Before The Rain Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Game Contents
• Game Overview
• How To Play - Set Up
• How To Play - On Your Turn
• How To Play - Playing a Flower Card
• How To Play - Playing a Hive Card
• How To Play - Playing a Hive Card (continued)
• How To Play - Checking The Weather
• How To Play - Checking The Weather (continued)
• Scoring Flower Cards
• Round End
• Game End
• Game Mode - 2 Player
• Game Mode - Fill The Hive
• Quick Guide - Set Up
• Quick Guide - On Your Turn

Game Contents

• Flower Cards x 75
• Flower Cards - Wild x 5
• Hive Cards x 6
• Weather Cards x 22

Game Overview

Before The Rain is played across 3 rounds. During each round, all players will examine their hand of cards, deciding which card to contribute to a central stack. The chosen cards are placed face down in front of each player before being revealed.

How To Play - Set Up

1. Shuffle up all of the Flower cards (including wild cards) and then deal 4 cards to each player. Place the remaining cards face down, forming a draw pile.
2. Give each player 1 Hive card. All players can now look at their hand of 5 cards.
3. Separate the 5 Storm cards from the Weather deck, placing them to the side of the play area.
4. Shuffle the remaining 12 Sunshine and 5 Rain cards together, placing them face down. This is the starting Weather Deck.

Set-up illustration labels: Weather Deck; Storm Cards; Flower Deck (Draw Pile).

How To Play - On Your Turn

1. All players simultaneously pick and play a card face down in front of them.
2. When ready, reveal all cards.
3. If a Hive card has been revealed, that player will gain all cards from the stack.
4. If a Flower card has been revealed, add it to the central stack (after the Hive card action).
5. All players with no Hive cards remaining in their hand will now be out of this round.
6. All players with a Hive card still in their hand will now draw 1 Flower card each from the draw pile.
7. Check the weather by drawing 1 Weather card and placing it faceup on the table.
8. Resolve the Weather action (page 8 & 9).

Repeat these steps until the round has ended, by either the Weather or Hive cards (page 11).

Illustration labels: Flip; Gain. The rulebook refers to "More details on page 7" for the Hive card action.

How To Play - Playing a Flower Card

All revealed Flower cards are added face up to a central stack, increasing the total point value of the stack.

Illustration labels: Flip; Add.

How To Play - Playing a Hive Card

A player may choose to play a Hive card instead of a Flower card. When a Hive card is revealed, that player will take all Flower cards from the central stack. These cards are added to the player's hive, ready to score points at the end of the round. The remaining flower cards within the player's hand must be discarded to the bottom of the draw pile.

How To Play - Playing a Hive Card (continued)

If more than 1 player has revealed a Hive card, the central stack is shuffled and dealt out among those players randomly. If there is an odd card, this is discarded to the bottom of the draw pile.

When a Hive card has been played, add 1 Storm card per Hive card to the bottom of the Weather deck.

Illustration labels: Play; Add To Weather Deck.

When a player has no more Hive cards to play, they are out of the round.

If 1 player is remaining who has yet to play a Hive card, that player is still in the game and will race to gather as many Flower cards as possible before the rain comes in.

How To Play - Checking The Weather

To check the weather, draw the top card of the Weather deck and place it face up.

Rain - If there is only 1 or 2 Rain cards revealed, continue playing. Keep the revealed Rain cards face up next to the Weather deck. If 3 Rain cards are revealed in a row, this will end the round.

Storm - These cards are added to the Weather deck once a player has used a Hive card. When a Storm card has been revealed, keep it face up next to the Weather deck and continue playing. Storm cards have a value of 2 Rain cards.

If 1 Storm card and 1 Rain card have been revealed in a row, or 2 Storm cards are revealed, the round will end.

How To Play - Checking The Weather (continued)

Sunshine - When a Sunshine card has been revealed, play will continue. Discard this card. Any revealed Rain or Storm cards will be shuffled back into the Weather deck, resetting the deck ready to start the next turn of the round. All discarded Sunshine cards will be added back into the deck once the round is over.

Illustration labels: Reset Example; Discarded Cards; Revealed Rain Cards.

