Honey Wall
Honey Wall Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 1 block of gameboard sheets
- 6 custom dice
- 2 - 4 pencils / pens (grab your own; in the spirit of sustainability, players are encouraged to pick their favorite at-home pencils/pens)
Objective of the Game
In Honey Wall, your goal is to score as many points as possible by surrounding your bee larvae with honey. You'll do this by rolling dice, where rolling honey and/or larvae will let you add them to your board. However, if you roll a wasp, you can steal someone else's larvae instead, allowing you to earn even more points.
The bigger your groups of protected larvae are, the more points you'll score at the end of the game. But, they'll be juicier targets for your opponent's wasps - so watch out, and plan accordingly!
Setup
- Each player receives a gameboard sheet and takes a pen or pencil (note: choosing different colors is not necessary).
- Each player chooses one of four starting spaces (players can pick the same space) and fills it in completely; this is their first honey.
- Then, each player decides what symbol should represent their wasps. Draw this symbol in the lower left corner of the sheet in the space provided, so you can remember which wasps were yours when scoring. You can come up with your own symbol! Make sure each player's wasp symbol is unique.
- Place the two white dice in the center of the table where everyone can reach them, and set the other colored dice aside for now - these will come into play later once they are unlocked.
- Choose a starting player, and the game can begin.
Game Overview
A player's turn consists of 4 phases:
- Phase 1: Rolling the dice
- Phase 2: Placing honey and/or larvae
- Phase 3: Wasp phase
- Phase 4: Flower phase
It's possible that not all phases are played during each turn, depending on the dice roll and available spaces on the game board. After Phase 4, the player left of the active player can begin their turn.
Phase 1: Rolling the Dice
At the beginning of a turn, the active player rolls the two white dice provided. Once a player has unlocked at least one additional colored die on their scoreboard, they must roll three dice from that point on.
Once you have unlocked multiple dice on your scoreboard (see Flower phase), you may choose which of the unlocked dice and/or white dice you want to roll, as long as you roll a total of three dice.
After selecting the dice for that turn, the player rolls them. Then, the player may choose to reroll one or more dice, but this is not mandatory (rerolling can only be done once per turn). After a potential reroll, you can move on to the next phase.
Dice icons: Honey, Larvae, Wasp.
Phase 2: Placing Honey and/or Larvae
If the player has rolled any honey and/or larvae, these must be resolved first. All rolled honey and/or larvae must be placed, if possible (note that towards the end of the game, there may not be spaces available). To do this, the player will completely fill in a space for honey, and draws the outline of a space for a larva.
Placement Rules
- Honey must always be placed adjacent to a larva. If there is no free space next to a larva, or if there are no larvae on the game board, then honey cannot be placed.
- Larva: When placing a larva, it must always be drawn either next to another larva or next to honey. Note: this placement would not count as a surrounded larva at the end of the game.
Phase 3: Wasp Phase
In this phase, wasps can steal larvae from other players' gameboards. If a larva is not yet fully surrounded by honey, it can be stolen by a wasp. When a player rolls a wasp, they may steal one larva from another player of their choice. To do this, the player draws their wasp icon in one of the opponent's unprotected larvae.
If a player rolls multiple wasps in one turn, they may steal multiple available larvae from the same or different opponents. The stolen larvae are worth the same number of points per larva as the unstolen larvae in the same larva group (see scoring example).
Example - Hendrik rolls two white dice and gets two wasp icons. Hendrik chose a spiral as his wasp icon, so Hendrik draws two spirals on his choice of Erik's available larvae.
Phase 4: Flower Phase
When a player places honey or a larva on a flower during Phase 2, they may choose a bonus on the tree. Starting from the beehive, the player crosses off a flower and unlocks bonuses. The flowers must be crossed off either adjacent to one another or adjacent to the beehive.
When crossing a blue flower, the player may immediately draw a larva. When crossing an orange flower, the player may immediately draw honey.
Board notes: the flowers on the tree are worth points as bonuses; keep track of unlocked dice here; keep track of surrounded areas here.
When a die is crossed off, the player may use that colored die for rolling, starting from their next turn! Each unlocked colored die provides a different advantage: the green die is an enhanced copy of white, the blue die provides more larvae, the orange die provides more honey, and the yellow die provides more wasps.
Example - the orange die has multiple honey faces, and one with three!
Any crossed-off points at the ends of the tree branches will be added to the final score at the end of the game.
End of the Game
The game ends immediately the moment when:
- A player has surrounded two areas of seven or more larvae (each) with honey, or ...
- A player has surrounded five areas with fewer than seven larvae (each) with honey.
The moment this space is filled with honey, the game is over!
At the bottom of each player's board are checkboxes to track how many areas they've surrounded. When a player encloses an area with larvae on the game board, they count the number of larvae in that area and cross off the corresponding box.
Once a player has crossed off all the boxes for one of the two end conditions, they also receive the indicated bonus points: so for five areas with fewer than seven larvae: they receive 6 bonus points. For two areas with seven larvae: they receive 2 bonus points.
Scoring
All fully surrounded larvae groups score points, both on your own board and for stolen larvae which exist on opponents' boards. The value of a larva depends on the size of the group it is in - 7 larvae earn the most points, but from then on larvae decrease in value. All surrounded larvae count toward the total size of the larva group - for example, if there is a group of 3 larvae, of which 1 has been stolen, then each larva is worth 6 points. The owner of the group scores 12 points, and the owner of the wasp scores 6 points.
| Number of Larvae | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Points per Larva | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 6 | 3 | 1 |
Scoring example: This surrounded group contains 8 larvae. Out of these 8, 4 larvae have been stolen by other players - two by spirals, and two by crosses. Because there's 8 larvae in this group, each larva is worth 6 points. The owner of the gameboard sheet receives 24 points (4 x 6), whereas the players who stole larvae each receive 12 points (2 x 6).
Remember that in addition to the points for the larvae, players should add any bonus points earned from their tree. The player with the most points wins the game! (In case of a tie, the player who has stolen the most larvae from opponents wins. If there is still a tie, those players share the victory).