Forestaurant

Forestaurant Rulebook

Table of Contents

Setting the Table

Place the two half of the playing board next to each other on the table.
Shuffle the animal cards and form a facedown deck on the table (leave some room for the discarded cards too).
Shuffle the menu cards and form a faceup deck on the table (leave some room for the discarded cards too).
Shuffle each type of ingredients separately and form a facedown tower from each on the table.
Place the 10 bell tokens next to the board.
Place 10 cloud tokens on the mushrooms as shown.
Place the remaining two cloud tokens on two stars in the corner of the board.
Draw an early bird guest card from the animal deck and place it on the middle table.
Deal as many animal cards to each player as the chart shows for the number of players (Starting hand).

Number of players	1	2	3	4	5
Starting hand size	9	7	6	6	6
Minimal hand size	7	5	4	3	3
Ingredient storage limit	8	6	5	5	5

Game Components

2 game board parts
30 menu cards
96 animal cards
12 cloud tokens
40 ingredient tokens
10 bell tokens

Rules Overview

The rules overview on the sheet is a set of diagrams showing how a table moves through its states: an empty table, a guest at the table, a guest with a bell, a guest with a faceup menu card, and a guest eating (with a facedown menu card). The events and actions for each state are described in the sections below.

Gameplay

For setting up the game, follow the instructions on the 'Setting the table' page. The player who has most recently fed an animal will play first, others will follow in clockwise order.

The active player first draws an animal card and keeps it. The value of the drawn card marks a row in the restaurant where events will happen.

A player's turn is:

The active player first draws a card from the animal deck.
The value of the card marks the three tables where events take place.
Player performs actions until his number of cards reaches the minimal hand size.
Player discards ingredients exceeding the ingredient storage limit.
Player draws as many animal cards as the highest visible number on mushrooms.

1. Events

The player performs the appropriate events on all three tables of the marked row in any order. Events are mandatory and the type of event depends on the state of the table:

If a table is empty – guests sit down

The player must seat guests at the table from his own cards. The number of guests seated (card value) cannot be greater than the number of chairs around the table.
If there are more than one empty tables in the row, seating can be performed in any order.
The remaining cards of the player may never be less than the minimal hand size (see 'Setting the table' page). If a table cannot hold any of the player's cards, or the player does not have enough cards, the seating can be skipped for that table.
When seating new guests, look out for their neighbors! (see Free seating)

The guests have decided what to eat so they are calling a waiter to take their order. Place a bell token on the animal card.

If guests have a bell – they are waiting for a waiter to take their order

Guests are losing their patience because nobody has taken their order yet. Place 1 cloud token from the mushrooms on the animal card (see Mushrooms).
If this would be the third cloud on the card, the cloud token is placed on one of the stars instead, decreasing the reputation of the restaurant (see Reputation).

Guests are losing their patience because nobody has served their meal yet. Place 1 cloud token from the mushrooms on the animal card (see Mushrooms).
If this would be the third cloud on the card, the cloud token is placed on one of the stars instead, decreasing the reputation of the restaurant (see Reputation).

The guests have just finished their meal and now they are leaving. Discard the menu card facedown onto the discard pile.
The guests will leave feedback on Forestsquare depending on their satisfaction.
If there is no cloud token on the animal card, leaving guests are satisfied and may increase the reputation of the restaurant (see Reputation). Slide the card halfway under the edge of the board so its value is still visible. This is where you collect satisfied guests.
If there is 1 cloud token on the card, the guests are only semi-satisfied. Place the cloud on a star (see Reputation) but also slide this card under the board as satisfied guests.
If there are 2 cloud tokens on the guests, their card is discarded. Place one of the clouds on a star and the other one back on the mushrooms (see Mushrooms).

After the events are done at each of the three tables, the player can perform his actions.

Reputation (stars)

The reputation of your restaurant is represented by five stars in the corner of the playing board. The number of stars lost or earned will change throughout the game by covering them with cloud tokens or revealing them. When satisfied guests leave, count the card values collected from that species. Whenever you reach a sum of 5, 10, 15, etc. from a species, place 1 cloud from a star back on the mushrooms (see Mushrooms).

Example: 3 bears were collected in the past and now two more tables of guests leave satisfied. One with 2, the other with 5 bears. This way players reach both 5 and 10 satisfied bears, thus you get back 2 stars.

If a leaving guest has 1 cloud then it is semi-satisfied. When its cloud would go on a star but the next 5-level is reached at the same time, these effects eliminate each other and the cloud goes directly back on the mushrooms.

Mushrooms

When you remove clouds from the mushrooms, go from yellow to red. When placing back cloud tokens, it is the other way around.

The highest visible number on the mushrooms shows the number of cards a player has to draw at the end of his turn, after completing actions.

2. Player Actions

The player performs actions until the number of his cards decreases exactly to the minimal hand size. This depends on the number of players (see 'Setting the table' page). Events can also reduce the number of cards, so it is possible that the player cannot perform any actions in his turn.

The player can choose from 4 kinds of actions: free seating, taking an order, purchasing ingredients, and cooking.

The player can perform actions at any appropriate table in any order and any number of times. For every action, one of his animal cards must be discarded.

Free seating at an empty table

The player can place a card on any empty table to seat new guests. The number of chairs around the table must be at least as many as the value of the card.