If the round ends due to too much rain, all players who have not played a Hive card are left out in the bad weather and will score zero points this round.

Scoring Flower Cards

Each player will score points for all of the Flower cards they brought back to their hive. Wild cards count as 3 points; these can contribute to any flower the player wishes when brought back to their hive. Players will add up the total value of points per flower and record the total for each. Remember to discard all Flower cards in your hand when revealing a Hive card.

Example: End Of Round 1 Scoring Example. The example score sheet for "Evan" records the following Round One values, one per flower column: 6, 2, 0, 8, 3.

Round End

A round will end when all players have played a Hive card or when there is too much rain. Example below.

Illustration: 3 x Rain Cards, or 1 Rain + 1 Storm Card.

To restart for the next round, remove all Storm cards from the Weather deck and shuffle the discarded Sunshine cards back into the Weather deck. Shuffle all Flower cards together to form a new deck and deal out 4 Flower cards to each player. All players will start with 1 Hive card, the same as the previous round.

Game End

Before The Rain ends after 3 rounds. After the 3rd round, players will check their score sheet and find their highest scoring round for each flower. Add up each of the highest scores per flower to find a player's total score, and then compare to see who's the winner!

Example of a Player's Total Score: player "Evan". The score sheet has one column per flower type, with the flower types shown as pictures (the text does not name them). The rows are Round One, Round Two, Round Three and Best Round. The Best Round row takes the highest value per column, and its total is the player's score.

Row	Column 1	Column 2	Column 3	Column 4	Column 5	Total
Round One	6	2	0	8	3
Round Two	1	9	11	8	0
Round Three	7	2	4	2	5
Best Round	7	9

Game Mode - 2 Player

This game mode will use an 'Automa Bee Deck' to mimic a third player. The game is played as normal, but follow the steps below when using the Automa Bee Deck for each of the 3 rounds.

1. At the start of each round, create the Automa Bee Deck, consisting of 1 Hive Card and 20 Flower Cards dealt from the Flower Deck. Shuffle these cards.
2. Each time players play a card, the Automa Bee also plays its top card.
3. The Automa Bee does not draw a card.
4. If the Automa Bee reveals a Hive Card, it takes the Central Stack but does not score points.
5. The Automa Bee adds a Storm Card to the bottom of the Weather Deck in the same way as a player does when returning to the hive.
6. Players returning to the hive at the same time as the Automa Bee split the Flower Cards with them as normal.

Game Mode - Fill The Hive

This game mode will require the reverse side of the score sheet.

Here, players must choose if they want to bank points they have gained at the end of a round or push their luck further to try and get more points in the next round. There are 6 empty cells that a player can bank points into, 1 per flower type and an extra of the player's choice. Once a player has banked points from a round, they cannot be overwritten. If the extra cell is available, the player may choose to bank points of a flower type that they have previously banked.

Playing a Card - Instead of a single central stack, the Flower cards are divided into different stacks, separated by flower type. Hive cards and Wild cards still behave the same as described on pages 6 and 10.

Scoring - After the 3 rounds, add up each of the 6 point totals players have banked to find their total score.

Example of a Player's Total Score (Fill The Hive score sheet). The example board is captioned "Choose What Score To Bank After Each Round! Banked Points Can't Be Overwritten." It shows six flower-type hexes with banked values 8, 9, 3, 15, 12 and 4, an "Extra" hex, and a Total Score of 51.

Quick Guide - Set Up

1. Shuffle and then deal 4 Flower cards and 1 Hive card to each player.
2. Shuffle the 12 Sunshine and 5 Rain cards.

Quick Guide - On Your Turn

1. All players simultaneously pick and play a card face down in front of them.
2. Reveal all cards.
3. If a Hive card has been revealed, that player will gain all cards from the stack.
4. If a Flower card has been revealed, add it to the central stack (after the Hive card).
5. All players with no Hive cards remaining in their hand will now be out of this round.
6. All players with a Hive card still in their hand will now draw 1 Flower card each from the draw pile.
7. Check the weather by drawing 1 Weather card and placing it faceup on the table.
8. Resolve the Weather action.