Caldera Park Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Playing the game
  • A) Weather forecast
  • B) Action turns
    • Step 1: The player with the marmot chooses an action token and a terrain requirement
    • Step 2: Each player places an animal token in their park
    • Step 3: Each player refills their animal token display
    • Action turn example
  • C) End of the round
• End of the game
  • 1) Bad weather
  • 2) Waterfalls
  • 3) Mountains
  • 4) Prairie
  • 5) Forest
  • 6) River
  • 7) Geysers
  • 8 to 13) Animal species
  • Scoring example
• Variants
  • Solo challenge
  • Storm warning in Geyser Park
• Credits

Components

• 4 folding boxes — one per player, used to store your game pieces.
• 4 parks — 1 for each player. Each park has a front side (showing the river sign) and a back side (showing the geyser sign).
  • Front labels: river sign, forest, prairie, volcano, geyser, mountains, river, waterfall, animal token display, landscape space, weather space, weather token display.
  • Back: geyser sign.
• 140 animal tokens — 35 tokens per player. Front shows animal artwork; back shows one of four track icons (paw print, antler/tree, footprint, hoof print).
• 40 weather tokens — 10 tokens per player. Front shows a weather phenomenon; back shows one of four track icons.
• 1 action board, with a selection area made up of the terrain selection and the selection row, plus the scoring categories track.
• 1 marmot.
• 7 action tokens. Front shows one of the 7 animal-token features (eagle, elk, mountain goat, bear, bison, wolf, watering hole); back is plain green.
• 1 scoring pad.

Setup

1. Each player chooses a track icon and takes the folding box showing that track icon. Use it to store your game pieces.

2. Each player takes a park. Put your park in front of you, with the side showing the river sign facing up.

3. Each player takes all the tokens showing their track icon on the back.

   Mix your 35 animal tokens face down and place them in any number of face-down stacks above the top right corner of your park as your reserve. Then draw 7 animal tokens and place them in any order along the upper edge of your park. This is your animal token display.

   There are 6 animal species: bear, eagle, bison, wolf, mountain goat, elk.

   Each species comes in the following combinations (here, for example, are the wolf's): one wolf; two wolves; three wolves; wolf and watering hole; wolf and bear; wolf and elk; wolf, eagle, mountain goat and watering hole; wolf, bison and watering hole.

   Each of the 35 animal tokens is unique and each combination occurs only once. Each player gets the same 35 combinations.

   From your 10 weather tokens, find the one showing a sun and place it face up anywhere at the lower edge of your park.

   Then mix your other 9 weather tokens face down and place five, face down, at the lower edge of your park. These 6 tokens are your weather token display. Return the rest of your weather tokens to the box unseen.

   Now choose a weather token from your display (the face-up one or any of the face-down) and place it face up in any of the 6 misty weather spaces in your park.

   Each weather token shows one of 8 weather phenomena, which influence the animals at the end of the game: sun, hurricane, hailstorm, downpour, heatwave, snowstorm, fog, thunderstorm. See "Weather forecast" and "End of the game" below for details.

4. Place the action board in the middle of the table.

5. Place the 7 action tokens face up on the action board's selection row. Put the token with the watering hole on the very right, the rest can go anywhere.

6. Set the scoring pad aside. You'll need it when the scores are worked out.

7. Whoever most recently saw a wild animal in real life takes the marmot and places it next to their park.

8. If there are fewer than 4 players, return any unused components to the box.

Playing the game

The game is played over 5 rounds.

Each round consists of: A) the weather forecast, B) 7 action turns and C) the end of the round.

After the fifth round, the scores are worked out.

A) Weather forecast

At the start of each round, each of you chooses one token from your own weather token display and places it face up in your park's next free weather space, going clockwise from the weather tokens already there.

So, in the first round, place it in the weather space following, clockwise, the token placed in the setup. In the second round, your newly chosen weather token goes in the weather space following the one from the first round, and so on.

Which weather token you choose is up to you. It can be any of the face-down ones, or the face-up sun weather token if it's still available. The sun weather token is good as it makes adjacent animal families more valuable (see "8 to 13) Animal species" below).

