on the card that describe how to play them. If the instructions on a card refer to a human righteous card, it is referring to a Righteous Person, Righteous King, Twelve Tribes, or Twelve Apostles card. Game Rules The deck is shuffled, and each player is dealt 8 cards. The player to the left of the dealer goes first. During a player's turn (called a "Free Turn"), a player can do one of the following:
(See Section 1: Making an Evil Attack below.) (See Section 3: Celebrating a Festival below.) Players play their cards until one player has no cards left, and has played his/her final turn by playing at least two righteous cards together, or by playing a Unity card. This player is the winner. If a player has played all cards but has not won, then the player must immediately draw two cards. If all the cards of the deck are played, then the played cards are reshuffled and placed face down so they can be replayed. When cards are discarded during game play, they are to be placed in three face up piles: the righteous, evil and festival card discard piles. Section 1. Making an Evil Attack When an evil attack is made, the player who is attacked must use his/her turn to defeat the evil attack. (So, if there are three players, if player 1 attacks player 2, when the battle is over it is player 3's turn; unless a card defeating the attack specifically states that the player defeating the attack gets a free turn.) An evil attack is made against your opponent (the player to your left if you are playing more than two players) by playing one or more evil cards of the same category (i.e. all evil Kings can be played together, all evil demons can be played together, etc. You CANNOT play evil kings with evil demons unless you have a card such as Asherah Pole which allows you to bring in two different categories of evil cards). The strength of the evil attack is determined by adding the point values of the evil cards. Evil object cards (like the "Idol") can be played on any evil character, adding points to that attack. An evil attack can have 0 points, such as playing an "Asherah Pole" by itself. If this happens the attack must still be defeated by your opponent who must present at least one righteousness card to defeat it. Yes, object cards can be played by themselves in an attack. When an evil attack is made, the next player must defeat it in one of the following ways:
In summary, If a player is able to defeat an evil attack with righteous cards in his/her hand, then that player must play the cards and cannot draw any cards. This includes playing Unity cards if necessary to defeat that attack. The player must either play the righteous cards to defeat the evil attack or defeat the evil attack with evil. If unable to defeat the evil attack with righteous cards, the player must draw cards (until the attack can be defeated. The player cannot play more righteous points than is necessary to defeat the attack. Section 2. Make an invitation to enter into righteousness An invitation is made to enter into righteousness by playing one or more righteous cards (i.e. a Righteous Person, Righteous King, Twelve Tribes, Twelve Apostles, Righteous Object, Trinity, Angel) in your hand of the same category. The cards must be of the same category unless you have a Unity or Shofar righteous object card that allows you to combine categories. When an invitation is extended, the next player must respond as follows:
Players continue to enter into righteousness until the righteousness chain is broken (a player can't play a card, even after drawing the penalty cards) or all players have entered in (everyone was able to play at least one Righteousness card of the same category). If someone breaks the chain, then the next person gets a free turn. If all players enter in, the player who entered in with the most righteousness cards gets a free turn. If there is a tie, the last person to enter in with the most righteousness gets the free turn. (For example, player 1 plays two Righteous Kings. It is player 2’s turn and she plays two Righteous Kings. Player 3 has no Righteous Kings so he must draw four cards because four Righteous Kings have been played so far. He happens to draw a Righteous King, so he plays it. Player 4 has no Righteous Kings, so he now must draw five cards! Player 4 draws a Righteous King and plays it. Since all players entered in, it is now player 2’s turn since player 1 and 2 both played two cards, but player 2 was the last one to do it.) Section 3. Celebrate a festival When a festival card is played, each player celebrates the festival in turn (which means each player does what the festival card says), starting with the player that played the card. After the festival is celebrated, it is still the turn of the player that initiated the festival. If a player does not have the proper card(s) to celebrate the festival, then that player will not participate in the festival. Whenever cards need to be drawn from the righteous discard pile, the pile is first turned over, the cards are drawn by all players, then the pile is again placed face up. On September 8th, 1994, I (Dan Olds) read an article in the local newspaper about the collectable card game Magic. After reading the article (which I still have saved), I thought how nice it would be if there was a biblically based strategy card game. I had about a 40 minute commute each way to work, and my car radio was broken (it still is to this day), so I designed most of Unity in my head. I had no idea if the Lord would ever allow Unity to actually be produced someday. But step by step, things just began to happen and everything just fell into place, so I am putting my trust that Lord allowed me to create Unity so people such as yourself could have fun playing it and learn biblical principles at the same time! It wasn’t until May of 1995 that I started really designing the Unity cards. I was at the beach on the Oregon coast on a beautiful sunny day, scribbling all kinds of notes about Unity. It took a long time to come up with the cards and the verses for each card. I also remember the day that I came up with the name of Unity. It was August 3rd, 1995. I had just read an article about the excellent collectable card game Redemption (which I still have saved) and I went for a walk and asked the Lord for a name for my card game. The name "Unity" just popped into my head! During the fall of 1995, I playtested Unity with some of my friends, using index cards for the Unity cards. It seemed to play quite well and people liked it. There were many other cards that are not in the current game. One such example is the "Spiritual Attack" cards. These are cards that have different point values and they are played face down. The person being attacked does not know how powerful the attack is, so he attempts to defeat it, and if he doesn’t he must draw cards. In December of 1995 I approached my