Frenzy Falls Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Card Anatomy
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • Playing Cards
  • Revealing Cards
    • Reveal & Resolve Cards
    • Resolving Actions: PROXY
    • Resolving Actions: BUMP
    • Resolving Actions: PULL
    • Spillovers
    • Proceed to the Next Pool
• Round End
• Game End

Components

90 Waterfall cards (6 decks of 15 cards). Each deck is a different Waterfall type, shown by its card back:

• Mountain Falls (Rocks)
• Glacier Falls (Ice Wall)
• Desert Falls (Cactus)
• Forest Falls (Tree)
• Coastal Falls (Palm Tree)
• Tropical Falls (Hibiscus Flower)

32 Score cards.

1 First Player card.

Card Anatomy

• Water Value: the number on a Waterfall card.
• Influence Icons: the icons on a Waterfall card, counted to determine who has the most influence in a Pool.
• Card Action: some Waterfall cards show an action (PROXY, BUMP or PULL). See Resolving Actions.
• End Game Points: shown on a Score card; the points the card is worth at the end of the game.
• Water Value (Score card): the number on a Score card, counted toward the Pool's water total.

Setup

1. Shuffle the deck of Score cards and create a draw deck with the number of cards corresponding to your player count, according to the chart below. Return any unused Score cards to the box.
   • 2 players - 10 cards
   • 3 players - 12 cards
   • 4 players - 14 cards
   • 5 players - 16 cards
   • 6 players - 20 cards
2. Reveal 1 Score card per player (exception: 3 Score cards for 2 players) and arrange them vertically, leaving space to the right for at least 8 cards. Each Score card and the Waterfall cards played to its right are a "Pool."
3. Separate the decks of Waterfall cards by their card backs. Each player takes a deck of 15 cards with the same back. Shuffle your deck and place it in front of you, with space beside it for your discard pile. Then draw 5 cards into your hand.
4. Give the First Player card to the player who went swimming last.

The printed rulebook includes an example of a 4-player game setup, shown as a diagram with no additional text.

Gameplay

Frenzy Falls is played in a series of rounds, until the end game is triggered. Each round consists of two phases: PLAYING CARDS and REVEALING CARDS.

Playing Cards

Starting with the first player and moving clockwise, each player plays one Waterfall card from their hand face-down to the end of any Pool (a Pool is a Score card and all the Waterfall cards to its right). Repeat until all players have played 2 cards. In a 2-player game, this is repeated once more for a total of 3 Waterfall cards played per player.

Example: On her turn, Valley (Forest Falls) chooses to play the '2' card from her hand, so she adds it to the Pool shown face-down.

Strategy Tip: Score cards have different water values and varying point values. When you choose a Waterfall card to play, and where to play it, consider how many points a Score card is worth, and how likely it is to spill over based on the Score card's water value. Also, consider the other face-up and face-down Waterfall cards already in the Pool, all of which will contribute to the Pool spilling over and determining who has the most influence.

Revealing Cards

This phase consists of 3 steps:

1. Reveal & Resolve Cards
2. Spillovers (if the water value meets or exceeds 10)
3. Proceed to the Next Pool

Reveal & Resolve Cards

Once all players have played 2 face-down Waterfall cards (or 3 in a 2-player game), those cards are revealed one at a time starting with the top-most Pool and going from left to right. If the revealed card has an action, resolve the action immediately. The player who played a card with an action must resolve the action, and chooses how to do so.

Once they have been resolved, cards remain face-up and their action may be ignored moving forward. The three actions are PROXY, BUMP, and PULL.

Resolving Actions: PROXY

Discard this card from the Pool and replace it with any Waterfall card from your hand, face-up. If the card you replace it with has an action, resolve that action immediately.

Example 1: Joey (Tropical Falls) has played a card with a PROXY action. When it is revealed, she replaces it with a "1" card from her hand and discards the PROXY card.

Example 2: Joey (Tropical Falls) has played a card with a PROXY action. When it is revealed, she replaces it with a BUMP card from her hand and discards the PROXY card. Then, she carries out the BUMP action from her new card by bumping the card to the right down into Pool 2.

Strategy Tip: When resolving the Pool, any face-down cards to the left of your PROXY card will be revealed before you resolve the PROXY action. Now, with new information, you can choose the perfect card to swap into the Pool to take control.

Resolving Actions: BUMP

Choose the Waterfall card to the left or right of this card and move it to the end of the Pool below. If this card is in the bottom Pool, then move it to the top-most Pool. If there is no Waterfall card to the left or right, nothing happens.

Example: Joey (Tropical Falls) has played a card with a BUMP action. When it is revealed, she can choose to bump either card to the left or right of this card into Pool 2. She chooses to bump Rick's card (Mountain Falls #3). It is sent to the end of the line of Pool 2, and her card and the other remaining cards in Pool 1 slide to the left.

