Molly Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• The Burrows
• Game Objective
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • 1. Perform Special Actions (Optional)
  • 2. Play a Card (Mandatory)
  • 3. Check for Sets of Three Cards (Mandatory)
• Event Cards
• End of the Game
• Variant: Bobtail
• Effects of the Event Cards
• Frequently Overlooked Rules
• Game Flow (Summary)

Components

• 50 Mole cards (10 for each color)
• 15 Tardy Mole cards (3 for each color)
• 65 Mole cubes (13 for each color)
• 12 Project tokens
• 6 Event cards (2 for each color)
• 1 First Player card
• 1 Bobtail card
• 1 Comic card
• 4 plastic Mole Burrows
• 1 This rulebook

The Burrows

Follow these instructions to assemble and use the Burrows:

• Apply the first sticker as shown (A).
• Apply the second sticker as shown (B).
• During gameplay, place the Burrow so that the cubes are not visible to the other players.
• The cubes obtained during the game must be put inside the Burrow according to the sticker's color.

Nota: when storing the Burrows inside the box, put them as shown.

Game Objective

In Molly, you will form sets of three cards (horizontally, vertically or diagonally), in order to add new Moles to your Burrows, and you will use the Excavation Projects to perform special actions. But be careful! Collecting as many Moles as possible won't be enough. Managing everything you collect will be the real challenge. At the end of the game, you will score points by multiplying the cubes of your most numerous color by the ones of your least numerous color!

Setup

1. According to the number of players, take the number of Mole cards and Project tokens indicated below. Put the remaining Mole cards and Project tokens back into the box, as you won't need them during this game.

Players	Mole Cards	Project Tokens
2	40 (8 for each color)	6
3	45 (9 for each color)	9
4	all	all

2. Shuffle the deck you have just created, draw 9 cards and place them face-down, without looking at them, to form a 3x3 grid. Then draw 9 more cards and place them face-up upon them (so that every pile has one face-up card upon one face-down card).

3. Create the draw deck as follows:

   • Shuffle the 15 Tardy Mole cards and put them face-down on the table (a).
   • Remove the first 5 cards from the Mole card deck and put them temporarily aside, face-down.
   • Divide the rest of the deck into 3 smaller decks, roughly of the same size. They don't need to have the exact same number of cards.
   • Shuffle 1 random red Event card, face-down, without looking at it, into one of the small decks and put that deck (b) upon the Tardy Moles.
   • Shuffle 1 random orange Event card, face-down, without looking at it, into the second small deck and place that deck (c) upon the previous one.
   • Shuffle 1 random green Event card, face-down, without looking at it, into the third small deck (d) and put it upon the others.
   • Lastly, put the 5 cards you had put aside on top of this pile of cards (e). This is the draw deck.

4. Draw 2 cards and put them face-up near the deck, forming a display.

5. Each player receives a Project token. Place the remaining Project tokens in a supply and keep it within reach.

6. Each player receives a Mole Burrow and places it in front of them.

7. The player who most recently went underground receives the First Player card and the game begins.

The printed setup page shows an example of a 3-player game with the components numbered 1–7 and the draw deck labelled (a)–(e).

Gameplay

During the game, the players will take turns in clockwise order. At the beginning of each turn, if there are less than 2 cards in the display, draw cards from the deck until you have 2 again. Then the current player performs the following phases in order:

1. Perform special actions (optional)
2. Play a card (mandatory)
3. Check for sets of three cards (mandatory)

Attention: every time you draw an Event card, you must activate its effect immediately (see "Event cards" below).

1. Perform Special Actions (Optional)

Each player can spend as many Project tokens as they want, one at a time, in order to perform the same number of special actions. Then they put all the spent Project tokens back in the supply. Special actions can be performed in any order, and it is possible to perform the same special action more than once. The special actions are:

A. Take a card from the display: the player draws a card from the display, they discard it and add a cube of the same color to their Burrow; then they draw a new card, in order to bring the display back to 2 cards.

The Mole you know: this action can be useful both for increasing your score and refreshing the display!