The predator-prey relationship must be checked for each neighbor of the newly seated guests. Place 1 cloud token on the neighbor if they are in predator-prey relationship. On the other hand, if the neighbor is from the same species as the newly seated guests, remove 1 cloud from the neighbor (see Predator-prey relationship). Only the 4 adjacent neighbors matter, guests in diagonal positions do not.

Taking an order from guests with a bell

If a guest card has a bell token on it, the player can take the order as an action. To do this, discard an animal card and draw menu cards from the faceup deck until the first matching card is found. A matching card shows the same species as the animal card at the table. Place the menu card faceup on the guest. The player then discards the rest of the menu cards he drew (face down onto the discard pile). If the menu deck runs out during the action, shuffle the discard pile to form a new deck and continue drawing.

When taking an order, the value of the player's card does not matter. But if the animal on it is in predator-prey relationship with the guest, place 1 cloud token on the guest. If the discarded card is the same species as the guest, remove 1 cloud and place it back on the mushrooms (see Predator-prey relationship).

Purchasing ingredients

The player discards an animal card and draws as many ingredients as the card value. For blue and green cards, draw from the vegetables. For red and yellow cards, draw from meats. If a pile runs out before you can draw enough ingredients, shuffle the discarded ingredients of that type to create a new pile and continue drawing.

The player can temporarily store any number of ingredients during his turn. After the player has finished all his actions, he must discard down to the ingredients storage limit (see 'Setting the table' page).

Cooking alone: if the player has both ingredients, he can cook the meal on his own. For cooking, discard the two required ingredients and an animal card with a value equal to or greater than the value of the guest card. If there is a predator-prey relationship between the two cards, place 1 cloud token on the guest. If the animal of the discarded card and the guest are the same, remove 1 cloud from the guest and place it back on the mushrooms (see Predator-prey relationship).

If one animal card's value is not enough or the player wants to use more cards, he can discard more to cook the meal. The sum of the card values must be equal to or greater than the value of the guest. The player's number of cards cannot decrease below the minimal hand size (see 'Setting the table' page).
Cooking together: if the player cannot or does not want to cook the meal alone, he can ask the others for help. The active player must discard at least one card during cooking. Other players can also discard ingredients and/or animal cards. If a helping player discards ingredients for cooking, he must discard at least that many animal cards too. The helping players cannot discard below the minimal hand size either (see 'Setting the table' page).

One from both required ingredients must be discarded during cooking. The sum of the values on the discarded animal cards must be equal to or greater than the value of the guest card. The predator-prey relationship with the guest must be checked for each discarded animal card.

At the end of cooking, remove the bell token from the guest and turn the menu card facedown.

Predator-Prey Relationship

When you are running a restaurant for animals, it is important to keep in mind that predators and their prey do not appreciate each other's company. When certain animals meet, you need to check if there is a predator-prey relationship between them.

The 8 species are classified into 4 classes distinguished by the background color of their cards. Green are small games, Blue are big games, Yellow are small predators, and Red are large predators. The predator-prey relationships are shown on the picture below.

The picture on the sheet is a diagram of species pairs with a red lightning symbol marking predator-prey relationships; it is not reproduced here.

Small games are prey for both small and large predators, while big games are only prey for the large predators.

Predator-prey interactions add 1 cloud token. Same-species interactions discard 1 cloud token.

Interactions can make the guests nervous or calm them down. If you interact with guests using its predator/prey (to take their order, cook for them, or seat someone next to them), you must place 1 cloud token on them from the mushrooms. If the animal of the card and the guest are the same species, remove a cloud from the guest (if there are any) and place it back on the mushrooms.

When using multiple cards for cooking, check the predator-prey relationship for each. Their effects can add up or eliminate each other. Only add or remove the final result of all the effects.

3. End of Player's Turn

After completing his actions, the player must choose and discard the ingredients he cannot store. The number of ingredients that can be stored depends on the number of players (see 'Setting the table' page). The remaining ingredients can contain both meats and vegetables in any combination.

Finally, the player draws as many animal cards as the highest number visible on the mushrooms. Then the next player on his left can start his turn.

End of the Game

Defeat

There are 3 ways you can fail and your restaurant must be closed immediately.

The restaurant descends into chaos if players have brought all clouds into play (no more left on the mushrooms) and even more would be needed.
The restaurant goes bankrupt if all the stars are already covered but players would have to cover more.
The players can also lose the game if they run out of time. If the animal deck runs out, shuffle the discard pile and create a new deck from 20 cards (discard the remaining for the rest of the game). If the new deck runs out too and you should draw more cards, you lose the game.

Victory

Players instantly win the game if any of the following two conditions occur.

5 satisfied guests are collected from each of the 8 species. The 5 guests are counted from the sum of the card values, not the number of cards.
At any time during the game, all the 12 clouds are on the mushrooms.

Game Variations

If running the restaurant seems too easy or too difficult, you can change some starting or victory conditions to tune the difficulty level.

Easier game

Cover only 1 star with a cloud at the beginning of the game, and place the remaining cloud tokens on the mushrooms.
When starting a new game, players can decide how many satisfied animals are needed for victory from each species. Choose 4 or 3 instead of 5 for an easier gameplay.
Players may ignore placing a cloud token on guests who are already eating their meal.
When playing with 5 players, it is recommended to use some of these modifications!

More difficult game

You can get a very challenging game if you cover 3 stars with clouds at the start.
Another challenge can be to collect 6 or 7 satisfied guests from each species instead of 5.
Of course you can try any combinations from these modifications.