The Publish or Perish Game
BGG rank
BGG #24,563
BGG rating
6.1

The Publish or Perish Game

2025

Rules assistance for The Publish or Perish Game

Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.

  • 3–6 players
  • 20–60 min
  • 14+
  • Complexity 1.3/5

For 3 players

Rules assistant for The Publish or Perish Game

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Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.

The Publish or Perish Game is a board game released in 2025 for 3–6 players, 20–60 minutes per game, and ages 14 and up. It was designed by Max Hui Bai Ph.D. and its main mechanics are Take That, Set Collection, and Questions and Answers.

Expansions

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About the game

Welcome to the chaotic life of academic publishing. In Publish or Perish, you are a clueless researcher trying to do the one and only thing that matters in your academic life: churning out publications, fast. You will publish useless nonsense, sabotage your colleagues’ research, and provide unhelpful comments, Reviewer 2 style. Your goal is to gain as many citations as possible when the game ends, ideally with your sanity and self-respect intact. Publish or Perish is a card game where players attempt to publish 5 manuscripts and collect the most citations to win. Using Action cards, players move their own publications along or sabotage the work of other players. After a player publishes 5 manuscripts, the game goes into the Defense round, where players defend their manuscripts and a voting round is held to vote for awards (giving bonus citations). The player with the most citations after the voting, wins.

Questions and answers

The Publish or Perish Game supports 3–6 players according to the catalogue. This range comes from the publisher’s listed player count, so the game can be set up for any group size within it. Some setups, rules and scoring details may still vary by player count, so check your edition’s rulebook for the exact configuration.