Ice Cream Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Objective
• Preparation
• Play of a Day
  • Phase 1: Ice Cream Deliveries
  • Phase 2: Make Ice Cream Cones
  • Phase 3: Serve Customers
    • Case A — When there is an ice cream cone that you can serve exactly.
    • Case B — When there are no ice cream cones that you can serve exactly.
    • Ending Phase 3
  • Phase 4: Score
• End of the Game

Components

• 1 Deck of 30 Ice Cream cards (showing a gallon of ice cream)
• 1 Deck of 30 Scoop cards (showing a single scoop of ice cream)
• Punch out scoring markers
• 12 Cone cards (showing an empty ice cream cone)

The Ice Cream and Scoop cards show the following flavors: Strawberry, Black Raspberry, Chocolate Chip, Chocolate, Pistachio, and Vanilla.

Objective

The player who serves the most ice cream over the course of four days wins.

Preparation

The first time you play you will need to punch out the scoring markers. These are kept to the side and are distributed to the players at the end of each turn. Alternately, you can use pen and paper to keep score.

Separate the cards into three decks: the Cones, the Scoops, and the gallons of Ice Cream.

If you are playing with 3 or 4 players, remove six cards at random from the Scoop Deck. With 5 players, remove five cards.

Place the 12 Cone cards in a face-up pile near the center of the table. These will be drawn as needed.

Shuffle the Ice Cream Deck and place it face-down on the table. Deal a single Ice Cream card, face-up, to each player.

The youngest player will go first and act as the dealer for the first day.

Play of a Day

The game is played over a period of four days. Each day consists of four phases:

1. Ice Cream Deliveries
2. Make Ice Cream Cones
3. Serve Customers
4. Score

Phase 1: Ice Cream Deliveries

In this phase, one Ice Cream card is dealt face down to each player. Players may examine these cards immediately. Beginning with the dealer and continuing clockwise, each player has the choice of keeping this card or discarding it and drawing a replacement. Finally, all discarded Ice Cream cards are shuffled back into the Deck.

Example: Joe is the dealer, and has a strawberry Ice Cream card face up in front of him. He then deals himself another strawberry Ice Cream card. After he has dealt an Ice Cream card to each player, he chooses to discard the strawberry Ice Cream card he was dealt, and deals himself a replacement. He must keep this replacement, even if it is another strawberry Ice Cream card.

Ice Cream cards received during this phase are not revealed to other players until phase 3, below.

Phase 2: Make Ice Cream Cones

The dealer for the day turns over the first Scoop card and places it on top of a Cone card, forming the first ice cream cone. The next player clockwise then turns over the next Scoop card, and either adds this scoop of ice cream to the first cone or draws a new Cone card and creates a second ice cream cone. Play then continues clockwise, each player adding to a cone or creating a new cone, until all Scoops have been placed onto a cone.

Note: No cone may have more than four scoops of ice cream since larger cones would tip over or melt before they could be eaten. Once the twelfth cone is started no new cones can be created and additional scoops must be placed on existing cones.

Example: David is placing the third Scoop card; so far one Cone card has a pistachio scoop, and one Cone card has a chocolate chip scoop. David draws a chocolate Scoop card; since David has a pistachio Ice Cream card face up in front of him and a chocolate Ice Cream card face down, he chooses to place the chocolate Scoop card on the same Cone card with the pistachio Scoop card.

Example: Later in the round, Dan draws a strawberry Scoop card. With both a strawberry Ice Cream card and a chocolate chip Ice Cream card face up in front of him, he would like to add this scoop to a Cone card which already has two strawberry scoops and two chocolate chip scoops. However, the limit is four scoops per cone, so Dan must add this scoop to some other Cone card.

Phase 3: Serve Customers

First, all players reveal the Ice Cream card they received in phase 1. These are placed next to any face up Ice Cream cards the players hold. Then beginning with the dealer and proceeding clockwise, each player has the opportunity to serve customers. Each ice cream cone represents the order of a customer.

Depending on which flavors of ice cream you have (i.e. which Ice Cream cards) you may or may not be able to serve a particular customer. Each gallon of ice cream can serve as many scoops each day as needed; it is not required to have a separate Ice Cream card for each scoop of a particular flavor. If you possess the same flavors as the scoops in any one cone you have a perfect match—see Case A, below. If you do not have a perfect match, see Case B, below.

