Shahrazad Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• The Story Tiles
• How to Play
• Placing a Tile
• Replacing a Tile
• Scoring
• Round Two Setup
• The Scoring Tiles

The Story Tiles

Each story tile has a colour and a number between zero and twenty-one, along with the title and artwork. There are four tile colours: red, blue, black and yellow. Each type has a different number of tiles in the set.

Each tile shows:

• The tile's number.
• The tile's colour, with matching symbol.
• The other numbers which share this tile-colour.

How to Play

Put the two scoring tiles to one side, and shuffle the story tiles (it may be easier to shuffle half of the tiles at a time, then mix the two stacks). Place one face-up in the middle of the table, deal two tiles to each player (which they must keep secret from one another), then place the rest of the tiles in a face-down stack.

Starting with the player who dealt the tiles, each player will take turns to either place a new tile or replace an existing tile. No matter which action they choose, players will draw a new tile from the stack at the end of their turn.

If playing solo, simply take every turn.

The tiles in your hand must be kept secret, and you must choose which tile to play on your own. Once you've chosen, you may discuss with the other player where it should be placed, but the final decision is yours. Once all of the tiles have been placed, work out your score, and then set up round two.

Placing a Tile

Think of each tile on the table as part of a column, with space above and below it, and to the left and right. A new tile can be placed anywhere on the table, according to the following rules:

• It must touch at least one existing tile.
• If placing to the left or right, the new tile is offset half-way up or down the existing tiles.
• There is a maximum of three tiles allowed in a single column in the two-player game. If playing solo, up to four tiles per column are allowed.
• There is no limit to the number of columns allowed.

With one tile on the table, there are six possible spaces to place a new tile. With two tiles on the table, there are eight possible spaces to place a new tile.

Replacing a Tile

Instead of placing a tile, you may swap any tile on the table with one from your hand. You must put the new tile in the same space the replaced tile just came from. You still draw a new tile, bringing the number of tiles you hold up to three.

If you have replaced a tile on your turn, then on your next turn you must place two tiles, and cannot replace any. You cannot take the "replace" action if the face-down stack of tiles has run out.

Scoring

Before you can score your tiles, you need to see if your stories made sense! Check two things, in this order:

1. Check each column from left to right. If any tile is touching a lower-numbered tile in the column to its right, flip the higher-numbered tile face down.
2. Each face-up tile should now be part of a path from left to right, starting from the left-most column, and touching a face-up tile in the next column until you end in the right-most column. Face-down tiles or gaps between tiles do not count. If any tile cannot form part of a valid path, flip it face down. This means that if any entire column is face-down, no points can be scored.

Now you're ready to score! For each colour, identify the largest group of connected tiles. You will score one point for each tile in that group. If a colour has multiple groups of the same size, you will only score for one of them.

Subtract one point for each face-down tile, and subtract one point for each empty space in the middle of a column.

Round Two Setup

Remove all face-down tiles from the game, and put them back in the box. They cannot be checked during round two.

Choose one column of tiles to remain on the table, pushing them together if there is a gap between them. This becomes the starting setup for the new round.

Shuffle the remaining tiles together to form a new draw stack, and deal two tiles to each player.

Play continues as before. Add your score for both rounds to get your final result!

The Scoring Tiles

Use the two scoring tiles to keep track of your score, by placing one on top of the other. There are two sides, one for solo play, and one for two players. The bottom row contains numbers between zero and nine, while the column on the side contains the tens. If your score is above zero at the end of round one, continue to round two! If not, the king will be quite angry, and perhaps it's best to start again.

Check your score after two rounds to reveal the King's verdict.

Score	Verdict
0-9	That didn't make any sense!
10-19	A little clichéd.
20-29	Not bad, but I preferred the movie.
30-39	I like this story a lot.
40+	Truly wonderful!