Photo Tour: North America
Photo Tour: North America Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Objective
To earn the most points on your journey. Points are awarded for photos of Landmarks in your Traveler's Journal, Photography Equipment, Photo Contests, and bonuses as outlined in the Scoring section.
Components
- 1 Game Board
- 1 Token Bag
- 58 Landmark Cards
- 17 Photo Contest Cards
- 1 First Player Token
- 5 Meeples
- 5 Traveler's Journals
- 1 Score Pad
- 65 Photography Equipment Tokens (5 types)
- 5 Transport Dice
Setup
- Place the game board in the center of the table.
- Shuffle the Landmark deck and place it on the game board, then place 5 cards face-up in the slots to the left of the deck.
- Put all Photography Equipment tokens into the bag. Draw 5 tokens from the bag and place them in the photography equipment slots on the game board.
- Roll 5 Transport dice and place them in the transport die slots on the game board.
- Shuffle the Photo Contest deck and place 3 cards face-up on the game board in the associated slots.
- Each player takes a Traveler's Journal and a Meeple of a matching color.
- Each player draws 3 Landmark cards. They choose 2 to keep and 1 to discard. They will place their Meeple on their starting location which will be the location shown on their discarded card.
- The player with the highest number on their starting location will take the first player token and start the game.
Gameplay
On their turn, a player performs one of the following Main actions:
- Plan
- Rent Equipment
- Move
- Take a Photo
At any time during their turn, they may also Refresh, and use Journal or Landmark bonuses.
When their turn is over, play passes to the player to their left.
Main Actions
Plan
Landmark cards represent popular destinations that you can visit.
When you Plan, you choose 1 of the available Landmark cards and add it to your hand. There is no limit to the number of cards you can have in your hand. When the last card is taken, replace them with 5 more from the top of the deck.
Landmark Bonuses
Most Landmark cards have bonus abilities that players can use as specified on each card. A Landmark ability becomes available when a Landmark card has been placed in your Traveler's Journal, after you Take a Photo. In other words, you cannot use the abilities of cards in your hand. Activating a Landmark bonus is optional, even if the condition is met.
Landmark Bonuses can be used at 3 different times as indicated by these icons:
On Your Turn:
- These bonuses enhance or add to the result of an action.
- These bonuses stand alone and are not associated with your turn's action.
Between Your Turns:
- These bonuses trigger when the opponent to your left performs a specific action.
- These bonuses trigger when any opponent performs a specific action.
Game End:
- These bonuses can provide points during Scoring.
You can only activate 1 Landmark bonus on your turn, and another 1 between your turns (on either opponent's turn but not each opponent's turn).
Rent Equipment
Photography Equipment tokens represent the extra equipment a photographer might want to use to capture that perfect shot. Photography Equipment tokens can be placed on Landmark cards when they are put into your Traveler's Journal for extra points if the icons match.
When you Rent Equipment, you choose 1 of the available Photography Equipment tokens and place it in one of the free slots on your Traveler's Journal. These 3 slots are called your Reserve.
If you have no free slots, you must discard a token to take this action.
When the last token is taken, replace them with 5 more from the Token bag.
If the bag is empty, put all the discarded equipment tokens back into the bag.
Move
Transport dice represent the methods you can use to travel on your journey. Each method allows you to move differently on the game board.
When you Move, you choose 1 of the available Transport dice and move your meeple on the game board in a way that matches the icon on the die. After a Transport die is used, it is placed off of the board, out of the die slot. This shows it is no longer available.
When the last die is used, roll all 5 dice again and place them back into the transport slots.
- Car: Move from one location to another up to 2 path segments away. You can use both highways and dirt roads.
- Bus: Move from one location to another up to 4 path segments away. You can only use highways.
- Plane: Move from one location with an airport to any other location with an airport. The type of line or number of path segments separating the locations does not matter.
Take a Photo
Placing Landmark cards into your Traveler's Journal represents taking a picture while being at that physical location. You can use Photography Equipment tokens from your Reserve to earn extra points by placing them on Landmark cards as they are added to your portfolio.
When you Take a Photo, you follow these steps in order.
1st: Check Location
Your meeple must be on the game board location whose number matches the number on a Landmark card that you have in your hand. If you cannot satisfy this condition, you cannot Take a Photo and will instead choose a different action to perform.
