Dreamwell
Dreamwell Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 72 friend cards (white-bordered)
- 15 advanced friend cards (black-bordered)
- 16 dream tiles (double-sided)
- 4 player markers (1 for each player color)
- 8 pawns (2 for each player color)
- 1 First Player marker
Credits
| Role | Name |
|---|---|
| Game Design | Nick Little |
| Game Development | Nick Little and Travis R. Chance |
| Editor | Jim Spivey |
| Media and General Awesomeness | Kira Anne Peavley |
| Art | Tara McPherson |
| Graphic Design | Scott Hartman |
| Business Head | Brian Wyrick |
| Manufactured by | Strom Manufacturing, Inc. |
The printed rulebook's "Special Thanks to:" section under Credits contains placeholder (unfinished) filler text rather than a final acknowledgements list; that appears to be a proofing error that shipped in the published PDF, so it is omitted here rather than transcribed as if it were real content.
Component Anatomy
Friend Cards
These cards consist of five parts and represent your friends who have become lost in the Dreamwell.
1: Creatures and Terrain – These are the two creatures and one terrain you must locate in order to play each friend card. To locate these things, you must have your two pawns on tiles that have these two creatures, and at least one of your pawns must be on the terrain shown.
2: Friend – This is an image of the friend whom you are trying to locate and rescue. These images may be referenced for scoring at the end of the game.
3: Points – This is where you will find the point value of the card. The player with the most points at the end of the game is the winner.
4: Ability – Once you have played a friend card, you will be granted the ability shown in this section of the card. Some abilities happen immediately, and some will allow you to play another card without having to locate a creature or a terrain shown. A few abilities can be used every turn until you play a new card.
5: Border – Friend cards have either a white or a black border. Only use the black-bordered cards if you are playing the advanced version of Dreamwell.
Dream Tiles
These represent the landscape of the Dreamwell. Every time you play the game the configuration of the tiles will be different.
These tiles consist of five parts:
1: Terrain – There are four terrain types: pink space, blue water, black sky and green cave.
2: Creature – There are eight types of creatures found on the tiles: Gamma, Cosmo, Lil' Hero, Jupiter, Nova, umibozu, borealis and Skullflower.
3: Doors – These doors show you in which directions you can move off of a tile.
4: Inside Border – The inside border of each tile will either be white or black-bordered. Only use the black-border side of the tiles when playing the advanced version of Dreamwell.
5: Outside Border – The color of the outside border of the tiles show the main color of the terrain type on the opposite side of the tile. This is helpful information to have when playing the advanced version.
Setup
1: Place the sixteen tiles in a 4 x 4 grid to create the board. The tiles should be placed randomly with the side with the white inside border faceup. The orientation of the tiles should also be random.
2: Shuffle together all of the white-bordered friend cards to form the facedown deck. Deal two of these cards to each player.
3: Set the deck near one corner of the board. Lay out four cards faceup to form the display.
4: Give each player the two pawns and one player marker in one of the player colors. The pawns will be moved around on the tiles. The marker will stay in front of you so that other players know what color you are.
5: Give the First Player marker to the player who slept the longest last night. That player will start the game.
Example: 1.1 Setup
Abby, Scott and Justin are setting up to play a new game.
The printed rulebook's numbered walkthrough text in this example box (steps 1–5, describing how Abby, Scott and Justin lay out their tiles, cards, pawns, and markers) is rendered as unfinished placeholder (lorem ipsum) filler text in the published PDF rather than as real sentences — an apparent proofing error that shipped in the printed and digital editions. It is not reproduced here since it carries no actual rules content; the diagram itself shows the fully set-up board with the deck, display, First Player marker, and each player's pawns and marker in place.
Game Play
Players will take turns in clockwise order starting with the First Player. On your turn, you will perform three actions from a list of five actions: draw a card, replace the display, rotate a tile, play a friend card, or move. You may perform the same action more than once on your turn.
Draw
You may draw a card from the display or from the top of the deck. If you draw from the display, immediately replace it by placing the top card of the deck faceup in its place.
Replace the Display
Place all the friend cards in the display on the bottom of the deck and place four cards from the top of the deck faceup to create a new display.
