Powerline

About this board game

Powerline is a dice-driven board game for 1–6 players that takes about 45 minutes, with players connecting cities to new sources of energy production.

Across 16 rounds, six colored dice are rolled and placed on their designated spaces on the central board. Each player uses a personal board displaying power lines from 3 to 12 spaces long, with every space showing a required die result.

For each round, players may use the six dice from right to left or from left to right to build their power lines. The choice is not completely unrestricted: certain numbers of dice can be used only a fixed number of times, and skipping a die requires taking a penalty. These limitations make each roll an important part of developing your network.

• Build power lines ranging from 3 to 12 spaces.
• Use the dice in either direction across the central board.
• Manage limited opportunities to use particular numbers of dice.
• Take penalties when skipping dice.
• Score completed lines and fully connected cities.

During certain rounds, each of the game’s three objectives is evaluated. These evaluations add timing considerations as players work toward completing their routes and connecting cities on their boards.

At the end of Powerline, players gain points for completed power lines and fully connected cities. They also lose points for lines they started but did not finish, so ambitious construction can become a liability if it remains incomplete. The player with the most points wins.

Released in 2022, Powerline combines dice placement, route construction, objective evaluations, and end-game penalties in a compact competition for building an effective energy network.