Tock — Rules & how to play
Around the table · 2026 edition
Play a card to bring your markers onto the board, move them around the track, and guide all four into Home.
Download printable rules (PDF)
At a glance
- Players: 4
- Play time: 45 minutes
- Ages: 8+
- Style: Strategy
- Plays with: Cards
Objective
Be the first player to bring all four of your markers from Start to Home.
Components
- Wooden game board
- Sixteen markers: four red, four green, four blue, and four black
- You also need a standard deck of cards, not included in the box.
Setup
- Remove the jokers. Each player takes four markers of one colour.
- The dealer shuffles and deals five cards to each player. For the next two rounds, the same dealer gives four cards to each player. Once every card has been used, the player to the dealer’s left shuffles the full deck and the cycle begins again.
Taking a turn
- Play clockwise, starting to the dealer’s left. Play one card per turn.
- To bring a marker out, play a King or Ace and set the marker on the Start space in front of you.
- If you hold no King or Ace, discard your whole hand and sit out that round.
- Once a marker is on the board, each card you play moves a marker clockwise. You may have any number of markers in play at once.
Card values
- Ace: Start a marker or move one space.
- 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10: Move that many spaces.
- 4: Move four forward or four back. Moving backwards from Start saves a full circuit, but the marker cannot enter Home on that move. It may enter on the next turn.
- 7: Move one or two markers seven spaces total, such as 3 and 4, 6 and 1, or all seven with one marker.
- Jack: Swap one of your markers with another player’s. You cannot swap with a marker in one of the four Home spaces.
- Queen: Move ten spaces.
- King: Start a marker, and nothing else.
Capturing
Land on a space occupied by another marker to send it back to Start. Its owner needs a King or Ace to bring it out again.
The Home stretch
After a full circuit, a marker may enter Home. The card played must be the exact count needed or less. A marker in Home is safe from capture and can still move farther in, but your other markers cannot jump over it.
A player must play a card every turn unless they discarded their hand because no move was available.
Made in Canada · 2026 edition