Koinobori
Koinobori Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 20 Personal Post Cards divided into cards of level 1, 2, 3 and 4
- 6 Starting Flag Cards for the Festival Posts
- 6 Scoring Cards
- 81 Koinobori Cards
- 5 Scoring Markers
- 5 Scoring Counters
Preparation
Each player takes a Personal Post Card of each level and places them in ascending order in their play area with level 1 at the bottom and level 4 at the top. This will be their Personal Post.
Take the Starting Flag Cards, shuffle them and draw a number equal to the number of players plus 1. Place them in the centre of the table. These will be the Festival Posts.
Take the Scoring Cards and place them to one side of the table, leaving the negative score visible.
Deal 2 Koinobori Cards to each player. This will be their starting hand. Shuffle the rest of the Koinobori deck and place them within reach of all of the players. Turn over 7 cards from this deck to form a draw row.
Leave the Scoring Counters and Markers in the box. You won't need them until the end of the game.
The player who is first to guess the direction of the wind is the starting player.
Game Overview
Players take their turn, carrying out one of two available actions, beginning with the starting player and continuing in a clockwise direction. The game ends when all of the Festival Posts have a height of 5 cards. At this point the player with the most points is the victor.
General Concepts
Cards for Personal Post
Each player has some basic abilities described on their Personal Post Cards. As the game develops, players will cover their Personal Post Cards from the bottom up and consequently expand their abilities. Your abilities are always those shown on the uncovered card closest to the bottom. The abilities are:
- Draw capacity: this number indicates the maximum number of cards that you can take from the draw row, provided that you do not exceed your hand limit.
- Number of Koinobori Cards that you can play this turn: This number indicates the maximum number of Koinobori Cards that you can play on your turn, either placing them on the Festival Posts or facedown on the lowest available Personal Post Card.
- Hand limit: This indicates the maximum number of cards that you can have in your hand.
Player Turn
On each player's turn they will carry out one of the following actions:
Take Koinobori Cards
Take up to the amount of Koinobori Cards indicated by your ability. The cards can only be taken from one of the two ends of the draw row. Discarding is not allowed so you must not exceed your hand limit.
E.g. Paula, who has the fourth level of her abilities unblocked, carries out the Take Koinobori Cards action. According to what is written on the abilities she can take up to 2 cards. Taking this into account, she chooses to take card 1 and then card 2. As she had 2 cards in her hand at the beginning of her turn, she does not exceed her hand limit and she adds them to her hand.
Once you have taken Koinobori Cards, if there are only 3 cards or less remaining in the draw row, move the remaining cards down, maintaining the same order and turn over the number of cards needed from the draw pile to complete the draw row of 7 cards.
Play Koinobori Cards
Players may play as many Koinobori Cards as permitted by their current abilities. The Koinobori can be placed either on the Festival Posts or the player's Personal Post.
Play Koinoboris on the festival posts
Place as many Koinobori Cards as indicated by your ability on one or more of the Festival Posts of your choice. The placement must always be on the space above the Starting Flag Card or another Koinobori Card.
When a Festival Post reaches its 5th Koinobori Card, it is complete and remains closed. This means that no more Koinobori Cards can be placed on this post.
The Starting Flag Card does not count as a Koinobori Card.
Some Koinobori Cards contain additional actions which are explained further on in Appendix I. Koinobori Abilities.
E.g. Paula, who has the 4th level of her abilities unblocked, carries out the Play Koinoboris on the Festival Posts action. She can play up to 2 cards. Firstly, she places a card on the first post and as a result that post is now closed as the 5th card has been placed. Secondly, she places another card above the Starting Flag Card of the third post.
Play Koinoboris on your personal post
Place a Koinobori Card on your Personal Post facedown, without any other player seeing it. The post is completed in ascending order, which means that you will have to place cards on the lower down spaces in order to place cards on the higher up spaces.
