River Valley Glassworks Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Overview
• Game Turns
• Gathering from the River
• Adding to Your Glassworks
• Drawing from the Lake
• Game End
• Final Scoring
  • Scoring Example
• Tips & Reminders
• Credits

Components

1. 1 Bag
2. 1 Lake Tile
3. 6 River Tiles
4. 5 Satchel Tiles
5. 5 Glassworks Boards
6. 5 Inventory Markers
7. 1 First Player Marker
8. 132 Glass Pieces*

* (22 white, 22 purple, 17 light blue, 17 dark blue, 12 light green, 12 dark green, 12 black, 9 yellow, 9 orange)

Setup

1. Place all colored glass pieces (except black) in the bag. Only add black if you have 5 players.
2. Line up the 6 river tiles in random order. Draw 1 or 2 glass pieces onto each tile, matching the number of stones printed on it.
3. Place the lake tile at the end of the river. Fill it with 5 glass pieces from the bag.
4. Each player takes a satchel and glassworks board and places them with the solo side facedown. Each player places a marker on 0 on their inventory track and draws 3 random glass pieces onto their satchel.
5. The player who most recently saw a river takes the first player marker.

Overview

Your goal is to fill your glassworks with the most colorful river glass. Cleverly place glass pieces onto river tiles to gather glass, then add it to your glassworks to fill out rows and columns for end-game victory points (VP). Highest score wins!

Game Turns

Players take turns in clockwise order. On your turn, you must do one of these two actions. See later sections for details on each action.

• Place & Gather: Place glass from your satchel into the river, then gather glass for your glassworks.
• Draw: Restock your satchel with glass from the lake.

Gathering from the River

Follow these steps to place & gather glass. Only shapes matter when placing & gathering, not colors.

1. First, choose 1 glass piece from your satchel and place it on the river tile with the matching shape in the corners. Choose 1 adjacent river tile and gather all glass pieces from it. The lake isn't considered a river tile.

   Alternatively, place 2 pieces with the same shape on any river tile, then gather all glass from 1 adjacent river tile, as usual.

2. Move the empty river tile to the start of the river (furthest from the lake) and flow the river forward to fill the gap. Check how many stones are on the next tile in the river and place that many pieces from the bag on the empty tile.

3. Add all pieces you gathered to your glassworks (see next section). Update your inventory track to show how many total pieces are in your glassworks (not including overflow).

Adding to Your Glassworks

All glass you gather from the river is added to your glassworks. Only colors matter when adding to your glassworks, not shapes.

When you add glass of a new color to your glassworks, place it in the next empty column on your grid, going left to right.

If you gathered more than one new color, you choose the order to place them. The rarity chart on your board shows how likely you are to see more of each color.

When you add a color you already have, add it to the matching column, filling from bottom to top.

If you can't fit a piece because its column is full or you already have 7 other colors, place it in overflow.

Drawing from the Lake

Follow these steps to draw new glass.

1. Choose 4 pieces and add them to your satchel (not your glassworks).
2. Your satchel can only hold 5 pieces. If you go over, place pieces of your choice in overflow.
3. Refill the lake back up to 5 pieces from the bag.

Game End

When a player reaches or passes 17 on their inventory track, they trigger the end of the game. When this happens, each player with fewer than 3 pieces in their satchel immediately draws from the bag until they have 3. Finish the current round of turns (so each player has had the same number), then take 1 final turn each. Afterwards, each player scores their glassworks. Most victory points (VP) wins!

Final Scoring

1. Score All Rows: Score each row in your glassworks, going from bottom to top. Each row scores based on how many spaces you filled from left to right without any gaps. Row VP are listed at the bottom of the grid. If the first space in a row is empty, it scores 0 VP.
2. Score Tallest 2 Columns: Score only the 2 tallest filled columns in your glassworks. If there are any ties, score the leftmost tied column(s) first. Each column scores the VP on its highest filled space.
3. Score Overflow: Lose 3 VP for each piece in your overflow.

Note: If players tie, they share victory.

Scoring Example

• All Rows: 35 VP (0 + 0 + 2 + 11 + 22)
• Tallest 2 Columns: 26 VP (10 + 16)
• Overflow: -6 VP (2 * (-3))
• Total: 55 VP

Tips & Reminders

• Glass you take from the river always goes to your glassworks. Glass from the lake always goes to your satchel.
• Usually you only want to draw when you have 0 or 1 pieces left in your satchel, but sometimes it's worth taking overflow pieces to get the shapes you want!
• Building tall columns further to the right of your glassworks will score you more column VP, but filling in gaps along each row will score you more row VP. Try to balance the two!
• If you're going for column VP, ties for tallest column are usually bad, because you'll have to score the leftmost of them (worth fewer VP).
• You only have room for 7 colors, but there are 8 in the game (9 in 5-player). Once you have 7, any new colors go straight to overflow!

Credits

• Design: Ben Pinchback, Matt Riddle, Adam Hill
• Illustration: Andrew Bosley
• Graphic Design: Matt Paquette & Co, Anca Gavril
• 3D Artist: Filip Gavril
• Rules Editing: Jeff Fraser
• Development: Velgus, John Brieger, Michael Dunsmore
• Playtesters: Christopher Dearlove, Martin Higham, Ross Inglis, Kevin Jacklin, Chris Lawson
• Creative Development: Beneeta Kaur