Rotate a Tile
Choose one tile and rotate it 90°, 180°, or 270°. You may rotate a tile that you are on or that is unoccupied. You cannot rotate tiles that an opponent is on unless you are also on that tile.
Example: 1.2 Rotating
Abby wants to move to the Borealis tile. In order to do so, she must first rotate her current tile so that one of its doors points to the right. Her first action is to rotate her tile 90° clockwise.
Play a Friend Card
In order to play a friend card, you must locate the two creatures and one terrain on the card. To locate the creatures and terrain you must have your pawn on tiles that contain them. When you play a card, you will immediately receive the bonus shown in the bottom right hand corner of the card. You are not required to use the ability if you would prefer not to.
When you play a card, the new card should be placed on top of the previous card so that it is covering the right half of the card. That way you can see what friends you have rescued and how many points you have. Once a new card is played, you no longer have access to the abilities of any previously played cards.
At the end of your turn if you have more than four friend cards in your hand, you must discard down to four cards.
Example: 1.3 Play a Friend Card
Scott wants to play one of the friend cards in his hand. He spends some actions on previous turns moving his pawns so that they are on tiles containing: 1 little hero, 1 Gamma, and the green cave. Now that his pawns are in place, he plays his friend card. The card ability allows him to Perform a Draw Action immediately. This card will also earn him 2 points at game end.
Move
At the beginning of the game, your pawns start off the board. When the pawn you want to move is on a tile, you can only move it off that tile in the direction of one of the doors on that tile. If the tile you move onto has a door that connects to the tile you just left, you may move that pawn again without losing an additional action. This could allow you to move through several tiles with one action if you connect several doors together.
When your pawns are off the board, you may move them onto any tile on the outside edge of the board. If the tile that you moved onto has a door pointing off of the board, you may move that pawn again without losing an additional action.
You may move off the board from a tile that has a door pointing off the edge of the board. In that case, your movement action stops and your pawn is left off the board. You will have to use another action later to move it back onto the board.
Example: 1.5 Example of a Turn
Abby has the following two friend cards in her hand. She decides that she wants to play the left card in her hand.
1: With her first action she decides to move a pawn. She moves it up 1 tile. That tile has a door that points to the tile she moved from, so she can keep moving for free. She moves diagonally up-right. That tile also has a door pointing to the tile she just left, which means she can move again for free. She moves up to the Nova in water terrain tile. Because the doors still align she could continue her move but now her pawns are on the proper locations to play her card so she decides to end her movement.
2: With her second action, Abby plays her friend card. She is able to play it because she has one pawn on a Skullflower and the other on both a Nova and the blue water terrain.
3: After playing the card, she immediately performs the ability shown in the bottom right-hand corner, which is to move one of her pawns to a tile with the black sky terrain. Abby decides to move her pawn that is on the swan in the blue water terrain to the black sky terrain tile in the lower left-hand corner of the board.
4: Abby is now able to play the other card in her hand because she has one pawn on a Skullflower tile, the other on a Lil' Hero and black sky terrain tile. With her third, and final, action, she plays this card. She places it so that it is covering the right half of her last played card.
5: Abby is able to use the card ability which allows her another free move to any tile with a Cosmo on it. She chooses to move one of her pawns to the tile in the lower right corner of the board.
End of the Game
Once one player has played seven friend cards, the game ends. That player finishes her turn, and then the rest of the players who have not taken a turn this round will take one more turn.
Add up all the points from the cards that you have played. The cards in your hand can be returned to the box. The player who has the most points wins the game. If there is a tie, the player with the most different types of friends in play wins. If it is still tied, then both tied players win the game.
Advanced Game
Once you have played Dreamwell a few times, you may want to try playing the advanced version of the game. In order to play this version there are a few changes to make.
During Setup
1: Shuffle the black-bordered friend cards into the deck with the white-bordered ones before dealing each player two cards.
2: When laying out the board, shuffle the tiles so that eight of them have the white inside border side faceup and eight of them have the black inside border side faceup.
Example: 1.6 Advanced Game Setup Changes
Add the black-bordered friend cards to the deck. The board should include 8 white and 8 black inside border tiles faceup.
For example, the whale and the elephant are both pink. If you see a whale on one side of a tile, the elephant will be on the other side. Similarly, the color of the outside border of each tile indicates the type of terrain on the other side of the tile. A tile with the blue water terrain has a pink border because the pink space terrain is on the back of that tile. For the full list of pairings, see the Friends, Creatures and Terrain section below.
