Somethin' Fishy Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Overview
• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • A Fed Fish Is Revealed
  • A Hungry Fish Is Revealed
  • Collect the Catch
  • Catch a Thick Fish
• End of the Game
• Scoring

Overview

Players take turns revealing cards from the middle of the table. Each revealed card shows a fish. Fed fish are placed in your lagoon (your play area) to form a chain of matching fish, and hungry fish eat the fed fish in your lagoon. Players collect their catch from the lagoon and win fish by catching thick fish. The player with the most cards in their play area at the end of the game wins.

Components

160 cards:

• 140 cards with fish on the back (front side: 35 fish of four kinds, 28 fed and 7 hungry).
• 20 cards without fish on the back (front side: 5 fish of four kinds, 4 fed and 1 hungry).

Setup

• Turn all 160 cards back side up and shuffle them thoroughly. Gather them into a pile in the centre of the table.
• Determine the player who will go first. For example, it may be the hungriest player.

If you are playing with three or four players, put about one third of the cards back into the box, as you will not need them. However, all 20 cards without fish on the back must remain in the game. If some of them were accidentally removed, return them to the table.

Gameplay

On your turn you must reveal 1 card from the centre of the table. Cards with fish on the back are revealed first. Once they run out, players reveal the cards without fish on the back.

Each card's front side shows a fish. It may be a piranha, a swordfish, a ball fish or a scorpionfish. Fish are either small and fed, large and fed, medium-sized and hungry.

A Fed Fish Is Revealed

If the player has no fed fish in their lagoon (their play area in front of them), they place the revealed fed fish there.

If the player's lagoon already contains a fed fish, they may place the revealed fed fish in a row after the rightmost fish, if the fish:

• match in kind, or
• match in size.

A match in both kind and size at the same time is also allowed. In this way a chain of fish is built in the player's lagoon. This is the player's possible catch.

Examples:

• The player may place a large scorpionfish in their lagoon, because the rightmost card is a small scorpionfish.
• The player may place a small swordfish in their lagoon, because the rightmost card is a small scorpionfish.
• The player may not place a large swordfish in their lagoon, because the rightmost card is a small scorpionfish, and the revealed fish matches it neither in kind nor in size.

If the player cannot place the revealed fed fish in their lagoon, they must pass it to the player on their left. If that player can place the card in their lagoon, they do so; if not, they pass it further. If no one at the table can place the revealed fish in a lagoon, because it matches neither the size nor the kind of the last fish in the players' rows, the last player removes the revealed card from play and puts it back in the box (it is removed from the game).

In any case, if the player revealed a fed fish, then after placing or removing it they may:

• reveal one more card, or
• collect the catch and end the turn, or
• end the turn without collecting the catch.

A Hungry Fish Is Revealed

If the player reveals a hungry fish, it enters their lagoon and starts eating fed fish! The hungry fish eats fish in the lagoon from right to left and stops when it runs into a fish of its own kind. After that, the fed fish are safe.

If the hungry fish does not meet a fish of its own kind, all the fed fish are eaten.

The player gathers the eaten fish, puts them in a pile in the centre of the table, and then covers the revealed hungry fish card, front side up, with the pile, which is now a thick fish. A hungry fish that did not eat any fish also becomes a thick fish.

Example: the player is lucky, the hungry fish immediately runs into its relative and cannot feed in this lagoon. The player places the hungry fish card face up in the centre of the table.

Players stack thick fish in piles by kind. In this way there can be no more than four piles of thick fish.

After a player has placed a thick fish in the centre of the table, their turn ends. The turn passes to the player on the left.

Note: a hungry fish eats only the catch of the player who revealed it. A hungry fish is never moved into the lagoons of other players. When a hungry fish eats fed fish, it goes to the centre of the table as a thick fish. If a fish remains in the player's lagoon, the player may collect the catch only at the end of their next turn.

Collect the Catch

When a player ends their turn voluntarily, they may collect the catch from their lagoon. To do so, they put all the fish from the lagoon into a face-down pile and place it in front of themselves. The caught fish are completely safe: they cannot be eaten by a hungry fish, and they cannot go to other players.

Catch a Thick Fish

Thick fish may be taken from the centre of the table as catch.

If the player has three or more fed fish of one kind in their lagoon, they may take from the centre of the table the pile of thick fish of that same kind.

Example: Anna has three swordfish in her lagoon, so she may take from the centre of the table the pile of thick swordfish.

Note: during one turn a player may take more than one thick fish from the centre of the table if several kinds of fish in their lagoon are represented by three or more cards. The size of the fish that a player uses to take a thick fish does not matter. These fish do not have to lie next to each other. A player may not take a pile of thick fish after they have revealed a hungry fish card, but they may take it before revealing the card or after revealing a fed fish card. If a player has two fish of one kind, they may choose not to collect the catch in the hope of revealing another fed fish of the needed kind and taking the thick fish.

End of the Game

When all the cards with fish on the back have been revealed, the final phase of the game begins. Players continue to reveal cards without fish on the back. As soon as any player reveals a hungry fish, the game ends immediately: the hungry fish does not even get to eat the fish in the player's lagoon.

Scoring

Players count the cards collected and stored in their play areas. The player with the most cards wins. Fish in the lagoons, as well as fish in the piles of thick fish, are not counted.

If several players have the same number of cards, the player with more hungry fish wins. If the dispute is not resolved, the game ends in a draw.