2nd: Place the Landmark Card
Put the Landmark card in your Traveler's Journal. You can choose any of the 7 slots. These 7 slots (as well as the Landmark cards) are divided into 2 types: Urban and Natural. Additionally, these slots feature a bonus at the bottom called Journal Bonuses which will state a condition and/or benefit. For a bonus to apply, a Landmark card of a matching type must be placed in that slot.
If you lay a card into a slot that doesn't match, cover the bonus text with the placed card to show it does not apply.
If the Journal Bonus applies, then you may take that specified action immediately or at any time on your future turns.
Journal Bonuses in the top row are one-time bonuses for use throughout the game. Journal Bonuses in the bottom row are for Scoring at the end of the game.
Once used, move the Landmark card in that slot down to cover the bonus to show it is no longer available.
You can activate multiple Journal bonuses in a turn and can combo them together with other Journal bonuses as well as with a Landmark bonus.
3rd: Use Photography Equipment
If your Landmark card has icons on it that match any of your Photography Equipment tokens in your Reserve, you can place them onto the card to gain additional points at the end of the game. You may only place 1 token per matching icon shown on the Landmark card and you may only place tokens on the card you have just placed into your Traveler's Journal. If a card has a camera icon, it means that any token can be used to match that icon.
Extra Action
Refresh
In addition to taking a Main action, at any time you can perform an extra Refresh. Discard 1 Photography Equipment token from your Reserve or 1 Landmark card from your hand to replace any available Landmark cards, Photography Equipment tokens, or Transport dice (Choose 1 type).
You may move any amount of the chosen component to the associated discard pile while leaving any number of them on the table.
Then, refill all open slots of that type. As long as you pay the cost each time, you can Refresh as often as you like.
Photo Contests
Photo Contest cards are objectives available to all players that can provide points during Scoring. In a two-player game, 1st place earns 10 points, and 2nd place earns 2 points. In a 3-5 player game, 1st place earns 10 points, 2nd place earns 6 points, and 3rd place earns 2 points.
If players tie for an award, those players split the combined points of that award and subsequent awards equal to the number of tied players evenly, rounding down.
You must have at least one suitable card or token in your Traveler's Journal to claim an award.
For example, in a five-player game, 2 players tie for 2nd place. Those players would get 4 points each (6 points for 2nd place + 2 points for 3rd place = 8, then evenly split into 4).
As another example, in a four-player game, 3 players tie for 1st place. Those players would get 6 points each (10+6+2 = 18, then evenly split 3 ways into 6). Any ties in a two-player game will earn 6 points each.
Game End
When any player places their 7th Landmark card into their Traveler's Journal, the end of the game is triggered. The current round will continue until play passes to the First Player who does not get an additional turn. Proceed to Scoring to determine the winner.
Scoring
Players score points in 5 categories and record them on the score pad:
- Points on Landmark cards in their Traveler's journal. Cards in hand do not earn points.
- 3 points for each Photography Equipment token placed on Landmark cards in their Traveler's Journal.
- 1 point for each Photography Equipment token in their Reserve.
- Points awarded by the 3 Photography Contests.
- Points for Journal and Landmark card Scoring bonuses.
Reminder: Journal Bonuses do not count if the slot is empty or the Landmark card in that slot doesn't match.
Total up these points. The resulting sum is your final score and the player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, the player with fewer cards in their Traveler's Journal wins. If a tie persists, those players share the victory.
The Design Team
Designed by: Yuri Yamshchikov, Oleg Meleshin, and Eugene Timashov
Illustrations: Dmitry Isakevich, Ekaterina Opletaeva, and Anastasia Shutova
Graphic Design: OWL agency (Vyacheslav Sergienko, Evgeniy Sarnetskiy, and Ilya Sevastyanov)
Editors: Brad Hiscock, Phil Ivanov
Producer: Eugene Timashov
Acknowledgments
The game creators extend their gratitude for assistance, advice, and testing to: Vyacheslav Agapov, Yaroslav Dzemu, Maria Uvarova, Alexander Nazarenko, Alexey Likhachyov, Oleg Afonin, Konstantin Glazkov, Vladimir Kirov, Sergey Rodivilov, Vitaliy Shemyakin, German Tikhomirov, Ilya Churakov, Igor Ganzha, Vladimir Kananikhin, Ilya Murseev, Natalia Murseeva, Vladislav Pichugin, Timur Dorokhov, Anna Zakharova, and Philip Yeryomenko.