Example: Alice spends her Project token to take a red Mole from the display. She discards the card, then takes a red cube and adds it to her Burrow. Lastly, she draws a new card to bring back the display to 2 cards.

B. Swap the position of 2 adjacent piles of cards: The player swaps the position of 2 piles of cards that are orthogonally adjacent. Swapping a pile of cards with an empty pile is forbidden.

The Mole you know: this action is useful to put two cards in a line, so that you can create a set of three during the second phase of the turn.

Example: Paola spends one Project token to swap the position of the pile with the yellow Mole on top with the one with the white Mole on top. In this way, she puts 2 yellow cards in a line, just like she wanted.

2. Play a Card (Mandatory)

When a player can't or won't perform any other special action, they take a card from the display or a face-down card from the top of the deck, and place it face-up in one of the 9 spaces of the grid. The card can be placed in an empty space (a space with no cards in it) or in an occupied space, provided that they don't cover a Mole card of the same color.

Project bonus: If during this phase the player places a card in an empty space (without cards in it), they receive a Project token. If the Project token supply is empty, they steal a token from another player. Tokens owned by each player must always be visible to everyone.

3. Check for Sets of Three Cards (Mandatory)

If the card that has just been played creates a set of three identical Mole cards (horizontally, vertically or diagonally), the player performs the 2 actions listed below. In the case in which the played card creates 2 sets of three cards, the player must choose only one set of three to act upon.

Attention: The set of three cards must contain the card that has just been played. In case there is already a set of three cards before the second phase, this isn't taken into account, unless the player moves one of the piles forming it first, and then creates it again by playing one of their cards.

1. The player chooses one of the 3 piles forming the set and takes all the cards in that pile. They show them to everyone and add cubes to their Burrow according to the amount and colors of the cards taken. Lastly, they discard the cards obtained.

   Attention: You are not allowed to examine nor count the cards inside the piles before taking them.

   Example: Alessandro places a blue card and forms a set of three cards. He picks one of the piles from the set and takes all the cards in that pile. He adds to his Burrow the cubes corresponding to all the cards from the pile (1 blue, 1 green, 1 white) and then discards the cards.

2. Flip the other 2 piles forming the set:

   • If this creates a new set of three Moles, repeat points 1 and 2;
   • If this creates a set of three Projects (the back of the cards, including the Tardy Mole ones), the player receives 3 Project tokens from the supply. If the supply is depleted, the player steals the tokens from one or more players of their choosing. Then they draw the first 3 cards from the deck and place them face-up as they like, covering the set of three Projects. If by doing this a set of three is formed, it is ignored.

   Example: Alessandro continues his turn and flips the other 2 piles that formed the set of three. By doing this, he creates a set of three Projects! He obtains 3 Project tokens: he takes the last token left in the supply and then steals 2 from Paola. Then he draws the first 3 cards from the deck and covers the set of three Projects.

The Burrow can contain up to 7 cubes for each color. If a player must add a cube, but the corresponding column is full, they must discard it.

Event Cards

An Event card can be revealed both at the beginning of the turn, when the player draws the cards to bring back the display to 2 cards, and after performing the special action A ("Take a card from the display", see above). When an Event card is revealed, you must activate its effect immediately, starting from the player who revealed it, then discard it and draw a new card. At the end of this rulebook you can find a list of the effects of all the Event cards.

Attention: If you find a new Event while drawing cards as a consequence of the activation of an Event, fully resolve the ongoing Event and then activate the new one.

End of the Game

When the first Tardy Mole card appears on top of the draw deck, the last round begins: this can happen both at the beginning of the turn or after the special action A has been performed. The game continues until the player to the right of the player with the First Player card finishes their turn, so that everyone gets to play the same number of turns.

Then each player checks the cubes inside their Burrow, in order to calculate their end game score. They multiply the number of cubes of the most numerous color by the number of cubes of the least numerous color. Then they add 1 point for each Project token they own.

The Mole you know: although Project tokens are worth 1 point at the end of the game, they are normally more useful when used to perform special actions at the right moment!

