Dust in the Wings Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Goal of the Game
• The Meadow
• Game Setup
• Player Turns
  • Step 1 - Dispersion
  • Step 2 - Scoring
  • Step 3 - Renewal
• End of the Game

Components

• 48 Butterflies: 16 red, 16 blue, 16 yellow
• 31 Gathering cards
• 24 Composition cards
• 36 Scoring crystals: 24 black 1-point markers, 12 white 2-point markers
• 1 Game board
• 1 cloth bag

Goal of the Game

Skilfully arrange Butterflies and take the most stunning photos in order to achieve the highest score at the end of the game. On your turn you will select one group of Butterflies and disperse them in a contiguous line around the board, allowing you to score either a Gathering card or a Composition card. Once all Scoring crystals are gone, count the score to see whose photos are the most beautiful, thereby crowning the winner of the game!

The Meadow

The Meadow is the main area of the game board and is divided into 25 individual squares, arranged in a 5x5 grid. Each square contains one or more flowers.

The flowers only matter during setup of the game. The 25 squares are referred to as Meadow spaces during game play.

Game Setup

1. Place the game board in the middle of the table.
2. Put all Butterflies into the cloth bag. Randomly draw one Butterfly from the bag and place onto each flower in the Meadow.
3. Shuffle the Gathering cards and place the face-down deck onto its spot on the board. Repeat this process for the Composition cards.
4. From each deck, draw the top 3 cards and display them face-up in the spaces provided on the board.
5. Prepare the scoring crystals: a. With 2 players: put 16 black and 8 white Scoring crystals into the cloth bag. b. With 3-4 players: put all 36 Scoring crystals into the cloth bag.
6. Draw 3 random Scoring crystals from the bag and put one on each Gathering card (not on any of the Composition cards).
7. The player who most recently visited a butterfly conservatory becomes the first player. Alternatively, determine the first player using a method of your own choosing.

Player Turns

Each player turn consists of exactly 3 steps: Dispersion, Scoring, and Renewal.

Step 1 - Dispersion

Choose a single Meadow space and pick up all Butterflies from that space. One by one, these Butterflies must now be dispersed. Place the first Butterfly onto any one Meadow space adjacent to the space which the Butterflies were picked up from. Place the next Butterfly onto any one Meadow space adjacent to that space, and so on. The Butterflies will therefore be placed, one at a time, on a series of connected spaces, obeying these simple rules:

• You may never place a Butterfly onto a diagonally adjacent space (only orthogonal placement is allowed).
• You may never immediately return to the most recent space when placing a Butterfly.
  • In other words, back-and-forth placement between two Meadow spaces is not allowed. You may, however, eventually return to a previous space, provided you have made other legal placements in-between.

NOTE: Each space can hold any number of Butterflies. The flowers only mattered for initial placement during setup.

The goal is to place the last Butterfly onto a Meadow space so that the space fulfils the requirements of a Gathering card or Composition card.

Step 2 - Scoring

To fulfil the requirements of a Gathering card, the Meadow space where you placed the last Butterfly must contain exactly the precise number and types of Butterflies as depicted on the card.

• Some Gathering cards depict a group of spaces instead: the total number of Butterflies on all spaces in the group must be equal to or less than 4.
• Others require the total number of Butterflies on all spaces in the group to be equal to or greater than 21.

To fulfil the requirements of a Composition card, the Meadow space where you placed the last Butterfly must be part of a group of spaces that collectively:

• Match the shape and size depicted on the card.
  • The spaces may be considered flipped and rotated as necessary to match the shape on the card.
• Contain a number of Butterflies as indicated on the card.
  • Some cards require that every space in the group contain the same number of Butterflies (minimum 1).

If you successfully fulfilled the requirements of a Gathering card or Composition card, take the card and place it in front of you along with all Scoring crystals from the card (if any).

NOTE: Even if you managed to fulfil the requirements of multiple cards, you may only score one card each turn. In this case, simply choose which single card you would like to score.

Step 3 - Renewal

Draw a new card from the top of the appropriate deck to replace the card you scored (if any).

Any Gathering card that contains 3 Scoring crystals should now be discarded, placing the 3 Scoring crystals from the discarded card back into the bag and drawing a new card from the top of the Gathering deck as replacement. If the Gathering deck has run out, shuffle the discard pile to form a new deck. If the Composition deck has run out, simply continue the game without adding new Composition cards.

Finally, draw 3 random Scoring crystals from the bag and put one on each Gathering card. If you are unable to draw a full set of 3 crystals, draw as many as you can and start by placing them on cards with no scoring crystals.

The player on your left will now take their turn.

End of the Game

Once the cloth bag has been emptied, the next player's turn will be the final turn of the game. Afterwards, each player should calculate their score as follows:

Each Composition card is worth a number of points as indicated on the card. Every black Scoring crystal is worth 1 point and every white Scoring crystal is worth 2 points.

The player with the most points is the winner!

If there is a tie, the tied player who has the most white Scoring crystals wins. If there is still a tie, the tied player who has the fewest Gathering cards wins. If there is still a tie, the tied players rejoice in their shared victory and promise to never create such ties in the future!