Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Your goal in Ada's Library — first published as Phoenix — is to arrange all of the books in your personal display in an order that matches the books in the "master display".
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Read the full game description
Your goal in Ada's Library — first published as Phoenix — is to arrange all of the books in your personal display in an order that matches the books in the "master display". The game includes larger "master" book cards in a six colors, as well as smaller books in these six colors. To set up, each player draws ten books from the bag, then places them in a row in front of themselves in the order drawn. Shuffle the six master cards, then lay them out in a row, e.g., red, light blue, gray, brown, yellow, dark blue. Shuffle the deck of action cards, with each player getting a hand of five cards. On a turn, either discard a card from your hand (ignoring its effect) or play a card from your hand. Cards will: Swap the position of two books in your display, with the number of spaces between these books being specified. Move a book in your display a specified number of spaces either left or right, but never past the end of your display. Move a book to either end of your display. Swap the books on the ends of your display. Swap a book of your choice with the book in the opponent's display directly opposite. Move a book in the master display 1 or 2 spaces to the left or right. Draw a replacement card to end your turn. As soon as the ten books in your display match the order of the books in the master display — regardless of whether all the colors are present — you win. Ada's Library differs from Phoenix in two ways. First, it includes only four books of each color whereas Phoenix had five pawns of each color. Second, in Phoenix, a complete game lasted three rounds, and players scored points at the end of each round based on whether they went out, had a pawn of each color, and had 3-5 pawns of a color in a row on their display. Whoever had the most points after three rounds won.