Each time that you place a card on your post you will be improving your abilities, which are shown on the lowest uncovered card. On your post you will only be able to place a total of three cards, as you cannot cover the last card. The Koinobori which appears on this card is decorative and has no effect in the game.
You can check the Koinobori Cards that are placed on your own Personal Post at any moment during the game but do not show them to the other players.
Game End
The game ends immediately when all of the Festival Posts are complete (5 cards in each one, without counting the Starting Flag Card). Proceed to game end scoring.
Game End Scoring
Give a Scoring Marker and Counter to each player and each player reveals their Personal Posts. Next, resolve the scoring of each Festival Post following the steps below:
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Determine which type of Koinobori scores (only one type): This will be the type which is most repeated in that post, provided that it is not drawn with any other type of Koinobori. In the case of a draw, score the Koinobori with the next most representation, and so on. If they are all drawn, the Koinobori which scores will be indicated on the flag at the base of the post.
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Determine the representation value of the Koinobori that scores: This will be the number of times that the Koinobori is repeated. In the case where the Starting Flag Koinobori is used because of a draw, the representation value will always be 1.
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Calculate your score for this post: Your score will be the representation of Koinobori that scores multiplied by the number of Koinoboris of the same type that you have on your Personal Post.
Once you have resolved the scoring for the first post, turn over the Scoring Card for the type of Koinobori that has been scored and continue scoring the same way for the second post.
It is possible that two different posts will score the same type of Koinobori. Score the post in the usual way but in this case do not turn over the Scoring Card again.
Once you have resolved the scoring for all of the posts, each player subtracts 3 victory points for each Koinobori on their Personal Post which has not been scored on the Festival Posts, according to the Scoring Cards that have not been turned over.
E.g. In the first post the winning Koinobori is dark green as it is the one with most representation on the post and it is not drawn with any other. Its representation value is 5.
In the second post, 2 Koinoboris are drawn with 3 (orange and black) and 2 Koinoboris are drawn with 2 (purple and green). Consequently, it is the Starting Flag Koinobori (purple) which scores, with a representation value of 1.
In the third post there is a draw between two colours with 3 Koinobori (pink and lime), which means that the scoring passes to the colour with next most representation (dark green), which in this case has a representation value of 2.
Paula gets 10 victory points from the first post by multiplying the winning Koinobori by the number of Koinoboris that she has on her Personal Post.
On the second post she gets 1 victory point, as she only has 1 Koinobori of the winning colour.
In the third post she gets 4 victory points.
Next she must subtract 3 victory points for each Koinobori indicated on the Scoring Cards that she has on her Personal Post, which means she subtracts 12 victory points.
Paula's final score is 3 victory points.
Appendix I. Koinobori Abilities
Some Koinobori Cards let you carry out an additional action when you place them on the Festival Posts. These abilities are optional and the player can choose not to carry them out.
These abilities cannot be carried out on a closed post, that is to say one that already has 5 Koinobori Cards.
- Card with a downward arrow landing on it: A card with this icon can be played on top of another Koinobori Card, as long as it is the highest card on the chosen post. The card that is covered will not be taken into account when calculating scoring.
- Cards with a curved arrow moving into an outlined empty slot: A card with this icon allows you to move a Koinobori Card which is the highest located on its Festival Pole to another pole, as long as there is an available space. Also move the card beneath it if it was covered by the previously described action.
- Hand placing a card: A card with this icon allows you to play an additional card on the Festival Posts.
- Card with two arrows entering it, one from above and one from below: A card with this icon allows you to take two new cards from the draw row, following the usual rules.
- Card with a single arrow entering it from above: A card with this icon allows you to take one new card from the draw row following the usual rules.
- Person with a plus sign: A card with this icon allows you to draw a card at random from the hand of another player.
- Card struck through by arrows: A card with this icon allows you to discard the entire draw row and replace it with 7 new cards. Then take a card following the usual rules.