Picnic
Picnic Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
- 72 Picnic cards
- 8 Bonus cards
Goal of the Game
Score the most points by cleverly playing your cards, and grouping identical types of snacks and tablecloths together!
Setup
- Shuffle the 72 Picnic cards. Create a face-down pile with them, and place it in the centre of the table.
- Leave the Bonus cards in the box: they are only used in the "Special Diet" variant.
You're now ready to begin!
How to Play
The game consists of 4 successive rounds, in which players play at the same time.
Each round consists of 2 phases:
- Choosing and Passing Cards
- Playing Cards
Choosing and Passing Cards
In this phase, each player carries out these 3 actions in the following order:
- Draw 2 Picnic cards
- Choose 1 card to keep
- Give the other card to the player on your left.
This way, all players will have 2 cards in their hand at the end of this phase.
Playing Cards
In this phase, all players place their 2 Picnic cards face up in front of them.
A Picnic card consists of 3 squares. Each square contains 2 pieces of information: a snack type and a tablecloth.
Rules for playing cards
- Each player has a space in front of them on the table, in which they will be placing their Picnic cards. This is called your Picnic area, and it may never exceed a 4x4 grid.
- You must place cards on the table horizontally or vertically (never diagonally).
- You're allowed to rotate cards in any direction before placing them on the table.
When placing down a new card, you may either:
- place it next to a card that's already in your Picnic area, or
- slide it over or under previously placed cards, so it partially or completely overlaps 1 or more cards.
When all players have played their cards, a new round begins.
End of the Game
After 4 rounds, all players will have placed 8 cards in their respective Picnic areas. You will now score points based on the cards you played.
All identical components (snacks or tablecloths) that touch each other horizontally or vertically, form a group. Only groups of at least 3 identical components score points.
Count the points you score for each group independently. A group scores as many points as the total number of components in it, minus 2.
Example
| Number of components | Points |
|---|---|
| 1 | 0 |
| 2 | 0 |
| 3 | 1 |
| 4 | 2 |
| 5 | 3 |
| 6 | 4 |
| 7 | 5 |
| 8 | 6 |
This group of 5 sandwiches scores 3 points. The group of 2 donuts doesn't score any points.
Add up the points you scored for each group of identical components present in your Picnic area.
The player with the most points wins the game. In case of a tie, the player with the largest group is the winner.
If there's still a tie, those players share the victory.
Scoring example
Ben scores a total of 11 points for his Picnic area (3 for the orange tablecloths + 3 for the green tablecloths + 2 for the sodas + 2 for the donuts + 1 for the sandwiches).
Sophia scores 13 points for her Picnic area (7 for the green tablecloths + 1 for the orange tablecloths + 2 for the sandwiches + 2 for the sausages + 1 for the sodas). Sophia wins the game.
Variant "Special Diet"
The Bonus cards add scoring restrictions to the regular rules. The game also comes with a solo variant.
8 Bonus Cards
There are 2 types of Bonus cards, both of which influence your final score: Component cards (4 cards) and Modification cards (4 cards).
During setup, draw 2 Component cards and 2 Modification cards and place them in the centre of the table. The players may decide together which difficulty to use (see below).
Randomly combine 1 Component card and 1 Modification card, by overlapping them in such a way that the Modification card overlaps the 2 grey squares on the right side of the Component card. This way, the component on the leftmost square remains visible.
The Modification cards add new ways of earning or losing points!
- Easy: use 2 green Modification cards.
- Medium: use 1 green Modification card and 1 red Modification card.
- Hard: use 2 red Modification cards.
Green (positive) Modification cards
- Check the Picnic areas of all players. Score 3 points if you're the player with the fewest components of this type in your Picnic area. In case of a tie, all tied players score 3 points.
- Score 1 point per component of this type in the corners of your Picnic area.
- Score 1 point per group of components of this type in your Picnic area. Isolated components also count as a group.
- Score 2 points per complete row or column of components of this type in your Picnic area.
Red (negative) Modification cards
- Check the Picnic areas of all players. Lose 3 points if you're the player with the most components of this type in your Picnic area. In case of a tie, all tied players lose 3 points.
- Lose 2 points per isolated component of this type in your Picnic area. An isolated component is a component that's not part of a group of at least 2 identical components.
- Lose 2 points per component of this type in the centre of your Picnic area.
- Lose 2 points per separate group consisting of exactly 2 components of this type in your Picnic area.
At the end of the game, calculate your points as normal. Then, add and subtract the points scored by the Bonus cards.
Solo Variant
Goal of the game: score more points than your automatic opponent.
The game consists of 8 rounds. In each round, draw 2 Picnic cards. Choose 1 card to add to your Picnic area, just like in the regular game.
Add the other card to your opponent's Picnic area. Place each card you assign to your opponent on the table without overlapping the cards.
You score points according to the rules of the regular game.
Calculate your opponent's points as follows:
- Check which is the most recurring type of snack in both Picnic areas combined. Your opponent scores 1 point per snack of this type.
- Then, do the same for the tablecloth patterns.
Your opponent's final score is the sum of the points they scored for snacks and tablecloths.
Example: the most recurring snack is the donut and the most recurring tablecloth pattern is green. This means you must score more than 15 points (7 for the donuts + 8 for the green tablecloths).
You can adjust the difficulty of the solo variant by adding Bonus cards.
- Easy: use 2 green Modification cards.
- Medium: use 1 green Modification card and 1 red Modification card.
- Hard: use 2 red Modification cards.