Natsumemo Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Components
• Setup
• Structure of a Week
• Step 1 — Promise Step
  • Promise of Play
  • Worked examples
• Step 2 — Study Step
• Step 3 — Calculation Step
• Step 4 — End of Summer Step
  • 1. Homework bonus and penalty
  • 2. Title bonus
  • 3. Heart bonus
  • 4. Final score
• Questions and Rulings
• Publisher Errata
• Material Not Covered

Overview

• Players: 3-6
• Ages: 8+
• Playing time: 30-45 minutes

The game lasts four weeks. Each week, events are proposed one at a time, players secretly choose whether to attend, and attendees write the event into their calendars for the day or days it occupies. Days left empty become study or homework days. At the end of the fourth week, bonuses and penalties for homework, titles and hearts are added, and the highest total score wins.

Components

• 150 Calendar sheets
• 150 Secret sheets
• 6 pencils
• 6 dice (six-sided)
• 1 How to Play book
• 39 cards:
  • 1 First Speaker card
  • 1 Wednesday Study Group card
  • 1 Homework Day card
  • 36 Event cards

Blank Calendar sheets and Secret sheets can also be downloaded from the publisher's website, so the pads are not a hard limit on the number of games you can play.

Setup

1. Give each player 1 Calendar sheet, 1 Secret sheet, 1 pencil and 1 die. Throughout the game, keep the Secret sheet hidden underneath the Calendar sheet so that nobody else can read it.
2. Place the Wednesday Study Group card and the Homework Day card where everyone can see them, with the "week 1/2/3" side face up.
3. Sort the Event cards by week and shuffle each week separately. This makes four decks of 9 cards each.
4. On your Calendar sheet, write a name and choose a gender. Any name may be used, and players should address each other by these names during play as much as possible. The gender you pick does not have to be your own, but the group should keep the number of boys and girls as even as possible.
5. Write the same name and gender on your Secret sheet.
6. In the heart section of your Secret sheet, write the name and gender of every other player. The order does not matter.
7. Everyone rolls their die. The player with the highest roll takes the First Speaker card.

Structure of a Week

The game ends after four weeks. Each week has three steps:

1. Promise step
2. Study step
3. Calculation step

In the fourth week only, a fourth step — the End of Summer step — is added.

Step 1 — Promise Step

1. The holder of the First Speaker card takes the Event deck for the current week. Whoever holds the deck is the speaker; everyone else is a friend.
2. The speaker turns over the top Event card of the deck and carries out a Promise of Play (described below). Keep the resolved cards arranged in the middle of the table so that everyone can see how many Promises of Play have been made this week.
3. After the Promise of Play, the speaker passes the deck to the player on their left. That player draws a new card and makes the next Promise of Play.
4. The Promise step ends after 6 Promises of Play have been made — this count is the same regardless of the number of players — or as soon as every player's schedule for the week is full. Then move to the Study step.

Promise of Play

1. Show and explain the card. The speaker shows the Event card to their friends and reads it out. The points printed on the card are the summer break enrichment points each attendee can earn, and they may vary with the number of participants; this is the event's score. The hearts printed on the card are earned by everyone who attends — the more hearts, the more attractive the event is to the other players. A value marked "(1p)" is the effect that applies when exactly one person attends. "Homework Page" is the number of homework pages an attendee gets done. A title in brackets is the title an attendee earns. Homework and titles both affect the final score.
2. Name the day. The speaker decides which day of the week the event will take place on and tells everyone — for a multi-day event, which day it starts on and which day it ends on. For example: "Swimming! I want to go Wednesday and Thursday." The days an event may use are printed at the top of the card. An event may not span two weeks.
3. Decide privately. Every player, speaker included, silently decides whether or not to attend. The speaker is allowed to decide against attending their own proposal.
4. Reveal together. The speaker calls out "Who would like to join? All together now!" (in Japanese, say-no!). Everyone who wants to attend raises a hand at the same moment.
5. Write it down. Every attendee records the event on their Calendar sheet and their Secret sheet.

Worked examples

Three boys and girls attend "Swimming in the Ocean" on Tuesday and Wednesday of week 1. Each attendee writes "Swimming in the Ocean" across the Tuesday and Wednesday cells of week 1 on the Calendar sheet, and writes 10 in the score box at the bottom right of Wednesday. Each attendee also fills in 2 hearts in the name rows of the heart section on their Secret sheet — either 2 hearts in the same player's row, or 1 heart in each of two players' rows.