Case A — When there is an ice cream cone that you can serve exactly.

If there is at least one customer's cone that you can serve exactly (a perfect match), then you are required to serve a cone. When selecting which cone to serve, you may choose any cone for which you have the right variety of ice cream (all scoop flavors).

To serve a customer, take the cone and place each Scoop card face down on the matching Ice Cream card. If you have multiple Ice Cream cards of the same type, place all Scoops of that ice cream during the current day on the same Ice Cream card.

Example: Dan has one strawberry, one chocolate chip, and two chocolate Ice Cream cards available. On his turn, there are three cones remaining. The first has two strawberry scoops, and one chocolate chip scoop. The second has just one chocolate scoop. The third has one pistachio scoop, one chocolate scoop, and two strawberry scoops. Because there are customers that Dan can serve exactly (the customer with two strawberry scoops and one chocolate chip scoop and the customer with just one chocolate Scoop), Dan must serve one of those customers. He can not serve the third customer, because he is missing the matching Ice Cream card for one scoop — the pistachio scoop. He could serve the customer with just one chocolate scoop if he wishes to. However, Dan instead chooses first customer, placing the two strawberry scoops on his strawberry Ice Cream and the chocolate chip scoop on his chocolate chip Ice Cream.

(The rulebook illustrates Case A with a flowchart of cone examples marked "Yes" and "No" for whether each cone can be served exactly.)

Case B — When there are no ice cream cones that you can serve exactly.

If there are no ice cream cones that you can serve exactly, then you must either serve one that is close (all but one scoop is correct) or acquire an additional Ice Cream card. If you choose to serve a customer where you can provide all but one scoop, the scoop which is not matched is returned to the Scoop Deck and will not score.

To acquire an additional Ice Cream card, take the top Ice Cream card from the deck and place it face up in front of you.

Example: Taking the turn immediately following Dan from the previous example, Joe has a strawberry Ice Cream card and a chocolate chip Ice Cream card. There are two customers remaining — one with a single chocolate Scoop, plus one with one pistachio scoop, one chocolate scoop, and two strawberry scoops. Joe could choose to serve the customer with the single chocolate scoop, discarding the Scoop card. However, Joe instead chooses to draw an Ice Cream card, and draws a pistachio Ice Cream card. If the customer with one pistachio scoop, one chocolate scoop, and two strawberry scoops is not served before Joe's next turn, Joe will be able to serve that customer, placing the pistachio scoop on his pistachio Ice Cream, the two strawberry scoops on his strawberry Ice Cream, and discarding the chocolate scoop.

Ending Phase 3

Phase 3 ends immediately when one of two events occurs:

• The last ice cream cone is served, or
• A player has no action to take. This is possible only when the Ice Cream Deck is exhausted and the current player cannot serve any remaining customer — meaning that there are at least two Scoops in every remaining cone that the current player cannot serve.

Phase 4: Score

Each player should start by discarding any opened ice cream (Ice Cream cards with one or more Scoop cards on them).

Then each player should count the number of scoops served during the round. Each scoop is worth one point. The scoops are then returned to the Scoop Deck for the next day.

Next, each player must discard any duplicate Ice Cream cards, receiving one point for each Ice Cream card discarded.

Each player then receives the appropriate number of scoring markers and adds them to any already possessed.

Example: Dan has 6 scoops and three unopened chocolate Ice Cream cards while Larry has 4 scoops and two unopened vanilla Ice Cream cards. Dan scores 6 points for his scoops and discards two chocolate Ice Cream cards, scoring two more points for a total of 8. Larry scores 4 points for his scoops and one additional point for discarding one vanilla Ice Cream card (a total score of 5).

Remaining Ice Cream cards stay on the table in front of the owning player to use in future days. The other Ice Cream cards are shuffled and the 12 Cone cards are restacked in preparation for the next day.

Finally, the dealer for the next day is determined. If there is a single player with the lowest score, this player will be the dealer for the next day. If there are multiple players tied for the lowest score, the dealer for the next day is the next player clockwise from the last player to take an action in phase 3, among those tied for the lowest score.

End of the Game

The game ends immediately at the end of the fourth day. The player who scored the most points wins. In case of a tie, the player with the most unopened ice cream remaining wins.