All other weather tokens are bad, as they drive away certain neighboring animals: Before working out the scores at the end of the game, you must flip over any animal tokens that are affected by an adjacent bad weather token. Such animal tokens don't count when scoring animal families (see "End of the game" below for examples).

Overview of bad weather tokens:

• Hurricane — All animal tokens beside a hurricane that show at least one eagle, and/or at least one elk, and/or a watering hole, are flipped over before the scores are worked out.
• Hailstorm — All animal tokens beside a hailstorm that show at least one bear, and/or at least one wolf, and/or a watering hole, are flipped over before the scores are worked out.
• Downpour — All animal tokens beside a downpour that show at least one mountain goat, and/or at least one bison, and/or a watering hole, are flipped over before the scores are worked out.
• Snowstorm — All animal tokens beside a snowstorm that show at least one elk, and/or at least one wolf, are flipped over before the scores are worked out.
• Heatwave — All animal tokens beside a heatwave that show at least one mountain goat, and/or at least one bear, are flipped over before the scores are worked out.
• Fog — All animal tokens beside a fog that show at least one eagle, and/or at least one bison, are flipped over before the scores are worked out.
• Thunderstorm — All animal tokens beside a thunderstorm that have the same number of animals (regardless of species) as the storm does clouds are flipped over before the scores are worked out.

B) Action turns

7 action turns now take place. Each consists of 3 steps:

1. The player with the marmot chooses an action token and a terrain requirement
2. Each player places an animal token in their park
3. Each player refills their animal token display

Step 1: The player with the marmot chooses an action token and a terrain requirement

The player with the marmot chooses an action token from the selection row on the action board and moves it up on to any empty space in the terrain selection, announcing the choice aloud (for example: "A bear must go on a river space!").

This controls how all players take and place an animal token in their park in the next step:

• what feature the animal token must have, and
• what terrain requirement the landscape space it's placed on must obey.

Terrain requirement (the space the action token moves to determines this): Prairie space, Forest space, Mountain space, Space beside a geyser, Waterfall space, River space, Any space.

Animal token feature (shown on the action token itself):

• The animal token must show at least one eagle
• The animal token must show at least one elk
• The animal token must show at least one mountain goat
• The animal token must show at least one bear
• The animal token must show at least one bison
• The animal token must show at least one wolf
• The animal token must show a watering hole

Note: The rightmost space of the terrain selection is connected to the watering hole action token. The watering hole can move to that space only, and no other token can.

Step 2: Each player places an animal token in their park

Each player must now choose one token from their animal token display that shows the required feature (species or watering hole) at least once. It doesn't matter what else is depicted on the animal token.

If there is no such token in your display, choose any token from it instead.

Next, place your chosen animal token face up in any free landscape space in your park that obeys the terrain requirement.

It doesn't matter what else is shown on the landscape space, or what's beside it, as long as the requirement is obeyed. (For example, if the river is required, it doesn't matter if there's a waterfall too, or if it's a prairie, forest or mountain space, or if there's a geyser beside it.)

If all your landscape spaces obeying that requirement are already filled, place the animal token in any free landscape space instead.

Attention: Animal tokens can never go on geysers, the volcano or weather spaces.

Step 3: Each player refills their animal token display

Once all players have placed their chosen animal token in their park, each player refills their animal token display with a token from their face-down reserve, filling back up to 7 face-up tokens to choose from. (Once your reserve is gone, your display is no longer refilled).

Then pass the marmot to the left.

If any action tokens remain in the action board's selection row, play another action turn.

If there is none, because 7 action turns have been played, end the round.

Action turn example

Mia has the marmot. In step 1, she chooses the wolf action token and moves it to the forest in the terrain selection. This means that in step 2, everyone must place an animal token that shows at least 1 wolf in a free forest space.

Mia chooses the animal token showing 3 wolves from her display and places it in one of her forest spaces. (She avoids the three forest spaces beside the hailstorm, as she doesn't want it to drive the wolves away before the scores are worked out).

