Spearmint Valley Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal
• Trackers
• Town Setup
• Players Setup
• Resources
• Summary
• Friends
• Action Phase
• Sleep Phase
• Travel
• Cycling the Crafting Deck
• Action Types
• Skill Icons and Actions
• Town Rows, Buildings and Items
• Board Locations

Goal

Complete all of your goals and make friends before the end of the third year.

Trackers

• Resource track (printed "Resouce" on the rulebook page): a track numbered 1 to 5.
• Year and Season track: the Year track has spaces 1, 2 and 3. The Season track shows the seasons. Printed on the track is the End of Year summary: Recommit your Farm, Return to Spring, Recruit new friends (1 per villager, to a maximum of 2), and Cycle the crafting deck.

Town Setup

1. Split the town cards into piles and shuffle. Form the decks as follows:
2. Reveal top 3 cards from the crafting deck.
3. Reveal the top 2 cards from the fishing deck.
4. Reveal the top 3 cards from the crops deck.
5. Place ore deck near mine.
6. Face-up animals at ranch.
7. Construct the slime row: Place the Slime Boss at the end of the row, then shuffle the remaining slimes and reveal them to construct a row.

The setup page shows a marker for each deck: Crafting (red), Fish (blue), Ore (grey-blue), Animals (purple), Crops (green), and Slimes (dark green).

Players Setup

1. Players take starting action cards (labeled on back).
2. Place non-starting cards in a row, called the Market.
3. Place clear cubes on year 1 and spring season.
4. Place each player meeple at the farm (top left).
5. Start game with 1 gold.
6. Randomly reveal Goals:
   • 1 player = 2 goals
   • 2 or 3 players = 3 goals Include the 3p starting goal also if playing 3-player mode.
7. Place player-colored cubes on max spot on time card. (Flip for multiplayer.)
8. Reveal friends (see friend reveal).

The setup page shows the card backs for the Action, Goals and Friends decks.

Resources

Resources are shared between players (max 10). Each type of resource is tracked with a different cube. When gaining resources, discard the resource card (except animals) and increase the resource of that type. Some fish require spending 1 more time to gain resources.

Resource town cards (examples shown on the page): Chicken (Cost: 10), Bass (Lake), Copper, Strawberry (Spring), and Slime.

Resource types (icon = cube colour, as shown on the page; the rulebook does not print a name for each icon):

• Orange swirl icon = red cube.
• Green and red vegetable icon = green cube.
• Gold coin icon = yellow cube (gold).
• White figure/jar icon = grey-white cube.
• Pink heart-shaped gem icon = purple gem. This is spent as any resource.

Summary

Spearmint Valley is played over 3 years split into 4 seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter). Each season is considered a round of play. Each round has an actions phase and a sleep phase. Players work towards their father's goals by playing cards and performing actions. Each card takes an amount of time to play. When players have exhausted all of their time, or choose to end their action phase, they go to the sleep phase. At the end of the sleep phase, the season is incremented. If winter, return to spring and increase the year. End the game after the 3rd year.

Friends

Friend Reveal: At the start of each year a friend card will be revealed, face-up in a row, for each player (max of 2 revealed in 3 players).

Friend Restrictions: Face-up cards prevent players from taking specific actions during specific seasons. At any time, a player may spend the required resources to flip a card face-down. All friends must be face-down to win.

The friend card example shows a character named Scott with required resources (1 and 2 icons) and two prevented skills: Spring (prevents a skill icon) and Summer (prevents a skill icon). The labels on the example read "Required resources" and "Prevent skills during seasons".

Action Phase

Players alternate playing action cards. Before an action is played, players may discard cards to gain 1 time each. If the player ever reaches 0 time, they become exhausted and go to sleep.

Playing an action card: if the player's meeple is at a location with a matching skill icon, play the card from your hand. Roll the dice. Gain the action's reward and spend time based on the amount of successes rolled (the success symbol).

Dice results:

• One pip face = 1 success.
• Two pip face = Discard 2 cards, then gain 1 success.
• Blank face = Miss.

At any time, a player may go to sleep, ending their action phase and entering the sleep phase rested.

Map actions: Buying animals and crops does not require an action card.

• When at the crop location, spend time to move crop cards from the crop row to the farm. If possible, buy enough crops to fill the farm (max 3).
  • Out-of-season cost = 1 time each.
  • In-season cost = 0 time each.
• When at the animal location, and the barn has been constructed, pay gold listed on an animal and place the animal next to the farm. Costs 0 time.

Sleep Phase

Return all played/discarded 0-cost action cards to your hand, and other played/discarded cards to the market. Players may purchase action cards from the market, if not exhausted, by spending time.

Finally, all players reset time to the max value and increment the season. If new year, see revealing friends and cycling the crafting deck.

Construct example (page 9): the Construct card shows a hammer skill with a purchase cost of 3 time. Its results table is read by skill successes:

• 2 successes: Build 2, costs 1 time.
• 1 success: Build 1, costs 2 time.
• 0 successes: no build, costs 2 time.

The time shown beside each result is the time spent performing the action.

Travel

Action cards move a player's meeple around the map. Locations are adjacent to each other if on the same road. Travel up to the number of adjacent locations based on the reward amount.

The map example shows 4 roads (colour coded red, blue, magenta and yellow).

Cycling the Crafting Deck

At the end of the year, remove the rightmost card in the crafting row and place it on the bottom of the deck. Slide cards right and reveal a new card in the leftmost position.

Action Types

• Fishing: The Fishing action card can gain fish in the row if at that fish's location. The Legend action card is needed to catch a legendary fish.
• Farming: The Farming action can gain crops next to the farm that were bought from the crop row (discard crop). The farm has a max of 3 crops allowed.
• Slimes: Only the slime at the front of the row can be attacked. Defeating a slime removes it from the game.
• Rancher: Gain resources from bought animals. (Do not discard animals.)

Town deck discard piles: when a town deck runs out of cards, shuffle the discard pile and make a new deck.

Skill Icons and Actions

Skill icon	Name	Action
Tree	Travel (any location)	Move player around map.
Crossed swords	Attack / Strong Strike	Defeat if damage is greater than or equal to the HP of the slime.
Pickaxe	Mining / Spelunker	Draw cards from ore deck. Gain x cards.
Fishing rod	Fishing / Legend	Gain a fish in the row that matches location of player (river, lake, ocean, or legendary).
Watering can / harvest	Farming / Harvest	Gain bought crops at farm.
Heart	Rancher	Gain resources from bought animals.
Hammer	Construct	Construct 1 or 2 items and/or buildings.

Town Rows, Buildings and Items

Town rows: replace cards anytime a card is removed in a row: fishing, crops, crafting.

Buildings provide their bonus (at the bottom of their card) to all players. Place built buildings in a shared area.

Items only provide the bonus to one player. Any player can have the item when it's being constructed and it can't be traded. Place items in front of the player.

The building example (Stables) shows its type (Building), the construct skill icon, required resources (2 crop, 2 gold and 1 orange-swirl resource), and its bonus: "All travel cards +1 move".

Board Locations

The board diagram (page 14) labels these areas: Farm (the player's starting location, top left), River, Lake, Ocean, Buy Crops, Buy Animals, Purchased Crops, Purchased Animals, Slime Row, Crafting Row, Fish Row and Ore Deck.