Two players attend "Visiting Grandparents" from Friday to Sunday of week 1. Each attendee writes "Visiting Grandparents" across Friday, Saturday and Sunday of week 1, and writes 12 in the score box at the bottom right of Sunday. Each attendee ticks the "Cute Grandchild" box in the Titles section of the Calendar sheet, and ticks 3 boxes in the Homework section of the Secret sheet (if this is the first homework done, that means the first three boxes). Note that "Visiting Grandparents" and "Family Vacation" are events that do not involve friends, so they give the same effect no matter how many people attend.

Step 2 — Study Step

1. Check your Calendar sheet. If you have no event on the Wednesday of the current week, tick the "Wednesday study session" box. Take the points and homework shown on the Wednesday Study Group card and record them on your Calendar sheet and Secret sheet.
2. Check your Calendar sheet again. Tick the "Homework day" box on every day of the week that has no event on it, and roll your die once for each of those homework days. Take the homework, score and title indicated on the Homework Day card for each roll, and record them on your Calendar sheet and Secret sheet.
3. Once every player has finished points 1 and 2, move to the Calculation step.

Step 3 — Calculation Step

1. Add up your scores for the week and write the total in the "this week" field on the right-hand side of the Calendar sheet. If you have a score from an earlier week, also carry the running sum into the "total" column.
2. If this is the fourth week, skip points 3 and 4 and go straight to the End of Summer step.
3. The holder of the First Speaker card passes it to the player on their left.
4. Return all of this week's Event cards to the box and begin the Promise step of the next week.

Step 4 — End of Summer Step

Work out the following bonuses and penalties and enter each one in its field on the right-hand side of the Calendar sheet.

1. Homework bonus and penalty

Look at the Homework section of your Secret sheet:

• Every box left empty among boxes 1 to 25: -10 points each.
• Every box filled in among boxes 26 to 30: +2 points each.
• If every homework box is filled in, you gain the title "Person Who Prepares Everything".

2. Title bonus

Look at the Titles section of your Calendar sheet. Score points equal to the number of titles multiplied by the number of titles.

3. Heart bonus

The holder of the First Speaker card works out who receives the heart bonus, one player at a time:

1. The First Speaker asks a player — call them player A — how many hearts they gave to the player on A's left.
2. Everyone except player A then declares how many hearts they assigned to that same player.
3. Whoever assigned the most hearts to that player scores 10 points. If several players are tied for the most, each of them scores 5 points instead.
4. Repeat this clockwise so that every player is checked in turn.

Heart bonus example: 8 hearts were assigned to Mayaya, which was the clear majority, so that player scores 10 points. 4 hearts were assigned to Takeshi, which was also the highest count, but several players had assigned 4 hearts each, so each of them scores 5 points.

4. Final score

Add the totals from all four weeks together with bonuses and penalties 1 to 3. The player with the highest total wins. If two or more players tie, they share the victory.

Questions and Rulings

Can I schedule an event on a day that is already booked on my calendar? No. You cannot make a Promise of Play that overlaps something already on your schedule — every day the event needs must be free.

What if my whole week is already booked when the deck reaches me? Skip yourself and pass the Event deck to the next player. You were too busy, so you make no Promise of Play.

What if the event I drew needs more free days than my schedule has room for? Put the card on the bottom of the deck and draw a new one. If no card in the deck fits your schedule, handle it as in the question above and pass the deck on.

What if nobody joins my event? Treat it the same way as an event with one or more participants. An event that nobody attends still counts towards the six Promises of Play made in the week — nobody, the speaker included, gains anything from it.

Can we talk to each other before deciding whether to attend? Yes. You may discuss your schedules freely. You may also change your mind after the speaker calls for hands — "I was going to go, but now I'm not."

Can I ask another player about their Secret sheet? You may not discuss its contents or look at it. You are free to say out loud that you have not been doing your homework at all.

What happens if I earn the same title twice? Nothing. A duplicate title has no effect.

Publisher Errata

cosaic published a correction to the Homework section for week 4 on the printed Secret sheet. The sheet available for download from the publisher's website is already correct; only the sheets in the box carry the error.

• Printed (incorrect): a roll of 1 gives 5 points and the "Slacker" title; rolls of 2 to 5 give 3 homework pages.
• Correct: rolls of 1 to 2 give 5 points and the "Super Slacker" title; rolls of 3 to 5 give 3 homework pages.

Material Not Covered

Two further documents exist for this game on BoardGameGeek but are behind BGG's login gate and are not mirrored on any reachable host, so their contents could not be included:

• Per-card table. The 36 Event cards, the Wednesday Study Group card and the Homework Day card each carry their own days, score values, heart values, homework pages and titles. These values are printed on the components themselves and are not reproduced in the How to Play book; the community "Natsumemo - Card translations" file (v3) is the English index of them.
• Additional Rules for 2-4 Players. An unofficial variant by BGG user sabrinaw1217 that adapts the game below its 3-player minimum. It is not part of the published rules.