Attention:

• In case of colors with 0 cubes, they are not taken into account.
• In the rare case in which all colors have the same number of cubes, that number will be both the highest and the lowest.

The player with the highest score is the winner! In case of a tie, the player with the least Project tokens wins. If there still is a tie, the victory is shared.

Example 1: Alessandro ends the game with 1 Project token, 5 yellow cubes, 7 red cubes, 3 white cubes, 4 green cubes and 3 blue cubes. He multiplies the amount of cubes of the most numerous color (red) by the amount of cubes of the least numerous one (blue or white) and he adds his Project token, obtaining a score of 22 points (7x3 +1).

Example 2: Alessandro ends the game with no Project tokens, but with 6 yellow cubes, 6 red cubes, 3 white cubes, 4 green cubes and 0 blue cubes. He multiplies the amount of cubes of the most numerous color (in this case red or yellow), by the amount of cubes of the least numerous color, white. He ignores blue, since he doesn't have any, and he scores 18 points (6x3). If he had managed to catch the fourth white Mole, he would have scored as many as 24 points! (6x4).

Variant: Bobtail

A large dog has arrived in the vegetable garden! The poor creature does its best to catch the moles, but without success. Those clever creatures slide through the underground tunnels and slip away from it at the very last moment, reappearing right behind its back!

Follow the Setup rules as usual (see Setup), except for the beginning of point 2, where you must put the Bobtail card at the center of the 3x3 grid, without putting any card under it (so that there will only be 8 piles of cards around the Bobtail). You cannot place cards over the Bobtail during the game.

The special action B (see Perform Special Actions) changes into this:

B. Go Mole hunting: by paying one Project token, you can move the Bobtail one space orthogonally or diagonally (it's trying to catch a Mole!). Remove the pile in the position where the Bobtail arrives and place it in any other empty space (without any card in it) of your choice, even if not adjacent to the one it was removed from. There will always be at least one empty space, the one left by the Bobtail.

Effects of the Event Cards

The Event card colors are shown by the color of each icon. Each color has two Event cards.

• Green Event card (Project token): All players receive a Project token.
• Green Event card (cube draw): All players draw a card from the deck, adding the corresponding cube to their Burrow. Then they discard the card.
• Orange Event card (fill empty): Fill all the empty spaces with face-up Mole cards drawn from the draw deck.
• Orange Event card (fill backs): Fill all the spaces in which the back of a card is visible with a face-up Mole card drawn from the draw deck.
• Red Event card (pass cube): All players simultaneously pass a cube to the player to their right.
• Red Event card (discard cube): All players discard a cube of their choice.

Frequently Overlooked Rules

• If you don't like the cards in the display, you can choose to play the topmost card of the draw deck.
• You can never play a card upon another card of the same color.
• Playing a card in an empty space earns you a Project token.
• During your turn, you can use your Project tokens, one at a time, in order to perform special actions. You can perform the same special action more than once.
• If you must take a Project token and the supply is depleted, you must steal it from another player (everybody's tokens should always be visible during the game).
• You can never examine the piles of cards.

Game Flow (Summary)

During their turn, each player performs the following phases in order:

1. Perform special actions by spending Project tokens (optional).
2. Play a card from the display or the top of the deck (mandatory).
3. Check for sets of three Moles of the same color (mandatory). If there is a set of three:
   • Take all the cards from one of the piles forming the set, and add a cube to their Burrow for each card in it. Then they discard all the cards.
   • Flip the other 2 piles of cards. If in this way a new set of three is created, the player repeats these last two steps. If this creates a set of three Projects instead, the player gains 3 Project tokens, then they cover the set of three with 3 new cards drawn from the deck.

If an Event card is revealed from the deck, activate its effect immediately, starting from the player who revealed it. When the first Tardy Mole card appears on top of the deck, the last round begins. The game ends when the player to the right of the first player ends their turn.

Scoring: each player checks the cubes inside their Burrow, they multiply the number of cubes of the most numerous color by the number of cubes of the least numerous color and they add 1 point for each Project token they own.