A Fistful of Penguins
A Fistful of Penguins Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- Nine animal dice
- Thirty purple penguin tokens
- Six gold penguin tokens (each worth five purple penguins)
- Poker-style money chips: thirty yellow ($1), twenty-four red ($5), and twenty-four blue ($20)
- Six brown chips and six black chips, plus a sheet of twenty-four stickers for them
- Three player reference cards
- These instructions
Goal
Earn the most money over three rounds.
Setup
Before your first game, apply the kangaroo stickers to the brown chips (one kangaroo on one side, two kangaroos on the other), and apply the penguin stickers to the black chips (one penguin on one side, two on the other). The black penguin chips are only used in the Advanced Game.
Each player takes six purple penguin tokens and $10 (one red $5 chip and five yellow $1 chips). Pick a starting player — whoever visited a zoo most recently is a fun way to decide. The starting player takes four dice and begins the first turn.
The game runs for three rounds, and every player gets one turn per round. Players start each turn's roll with four dice in round one, five dice in round two, and six dice in round three.
Game Turn
Roll the starting dice on the table to begin your turn. Then choose one of three things to do:
- Stop rolling — take the value of your roll in money and tokens, and pass the dice to the next player. Check the Scoring Summary to find the value of your roll.
- Spend one penguin token to either:
- a. Draw a spare die from the bank, roll it, and add it to your dice, or
- b. Reroll as many of your dice as you like.
- Cash in your penguin dice for more penguin tokens. Check the Scoring Summary to see how many tokens you get. Set the cashed-in dice aside — they are out of play for the rest of your turn, don't count toward any later total, and can't be rerolled or bought back with penguin tokens.
You can repeat options 2 and 3 as many times as you want, until you run out of dice or penguin tokens, or you can stop at any point and collect your money. Unspent penguin tokens carry over to your future turns.
When your turn ends, pass the dice to the player on your left. Once every player has taken a turn — rolling, spending penguins as desired, and finally cashing out — the next round begins, started by the same player as before. Players begin round two with five dice and round three with six dice.
After all three rounds are complete, whoever has the most money wins. Any penguin tokens left over are worth $1 each at the very end of the game.
If there's a tie, break it with a showdown round: each tied player starts with two penguin tokens and seven dice (saved-up penguins from earlier can't be used here). Whoever earns the most money in the showdown wins.
Scoring Summary
Penguins
Penguins showing on dice are worth purple penguin tokens, not money. Each gold penguin token is worth five purple ones, and you can make change whenever you like. You can set penguin dice aside to collect tokens during your turn, and you also collect tokens for any penguins still showing on your dice at the end of your turn.
One penguin showing is worth 1 token. Two penguins are worth 3 tokens. Three are worth 6. Four are worth 10, five are worth 15, six are worth 21, seven are worth 28, eight are worth 36, and nine are worth 45.
Squirrels
One squirrel earns you $1 from the player to your left. Two squirrels earn you $1 from that player and $2 from the next player after them. Each additional squirrel adds $1 to the amount taken from the next player around the table. If there are more squirrels than opponents, the payments keep going around the table, skipping you. Squirrels are the only animal that takes money from other players rather than the bank.
Example: two squirrels — Alice collects $1 from Bob and $2 from Cliff (the next two players to her left).
Example: four squirrels — Alice collects $1 + $4 = $5 from Bob (who is charged twice as the rotation comes back around), $2 from Cliff, and $3 from Debby.
Moose
Each moose is worth $9, but only if it's paired with a squirrel — a moose without a squirrel to pair with is worth nothing. You need one squirrel for every moose you want to count.
Example: one squirrel and two moose scores $9 from the bank (for one paired moose) plus $1 from the player to your left (for the squirrel).
Kangaroos
Each kangaroo is worth as many dollars as the total number of kangaroos showing. One kangaroo = $1, two = $4, three = $9, four = $16, five = $25, six = $36, seven = $49, eight = $64, nine = $81 (in other words, the count squared).
During round one, if you show at least one kangaroo and choose to score it, take a kangaroo chip and flip it to the single-kangaroo side. On a later turn, you may spend that chip to turn one of your dice to the kangaroo face. If you score kangaroos again during round two, take a kangaroo chip and set it to the two-kangaroo side (or just flip your existing chip over, if you already have one — you may never hold more than one kangaroo chip). From round three onward, you may turn one or two dice to the kangaroo face using the chip.
You only receive a kangaroo chip if you actually score kangaroos that turn — if you rolled kangaroos but chose to score lions instead, you get no chip.
Lions
Lions are worth $7 each — but if you choose to score lions, only lions and penguins score that turn.
Example: lion + lion + penguin scores $14 for the two lions, plus one purple penguin token.
Example: lion + kangaroo + kangaroo gives you a choice — $4 for the kangaroos, or $7 for the lion, but never both ($11). If you take the lion's $7, you do not receive a kangaroo chip.
If you score squirrels, moose, and/or kangaroos, your lions are worth nothing. If you score lions instead, your squirrels, moose, kangaroos, and camels are all worth nothing.
Camels
Camels are worth $5 each, but only if no lions are showing among your dice at all — if even one lion is showing, camels are worth $0, whether or not you chose to score that lion.
Example: 3 camels + 1 moose + 1 squirrel, with no lions showing, scores $25 (3 camels × $5 = $15, plus 1 moose × $9 = $9 for the paired moose, plus $1 from your left neighbor for the squirrel).
Example: 2 camels + 1 moose + 2 squirrels + 2 lions scores $14 if you score the lions (2 × $7), or $12 if you don't (1 moose × $9, since only one squirrel pairs with it, plus $1 from your left neighbor and $2 from the next player for the two squirrels). Either way the camels score $0, because lions are showing.
Solo Rules
Follow all the rules above, but take three turns in a row by yourself, following the normal rules of the game. Your goal is to beat your own high score, or see how it compares to other players' scores.
- 60–79: Quite Good
- 80–99: Very Good
- 100–119: Excellent
- 120+: Zowie
Advanced Game
Everything works the same as the basic game, with two exceptions.
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Each player has one black penguin chip. When the active player rolls the starting dice, every other player takes a die, rolls it secretly (behind a hand, for instance), and sets a price on it using their own money and/or their penguin chip flipped to its one- or two-penguin side. This is the asking price for that die.
Once everyone has priced their die, all the rolled and priced dice are revealed together. The active player may then buy dice from the unrolled pool for a penguin token as usual, or buy one or more of the pre-rolled dice from other players by paying the asking price — no haggling allowed.
A die bought from another player keeps the face it was already showing, though it can be rerolled later for a penguin token.
Each time the active player rerolls any of their dice, the other players may secretly reroll and/or re-price their own die. Once a player's die is purchased, they do not take another one and are done rolling for the rest of that turn.
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For five- or six-player games, the starting dice counts change: with five players, start with 3, 4, and 5 dice in rounds one, two, and three; with six players, start with 2, 3, and 4 dice in those rounds.