During Gameplay
You have the option of using a sixth type of action: flip a tile.
Flip a Tile – When taking this action, flip over a tile so that the opposite side is showing. You can only flip a tile that you occupy or that no other player occupies. When flipping a tile, make sure that the doors end up pointing to the same places that they did before the tile was flipped.
The terrain types and creatures are paired up so that when you see one, you will be able to tell what is on the back.
Example: 1.7 Flip a Tile
Abby wants to play this friend card. Her pawns are on the tiles shown. Rather than trying to move to a tile with a Gamma and the green cave terrain, Abby knows those exact options are on the reverse of her current tile. She decides her first action is to flip the Cosmo tile. When flipping the tile Abby pays careful attention to make sure the doors align in the same directions. Now her pawns are in the correct positions to play her friend card.
Game End
In the advanced version, the game ends at the end of a round in which a player plays her tenth card instead of seventh.
Scoring Symbols
Here is an explanation of some of the symbols you may see in the point section of a friend card.
- Heart with a number (e.g. "1") – This means that the card is worth the amount of points shown inside the heart.
- Heart with a number and "PER" plus a friend icon (e.g. "1 PER" with a seahorse lady) – This card is worth 1 point per friend card with a seahorse lady on it that you have played. There is a 2-point version of this card. There is a similar symbol for the heart girl friend that functions the same way as this symbol.
- Heart with a number, a plus sign, and a second heart with "PER" plus a terrain icon (e.g. "1 +" / "1 PER" terrain) – This card is worth 1 point plus 1 point for each card you have played that required you to locate the terrain type shown.
- Heart with a number and "IF" (e.g. "5 IF" three wolf ladies) – This card is worth 5 points if you have played at least three wolf ladies. There is a 7-point version of this ability.
- Heart with a number and "PER" plus two friend icons (e.g. "2 PER" Ace and Ion) – This card is worth 2 points for each set of Ace and Ion you have played. There is a 3-point version of this ability.
- Heart with a number and "WILD" (e.g. "1 WILD") – This card is worth 1 point. Additionally, during scoring choose a type of friend and terrain. This card will count as that type of friend and terrain when scoring other cards, in addition to its printed friend and terrain type. There is a 2-point version of this ability.
For example if you had the card that scored 5 points for having three wolf ladies, but you only had two wolf ladies and a card with the WILD ability, then you could consider this card to be a wolf lady and score 5 points for that card.
Ability Icons
Here is an explanation of some of the abilities on the cards:
- LOCATED – The abilities that say "LOCATED" mean that you have located that creature or background for the next card you play. For example, if you have a "LOCATED" ability for a creature and a card with matching requirements, you would only need to locate the remaining creature or terrain shown to play that card.
- MOVE TO – When you play a card with a "MOVE TO" ability, you may move one of your pawns to a tile with the creature or the terrain shown. In the case of a "MOVE TO" ability showing the blue water terrain, you would be able to move to a tile with the blue water terrain.
- FLIP ANY – When you play a card with a "FLIP ANY" ability, you may flip a tile with the creature or terrain shown.
- PERFORM A DRAW ACTION – When you play a card with a written ability, you may use that ability. Some written abilities will happen immediately, such as this example.
- EACH TURN PERFORM A ROTATE ACTION FOR FREE – Other written abilities may provide you with an extra action each turn, such as this example. You will only have this ability until you play another card.
Friends, Creatures and Terrain
Friends: Ace, Orion, Lucius, Astra & Orbit, Ion, Stella & Flux
Creatures:
| Creature | Paired with (advanced-game tile back) |
|---|---|
| Gamma | Cosmo |
| Nova | Umibozu |
| Lil' Hero | Jupiter |
| Borealis | Skullflower |
Terrain:
| Terrain | Paired with (advanced-game tile back) |
|---|---|
| Pink Space | Blue Water |
| Black Sky | Green Cave |
The paired creatures and terrain are shown opposite each other on the double-sided dream tiles used in the advanced game (see During Setup, above): the whale (Cosmo) and the elephant (Gamma) are both pink and appear on opposite sides of the same tile, and similarly for the other pairs.