Resolving Actions: PULL

Choose any one Waterfall card in another Pool and move it to the end of the Pool where this PULL card is. If there are no cards in any other Pool, nothing happens.

Example: Joey (Tropical Falls) has played a card with a PULL action. When it is revealed, she chooses to pull another of her cards from Pool 2 into the last space of the current Pool. Joey could have pulled a card from any Pool into the current Pool.

Spillovers

Once all the Waterfall cards in the current Pool have been revealed and resolved, and before revealing cards for the following Pool, check to see if the Pool has spilled over.

A spillover occurs when the sum of the water value on all cards in the Pool (including the Score card) is greater than or equal to 10. If the sum is less than 10, the Waterfall cards remain there, and you can continue by revealing cards in the next Pool.

Players must reveal all Waterfall cards in a Pool, even if the water value meets or exceeds 10 before all cards are revealed.

In the event of a spillover, carry out the following 4 steps:

1. Determine the winner. Add the total number of Influence icons on all the cards for each player. The player with the most Influence icons wins the Score card. They take the card and place it in a face-down stack in front of them. The won Score card is immediately replaced with the top card from the deck.
   • In the case of a tie, the tied player who played to that Pool earliest (left-most card) wins the Score card.
2. Discard the winner's cards. The winning player discards all the cards they played to that Pool to a personal discard deck beside their draw deck.
3. Bump the other cards. Starting with the player who played earliest (left-most) to the Pool, each non-scoring player chooses one of the cards they played to that Pool and moves it to the end of the Pool below. If there is no Pool below, the card "loops around" and moves to the top-most Pool instead.
4. Discard the remainder. Any remaining cards in the Pool that just spilled over are discarded to its player's discard pile.

Example: The sum of water values in this Pool is 16, so it spills over. Because Priscilla (Desert Falls) has the most Influence (5) in this Pool, she wins the Score card.

Example (continued): To resolve this spillover, Priscilla (Desert Falls) takes the Score card and adds it face-down to her play area. Her card is discarded from the Pool. Rick (Mountain Falls) and Valley (Forest Falls) must choose a card to move to the next Pool. Rick has two cards to choose from, so he selects the leftmost card and discards his '4' to his discard pile. Valley only has one card in the Pool, so that card is moved down into Pool 2. Both of these cards remain face-up.

Proceed to the Next Pool

After all cards in a Pool have been revealed and spillovers have been resolved, proceed to the next Pool and repeat the process of revealing cards, resolving actions, and spilling over.

After resolving the bottom-most Pool, return to the top-most Pool again if necessary, until there are no face-down cards remaining and the combined value of cards in each Pool is less than 10.

Due to cascading cards and actions, cards might loop back to the top and trigger resolving lines again, perhaps even multiple times.

Example:

1. Pool 1 starts out with a Score card only.
2. The BUMP card is revealed in Pool 2 and Joey (Tropical Falls) chooses to bump the '2' card down into Pool 3.
3. The water value in Pool 3 is now 10 (4+1+3+2) causing it to spill over. Joey (Tropical Falls) has the most influence (4) in Pool 3 and takes the Score card. She discards her '1' card.
4. Both '3' and '2' cards slide down into Pool 4 (bottom pool).
5. The water value in Pool 4 is raised to 14 (3+2+4+3+2) causing it to spill over. Priscilla (Desert Falls) has the most influence (6) in Pool 4. She takes the Score card and discards her '2' cards.
6. All other cards ('4' and '3') in this Pool loop up into Pool 1. The cascading stops in Pool 1 with a water value of 7 (0+4+3).

Round End

The round ends after all Pools have been resolved.

Players may reset their hands by discarding any leftover cards, then drawing cards until they have 5 cards in their hand. Discarding cards before drawing back to 5 is optional, but each player should always start a round with exactly 5 cards in hand.

Strategy Tip: If the cards in your hand at the end of the round aren't cards you think you can win Pools with, discarding them and redrawing new cards is a good way to keep your options open.

If a player's deck runs out of cards, they shuffle their discard pile and place it face-down to form a new draw deck, then continue drawing up to 5.

Pass the first-player card to the next player to the left (clockwise), who begins the next round.

Game End

If a Pool's Score card cannot be replaced because there are no more Score cards, the game ends after the round is complete. When cascading cards from spillovers in this case, skip any Pools without Score cards.

Then, players reveal all the Score cards they accumulated and add up the points for their final score. The player with the most points wins the game.

In case of a tie, the tied player with more Score cards wins. If there is still a tie, the tied players share the victory.

Example: After adding up their scores, Priscilla (Desert Falls) and Valley (Forest Falls) are tied. Since Valley has more Score cards, she wins!