It's 2020, and a disaster has occurred, damaging nuclear reactors around the country. There's no time to lose; your help is required, and you must lead an evacuation operation to get your people to safety. Rescue them in time!
The game board in Meltdown 2020 is composed of twelve tiles, each consisting of seven hexes. Seven nuclear reactors and two airfields are scattered amongst the landscape hexes that make up the remainder of the country. At the start of the game, your color-coded twenty people and three vehicles (car, bus, helicopter) are placed on their designated hexes. You need to get them to the airfields to save them, preferably before they absorb too much radiation. You can airlift a vehicle out of an airfield, too, to save the driver, but then you have fewer opportunities to save more people.
Each turn proceeds as follows:
When a person's token absorbs 1 Sv, lay it on its side to show that it's ill; when it absorbs 2 Sv, lay it on its back (very ill); a person absorbing 3 Sv or more dies and is removed. Radiation sickness is cumulative. People stay in their positions even after being evacuated. Vehicle drivers die only if they absorb 3 Sv or more from a single reactor in a single turn.
The start player position rotates each round. The game ends immediately when one reactor receives a fifth counter or a 16th counter is to be placed on the game board. The player who has rescued the most people wins. In case of a tie, the player with more healthy people wins, with subsequent ties being broken by the number of ill vs. very ill people.