The Office Downsizing Game: Rules and Instructions

Objective of The Office Downsizing Game

The objective of The Office Downsizing Game is to either escape detection and receive your promotion at the end of the week, or figure out who is getting the promotion and fire them.

Setup

Shuffle the Email cards and place them face down on the table.
Choose a number of ID cards equal to the number of players. Michael has to be one of the characters chosen.
Shuffle the ID cards face down. Each player randomly takes one of the cards. Each player can choose to act like the character whose ID they chose.
Each player takes a Character Attribute card that matches their ID card.
Take out a number of envelopes equal to the number of players minus one.

Forming Teams

You will fill each of the envelopes with 3 Incident cards. Green cards are considered “good”, and red cards are considered “bad”. What cards you will use to fill each envelope depends on the number of players.

Number of Players	Players on Team Michael	Players on Team Promotion
5	2 plus Michael	2
6	3 plus Michael	2
7	3 plus Michael	3
8	4 plus Michael	3
9	5 plus Michael	3
10	6 plus Michael	3

For each player on Team Promotion, you will fill an envelope with 2 good/green Incident cards and 1 bad/red Incident card.
For each player on Team Michael (minus the player playing as Michael), you will fill an envelope with 2 bad/red Incident cards and 1 good/green Incident card.

Setting up the envelopes — This game has six players. The players create two envelopes for players on Team Promotion (two green cards and one red card) and three envelopes for Team Michael (two red cards and one green card).

After filling the envelopes, shuffle them so no one knows which envelopes are which. All of the players besides the player playing as Michael is given an envelope. Everyone should look at the cards in their envelope to see what team they are on. They should not let the other players see the cards in their envelope.

Checking your team in The Office Downsizing Game — This player has looked at the cards in their envelope. Normally they would do this so the other players couldn’t see. This player has two red/Bad Review cards and one green/Good Review card. Therefore they are on Team Michael.

The last player to send an email in real life becomes the leader for the first day. The leader holds the dry erase marker. The role of leader passes clockwise throughout the game.
Before you start the game all of the players should close their eyes. On the count of three only players that are on Team Promotion should open their eyes. This allows the players on Team Promotion to know who else is on their team in secret. After five seconds all of the players should close their eyes.

Playing The Office Downsizing Game

Resolve an Email Card

To start each day the current leader draws an Email card and reads it out loud. The Email card will have various effects on the game. The players will immediately take whatever effects are printed on the card. The leader is responsible to implementing the effect from the card.

Email card in The Office Downsizing Game — This Email card was chosen for the current day. For this day the Jim player becomes the leader. If no one is playing as Jim, you will give the role to the player most active in a committee at work.

Form the Secret Committe

After resolving the Email card, the leader chooses the players that will serve on the secret committee. The number of players in the committee depends on the number of players. See the chart below for details.

Number of Players	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
5	1	2	2	2	1
6	2	2	3	2	1
7	2	3	4	2	1
8	2	3	4	3	2
9	3	4	4	3	2
10	3	4	4	4	3

Investigate a Player

Once the secret committee is chosen, the committee votes on a player to investigate. The committee chooses one of their members as well. The chosen committee member gets to randomly look at one of the Incident cards from the player that is being investigated.

The investigating committee member tells all of the players what card they looked at (whether it is good/green or bad/red). They can also choose to read out the whole card if they want to. The investigator can also lie about the card that they looked at.

Investigating a player in The Office Downsizing Game — This round the players have decided to investigate the Dwight player. The chosen committee member chose one of the cards to look at. They chose a red/Bad Review card. Normally they would look at the card so the other players couldn’t see the card. The player will then tell the other players what card they saw. The player can choose to lie about what card they looked at.

Based on what they tell the other players, they will make a mark on the ID card of the investigated player noting what card they saw.

The Office Downsizing Game then moves onto the next day. The player to the left of the leader, becomes the leader for the next round.

The Dundie Awards

When Friday arrives the Dundie Awards will begin. The player who is playing as Michael will be the leader on Friday.

The Michael player draws a Dundie card and gives it to the player that they thinks is most deserving. Some Dundie cards give a player a perk while others are a disadvantage. These cards will either impact the next investigation or the standoff.

At this point all of the players deliberate on who they think got a promotion. The Michael player can choose when to end the deliberation.

All of the players will then consider who they think got a promotion. The Michael player then starts a three second countdown. At the end of the countdown all of the players point at the player they think got a promotion. This is called the standoff. If there is a tie, the players will point once again. They may only point at the players that received the most votes in the first round though. The Michael player is the ultimate tie breaker.

Once one player has been selected (the majority of the players pointed at them), they will be fired.

Winning The Office Downsizing Game

The fired player opens their envelope and reveals all of the Incident cards. The outcome of the game depends on whether they were on Team Michael or Team Promotion.

If the player was on Team Promotion (there are two green and one red card in their envelope), all of the players on Team Michael win the game.

Team Michael wins The Office Downsizing Game — The players chose to fire the Pam player. As the Pam player was going to receive a promotion, Team Michael has won the game.

Should the player be on Team Michael (there are two red and one green card in their envelope), all of the players on Team Promotion win the game.

Team Promotion wins in The Office Downsizing Game — The players decided to fire the Jim player. The Jim player was not going to get a promotion. Therefore Team Promotion has won the game.

The Office Downsizing Game FAQ

If you have any questions about how to play The Office Downsizing Game, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Components for The Office Downsizing Game

The Office Downsizing Game Components

Dry Erase Calendar
Dry Erase Marker
Dundie Award
Plastic Stand
10 ID Cards
10 Envelopes
46 Email Cards
10 Character Attribute Cards
27 Incident Review Cards
10 Dundie Cards
Instructions

Year: 2019 | Publisher: Cardinal, Spin Master

Genres: Deduction, Party

Ages: 16+ | Number of Players: 5-10 | Length of Game: 20-30 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate

Components: Dry Erase Calendar, Dry Erase Marker, Dundie Award and Plastic Stand, 10 ID Cards, 10 Envelopes, 45 Email Cards, 10 Character Attribute Cards, 27 Incident Review Cards, 10 Dundie Cards, Instructions

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