In order to play the COSL card game, you will need to collect business cards from COSL members. There are 26 different cards, and though you don’t need a complete set to play, the more cards you have the better. You should have at least 25 cards to play a two player game. If you are unable to collect every card, simply collect 2 cards from as many COSL members as you can. If there are more than 3 players, you will want to play with more than 26 cards.

The goal of the game is to collect 3 of the 4 items that an individual likes. These likes can be found on the business card. Items are collected and placed in front of you. Once your three items match the current goal of the individual, you win!

Play begins with the person who has traveled the farthest to the conference. At the beginning of the game, there are only three rules that apply. The person whose turn it is draws one card, and plays one card. The hand limit, or number of cards you can hold in your hand, is 0. As the game progresses, these rules will change.

The business cards show 4 things. How you play the card, will depend on what the card does. The card can be played in 4 ways:

• Goal Card – Each card has the name of the person, their e-mail, and then 5 things that describe them. Four of these things are activities they like, the other thing is something they dislike. If you play this card in the goal pile, it becomes the current goal. Any person who has 3 of the 4 items in front of them, for that goal, wins. The goal can be changed at any time by placing a new card on the goal pile. If a person has an item card in front of them, that matches the ‘dislike’ section of the current goal, the person must discard that card, and one other item card in front of them (if there is one).
• Item Card – The large icon at the top of the card is an activity or item. These are activities or items that the COSL member enjoys, or dislikes. If you play this card in front of you, then it is considered an item card. You can only have 4 item cards in front of you at any time. If you put down a 5th card, you must discard one of the other item cards.
• Rules Card – At the beginning of the game, a person draws one card and plays one card. However, if you play a card in the rules pile, then that new rules takes affect. The old rule is placed in the discard pile. The new rules takes affect immediately. For example, if the rule is draw one card, play one card, and a person plays a card that changes the rules to ‘draw 3 cards’, that person can then draw 2 more cards, to bring their total up to 3. Likewise, if they play a ‘play two cards’ card, then they can play another card, to bring their total up to 2.
• Action Card – If a card is placed in the action pile, then the person follows the instruction in the action section. For example, if you place the card that states ‘Exchange played item cards with another player’, you would take one of your item cards, and exchange it with an item card in front of another player.” Some cards allow the person playing the card to perform an action, and other cards require everybody to perform an action.

If you run out of cards in the draw pile, shuffle the discard pile, and place the cards face down to make a new draw pile. If you find you are running out of cards, go meet some more COSL members, and collect more cards!

As soon as somebody has 3 of the 4 cards in front of them, that matches the current goal, the game is over, and they are declared the winner.