Flowers: A Mandala Game Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Object of the Game
• Components
• Setup
• Course of Play
  • 1. Playing Cards from Hand
  • 2. Drawing Cards from Deck
  • 3. Checking Claim
  • 4. Completing a Mandala
  • Destroying a Mandala
• End of the Game
• Scoring
• Credits

Object of the Game

Take turns playing cards that represent the colored sand. You form mandalas around the three lotus blossoms, competing for the flower tiles in their center. Once all six colors are present in a Mandala, the players with the most and second-most cards in the Mandala win the flower tiles. Every flower tile is worth points; matching flower tiles even more. At the end of the game, the player with the most points wins.

Components

• 3 two-part claim markers (must be assembled before play)
• 1 playmat
• 90 cards (15 each of six different colors)
• 36 flower tiles (6 sets of "2", "3", "4", "5", "7", and "×3")

Half of the tiles have a light flower on the back and the other half a dark flower.

Setup

1. Place the playmat in the center of the play area.
2. Shuffle the cards thoroughly and place them face down on the playmat as the draw deck. Next to it will be the face-up discard pile.
3. Turn the flower tiles to the flower side (face down); shuffle the dark and light flower tiles separately and place them in two stacks on the playmat.
4. For each Mandala: draw a dark and a light flower tile from the respective stacks, turn them to the scoring side, showing the colors and the points (face up), and place them together in the center of that Mandala.
5. Put a claim marker onto each pair of flower tiles.
6. Determine a start player, who draws 5 hand cards from the draw deck. In clockwise order, the remaining players draw 6, 7, and 8 cards, respectively.

The playmat lays out the start player, second player, and third player positions around three Mandalas, each showing its flower tiles, claim marker, and stacks of dark and light flower tiles, next to a space for the draw deck and a space for the discard pile.

Course of Play

Beginning with the start player, you take turns in clockwise order until the end of the game is triggered. On your turn, carry out the following four steps in this order:

1. Play cards from hand
2. Draw cards from deck
3. Check claim
4. Complete a Mandala

1. Playing Cards from Hand

Choose any number of cards of the same color from your hand and play them into a single Mandala. Spread them out on your side of the Mandala so that the total number of cards played is visible.

Check if this color is new to this Mandala: compare it to the flower tiles and any face-up cards already played here by any player, including you.

• If the color is new, spread your cards face up. Make sure that the color of these cards is clearly visible to all players.
• If the color is already present, show your cards to the other players, then spread them face down.

Example: It is Cyril's turn, who wants to add 3 green cards to this Mandala. Because green is already present, Cyril adds his cards face down.

2. Drawing Cards from Deck

Skip this step if, after completing step 1, you have 8 or more cards left in hand.

If you played exactly 1 card (face up or face down), draw up to 4 new cards from the deck and add them to your hand, up to a maximum of 8 cards in hand. If the draw deck runs out, thoroughly shuffle the discard pile to form a new draw deck.

Example: You have 6 cards in hand after playing 1 card. Consequently, you draw 2 new cards.

If you played 2 or more cards (face up or face down), you do not draw any new cards this turn.

Important! You may not end step 2 of your turn with no cards in hand. You must always have at least 1 card for your next turn. This means that you cannot play 2 or more matching cards during step 1 if doing so would empty your hand.

3. Checking Claim

Skip this step if all your cards in this Mandala are face down.

If you now have more cards in this Mandala (face up and face down) than any other individual player who has also played at least 1 face-up card, take the claim marker and place it on your cards. If you only tie for the most cards, do not take the claim marker from the player who already has it.

Example #1: On a previous turn, Cyril has played 3 face-down cards into this Mandala, so the claim marker stayed in the center. Now Alice plays the first face-up card into this Mandala, so she moves the claim marker onto her card.

Example #2: On her turn, Betty played two face-up cards and took the marker from Alice. Now, on his turn, Cyril adds a face-up card to his side. He can now count all of his cards, and has more cards than any other player with at least 1 face-up card, so he moves the marker onto his cards.

4. Completing a Mandala

If the Mandala now contains all 6 colors, considering cards and flower tiles, it is complete and will be destroyed.

Destroying a Mandala

Claiming Flower tiles

The player with the claim marker chooses and takes one of the flower tiles in the Mandala. The player who played the second-highest number of cards, including at least 1 face-up card, takes the other flower tile. Place your flower tiles face up in front of you, with the scoring side visible.

In case of a tie for second-highest number of cards, the tied player who played more face-up cards into the Mandala breaks the tie. If still tied, or if there is no other player with face-up cards in the Mandala, the player with the claim marker takes both flower tiles.

In a 2-player game, you only get a flower tile if you have at least half as many cards (including at least 1 face-up card) in the Mandala as the player with the claim marker. Otherwise, that player takes both flower tiles.

Important! You may not refuse to take a flower tile.

Creating Flowers

When you have two flower tiles of the same color in front of you, you must immediately place the two flower tiles together and turn them face down, to create a Flower.

Important! You may not refuse to create a Flower, and you may not split the flower tiles in a Flower later in the game.

Discarding or reclaiming cards

If you just took a flower tile, turn all your cards in the Mandala face up and place them in the discard pile.

Otherwise, return all the cards you played in the Mandala to your hand.

Important! In this way, you may have more than 8 cards in hand.

Beginning a new Mandala

Finally, draw a dark and a light flower tile to begin a new Mandala and place them together face up in the center of the Mandala that was just destroyed.

End of the Game

The game ends at the end of the turn in which at least one player creates their third Flower. The game also ends in the rare case that there are no flower tiles left when trying to begin a new Mandala.

Before scoring, destroy the other two Mandalas, one at a time and in a random order, according to the normal rules (see Destroying a Mandala). Then proceed with scoring.

Scoring

First, score your single flower tiles that are not part of a Flower:

• A single flower tile is worth its face value.
• A single "×3" flower tile is worth nothing.

Then turn your Flowers face up and score them one by one:

• If one of the flower tiles shows "×3", you score triple the value of the other flower tile.
• Otherwise, you score double the lower value and add it to the higher one.

Example: a single flower tile worth 4, plus a single "×3" tile (worth nothing, shown as 0), plus a Flower worth 5 + 6, plus a Flower worth 21 (a "×3" tile paired with a 7, i.e. ×3 × 7), plus a Flower worth 3 + 4, for a total of 43 points.

The player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, the tied player with the most hand cards remaining breaks the tie. If still tied, enjoy your shared victory!

Credits

Designers: Trevor Benjamin, Brett J. Gilbert

R&D: Nicolas Straccia, Grzegorz Kobiela

Illustrations: Klemens Franz

Graphic design: atelier198

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