Devenez Mangaka

Become a Mangaka is a creative, fast-paced card game in which players draw comic book stories over four rounds by combining themes and an ever-increasing number of trends. Players begin by drawing three Theme cards (such as "Kaiju/Giant Monsters", "Robots and Androids", or "Desire to be a Parent") to determine the subject of their comic. (These three themes stay with the player throughout the game. Most, but not all, of the themes have a manga/anime/Japanese flavour). Then each player chooses a title and a "pen name".

After the players have had a few minutes to think, the five-minute timer is activated and the main game begins. Players have five minutes to draw their comic (on pre-printed comic pages) and express their themes. Once the time is up, each player in turn reads their comic to the group (or, in the suggested "professional" mode, the other players read the player's manga to each other without the artist being able to explain). Based on the judgment of the other players, each player earns 2 Fame tokens for following each of the three basic rules: (1) expressing their themes, (2) using 3 or fewer word bubbles, and (3) drawing something recognizable in each panel. From the second round onwards, Trend cards appear, increasing the number of Honour Tokens in play. Trend cards (examples: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Shojo Manga, Sports, Destruction, Subtlety, etc.) provide new victory conditions in the form of instructions and a corresponding reward of Fame tokens. Some Trend rewards can be claimed by all players simultaneously, others can only be claimed by one or two winners (such as "Eager Audience", which rewards Fame tokens to the first player to finish drawing before the time runs out).

In addition, each round after the first, the pages of the comic become denser, forcing players to draw more squares in the same amount of time. In the first round there are 2 panels, in the second round 4 panels, in the third round 6 panels and in the fourth round 8 panels. The number of trends also increases from round to round. Round 2 has 1 pattern; round 3 has 2 patterns; round 4 has 4 patterns. At the end of the fourth round, the winner (the most popular cartoonist) is the one with the most Fame.