Lin has no tokens showing wolves in her display, so she can instead choose any animal token. She chooses the one showing 3 elks and places it in a forest space that includes the river.

Sam chooses from his display the animal token showing 1 wolf and 1 elk. He places it beside his sun weather token in a forest space with a waterfall.

Once each player has placed their token and refilled their animal token display, Lin takes the marmot and starts the next action turn by choosing an action token on the action board.

C) End of the round

After the seventh action turn, when all 7 action tokens have been moved to the terrain selection, the round ends.

Return all 7 action tokens to the selection row. Make sure to place the watering hole on the rightmost space.

If you have any animal tokens left in your animal token displays, start a new round.

Otherwise, the game ends.

End of the game

The game ends after the 5th round (in which you placed the last weather and animal tokens in your parks). Now work out the scores.

Place the marmot on the leftmost scoring category on the action board and take the scoring pad.

Work out the categories one at a time. Start with the bad weather category. Then advance the marmot to the waterfalls category, work out everyone's points here and record the results on the scoring pad. Then advance the marmot again, work out and record that category's points and continue till you've worked out all 13 categories.

1) Bad weather

Check all players' parks for animals that are driven away by bad weather: Flip over each animal token that's beside a bad weather token with which it shares at least one feature. See the "Weather forecast" section above for the types of bad weather. Some examples:

• Heatwaves are bad for all neighboring animal tokens that show a goat and/or a bear. Flip such tokens over.
• Hailstorms are bad for all neighboring animal tokens that show a watering hole and/or a wolf and/or a bear. Flip such tokens over.
• Thunderstorms are bad for all neighboring animal tokens that show as many animals as there are clouds on the thunderstorm (1-3). It doesn't matter if those animals are of the same or different species, and whether there's a watering hole or not. Flip such tokens over.

The following 6 categories give points to each player who has covered all of the named spaces in their park:

2) Waterfalls

Gain 4 points if you've covered all 6 waterfall spaces (so that none of them is visible).

3) Mountains

Gain 7 points if you've covered all 14 mountain spaces.

4) Prairie

Gain 7 points if you've covered all 14 prairie spaces.

5) Forest

Gain 7 points if you've covered all 14 forest spaces.

6) River

Gain 8 points if you've covered all river spaces.

7) Geysers

Gain 4 points for each geyser in your park whose neighboring spaces are all covered.

8 to 13) Animal species

Now go through the 6 species categories: mountain goat, bear, wolf, elk, eagle, bison.

In each category, each player scores the most valuable family of that species in their own park.

A family is a set of animals of the same species whose animal tokens form an unbroken group. It doesn't matter what else is on those tokens, as long as at least one animal of that species is. The more animals in the family the better. However, to score points at all, the family must include animals whose tokens also show watering holes.

Watering holes act as multipliers. How many points a family is worth depends on how many watering holes it has:

• 1 watering hole = number of animals in this family x 1
• 2 watering holes = number of animals in this family x 2
• 3 watering holes = number of animals in this family x 3

Note: Each player can only score one family per species. If you have several families of a species, choose the most valuable and gain its points.

If the sun weather token is beside a family, its animal of that species is also a part of that family.

Once all the categories have been scored, the player with the most points wins.

Ties are broken in favor of the player with the most covered river spaces. If still tied, the tied player with fewer flipped animal tokens wins. If still tied, the tied players share the victory.

Scoring example

Mia scores her park as follows:

1. Bad weather: Beside the downpour weather token are two animal tokens that Mia must flip over as they show bison. Luckily, none of her other weather phenomena affect her animals.
2. Waterfalls: As no waterfalls are visible, Mia must have covered all 6 of them, so she gains 4 points.
3. Mountains: No mountain spaces are visible either, so Mia must have covered all 14 of them too. She earns 7 points.
4. Prairie: Mia didn't manage to cover all prairie spaces. She gets no points in this category.
5. Forest: Mia has covered all 14 forest spaces. She earns 7 points.
6. River: Mia hasn't covered all river spaces, so she gets no points.
7. Geysers: Mia has covered all the surrounding spaces of two geysers. Each such geyser is worth 4 points, so she earns 8 points.
8. Mountain goats: There are two mountain goat families. The one higher up has 6 goats and 1 watering hole, and so is worth 6 points (6 goats x 1 watering hole). The lower one also has 6 goats but has 2 watering holes, and so is worth 12 points (6 goats x 2 watering holes). Mia scores the lower family and gains 12 points.
9. Bears: There is one large family and two lone bears. The lone bear on the left is worth nothing. The one on the right is worth 1 point (1 bear x 1 watering hole). The bear family has 10 bears and 2 watering holes, so Mia gains 20 points (10 bears x 2 watering holes).
10. Wolves: Mia has united a family of 4 wolves with 2 watering holes. She earns 8 points (4 wolves x 2 watering holes). The other group has 5 wolves but no watering hole, so is worth nothing (5 wolves x 0 watering holes = 0 points).
11. Elks: Mia managed to unite all her elks in one family. She gains the maximum score of 36 points (12 elks x 3 watering holes).
12. Eagles: The large family has 10 eagles and 3 watering holes. Mia gains 30 points (10 eagles x 3 watering holes).
13. Bison: Sadly, some bison were driven away by the downpour, and so there are 4 families of 2 bison each and only 2 of them have a watering hole. Mia scores one of those 2 families and gains 2 points (2 bison x 1 watering hole).

Altogether, Mia scores 134 points.

By the way: Have you heard of our Deep Print Games app? Here, you can find virtual scoring pads of all our games. It helps you to calculate scores and to keep record of all your previous games. Get it for free on the App Store and on Google Play. https://scoreapp.deep-print-games.com

Variants

Solo challenge

Setup: When playing alone, set the game up as described in Setup above, except that in step 5, instead of placing the action tokens in the selection row, shuffle them into a face-down stack, which you place in the middle of the selection row.

Playing the game: The game is played as usual, except that in step 1 of each action turn, reveal a token from the action stack and place it on any empty space of the terrain selection to determine the requirements for step 2. (As usual, the watering hole, when revealed, must go on the rightmost space). At the end of the round, reshuffle the action tokens to form the next round's action stack.

End of the game: The game ends and is scored as usual.

How many points did you get?

• Under 80: Bottom of the food chain!
• 80+: Oops, try again!
• 110+: Now that's more like it!
• 140+: You're a natural!
• 165+: As sure footed as a mountain goat!
• 185+: Eyes of an eagle!
• 205+: Extraordinary! The envy of all!
• 220+: Incredible! The strength of a bear!

Storm warning in Geyser Park

Setup: Each of you places your park in front of you with the side showing the geyser sign facing up. Set the rest of the game up as usual, except that at the end of step 3, instead of placing a weather token from your display in a weather space, take 2 weather tokens from your excess ones. Place one face up in the weather space in the middle of your park and the other face up in any of your park's other weather spaces.

Playing the game: The game is played as usual, except that in the weather forecast at the start of each round, each of you first reveals one of the face-down weather tokens in your weather token display. From the 2 weather tokens that are now face up there, choose one and place it in your next free weather space, going clockwise, as usual. (Unlike in the basic game, you'll have one token left in your weather token display when the game ends.)

End of the game: The game ends and is scored as usual. (However, as there are more geysers and each has just 3 neighboring spaces, it's easier to gain their points).

Credits

Game design: Wolfgang Kramer, Michael Kiesling Artwork: Annika Heller Development: Peter Eggert, Viktor Kobilke Rule book: VEB Spielekombinat Katja Volk, Viktor Kobilke, Neil Crowley

© 2022 Deep Print Games GmbH, Sieglindestr. 7, 12159 Berlin, Germany. All rights reserved. www.deep-print-games.com

Distribution: Pegasus Spiele GmbH, Am Straßbach 3, 61169 Friedberg, Germany. Pegasus Spiele North America Corporation, 47137 Wetland Place, Suite 100, Harrisburg, SD 57032, USA.