friend Olivier Melnick, an excellent graphic designer, about the possibility of him doing the design of Unity. He wanted to play the game, and he really liked it. At that time there were no festival cards, no Unity cards, no concept of entering into righteousness, and the winner was the first person to just get rid of all of their cards! Unity certainly has changed a lot since then. After playing with Olivier, I designed the Unity cards and came up with the concept of winning the game by playing at least 2 cards in unity. I continued to playtest Unity while Olivier and I were doing the design. I still have all of the original attempts at card designs. I was so excited about Unity that on February 19th 1996, on the way to the hospital with my wife in labor, I stopped by Olivier’s house to pick up a Unity card design! Later that night we had our son Josiah. Can you believe it! At about this time a very interesting thing happened. I had previously been working in a leased building at my job as a software developer at Boeing. We had moved out of this building and Boeing has given up the lease. You know who moved into the building? It was the company "Wizards of the Coast", the maker of Magic! Finally, in the summer of 1996 we produced my first prototype deck of Unity cards and I continued to test play it. I found a small group at work to test play Unity with every week, and as we did so the entering into righteousness concept was introduced. There were still no festival cards at this point. In the fall of 1996, I had a better prototype deck made and sent it to Bible Games Company, a large distributor of Christian games to bookstores. They misplaced the deck and never really reviewed it. They finally found it and sent it back to me. When I called them they basically told me that Unity would never sell in Christian bookstores. Over the next year I contacted other distributors, manufacturers, etc. with nothing working out. Nobody was the least bit interested! It looked like Unity was never going to happen! Between the fall of 1996 and 1997 I occasionally sent letters to companies like Talicor, Rainfall, etc. I even sent my prototype deck to Talicor and they quickly sent it back to me along with a "not interested" letter. These are companies that specialize in Christian games. None of these companies showed any interest in Unity. I pretty much put Unity on the back burner. I stopped test playing it and didn’t even pray about it anymore. Then in November of 1997 Olivier (my graphic designer) told me that he was going to be leaving in the summer of 1998 to join Chosen People Ministries as a missionary. He was telling all of his clients this in order to give them plenty of time to finish any projects that they were working on with him. Unity was still in a completely unfinished state. The cards were not done, there was no box, no instructions, etc. This really woke me up! I started talking to my wife about what we should do about it. I had previously been blessed by my father-in-law who had given me as a gift enough money to start Yeshuateinu Company and do the Unity design. However, at this time, I was out of money. I had really hoped that another company would pick Unity up and that I could collect royalties on sales, but that wasn’t going to happen. We came to the conclusion that we were going to have to do it ourselves. We had been blessed with some Sara Lee stock that we inherited from my Grandmother’s estate. My wife and I both agreed that it was now or never, so we agreed to sell some stock when the right time came along. I continued to search on the internet for anything that could help me. I had previously stumbled on a company called "Resource Games" that had produced some very professional geography games. I found the address, and was surprised to find that they were located just a few blocks from my house! I called the company owner in December and he told me to call back in January after the Christmas season. So now it was January and I called him again and he came over to my house in order to help me. In return I was able to show him some internet sites that promoted his line of games. He told me about two game manufacturers in this country that he used to manufacture his games. He gave me contacts at both companies. I called Mike McNeese at SVH (one of the companies) and was pleasantly surprised to discover that he was a Christian and that his company had also manufactured Redemption! I started the process of getting a quote to manufacture Unity. I told Mike that there were 100 cards, and he designed the box dimensions for me. This was all happening in February of 1998. At the same time, I suddenly got the idea to add the festival cards to Unity. At first I tried making each festival card the same. To celebrate any festival, each player would pass any 2 cards to the next player. It became apparent right away that this wasn’t going to work. So I started spending every moment of my commute time thinking and praying about how I could design each festival card to represent the fulfillment of each festival in Yeshua. After designing each festival card, I started playtesting Unity every week with a small group of playtesters. Everything went just great in the playtesting, and I started spending time every week with Olivier finishing up Unity. We sold the Sara Lee stock and in June of 1998 I went forward in faith to manufacture 5000 decks of Unity cards. Was I crazy or what! In September I received the 5000 decks and put them in my garage. Now I started the process of sending decks to distributors, Christian Bookstore chains, Messianic Ministries like Jews for Jesus, etc. I had hoped that I could find someone to distribute Unity or at least buy many cases from me at wholesale and they could sell them retail. I had no intention of selling Unity retail myself. I did manage to sell a case of 60 to a Christian Bookstore chain called Christian Supply that is based in Portland, Or. But in general, the big boys just were not interested! I decided to try selling Unity from my website, and during Christmas of 1999 I added credit card processing. Now I guess I am a wholesaler and a retailer! I am going forth in faith seeing where the Lord is leading this. One thing that I find encouraging is the story of Carnell and Delaine Jones and their card game "Amen". They created "Amen" as an alternative to the secular game UNO. For several years they didn’t sell very many, but they faithfully persevered and finally the Lord blessed them enormously. I believe that they have now sold over 80,000 "Amen" decks so far! This shows that faithful perseverance can be a key factor of the Lord honoring something you really believe in. It is certainly no guarantee for success, but no matter what happens it is certainly a growing experience where we have to learn to rely on the Lord’s strength and not our own strength! |