Spring Meadow Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Aim of the Game
• Game Overview
• Set-up
• The Placement Rules
• Burrows
• The Player Turn
  • 1) Signpost — When is a Scoring triggered?
  • 2) Signpost Path — Which Meadow tile may I choose?
  • 3) Rock Tiles — What happens if I place Holes side by side?
  • 4) Move On — What am I doing at the end of my turn?
• Scoring
• Refill
• Game End
• Expert Variant
• Solo Rules
  • Set-up (Solo Game)
  • Game Flow (Solo Game)
  • Points (Solo Game)
  • Game End (Solo Game)
  • Point Objective
  • Campaign
• Credits

Components

What's in the box?

• 1 double-sided Hiking Map
• 4 double-sided Mountain boards
• 1 Signpost (assemble before the first game)
• 1 Compass
• 72 Rock tiles in various sizes
• 100 Meadow tiles in various sizes
• 25 Marmots
• 5 Picnics / Hiking Pins
• 1 Manual

Component quantity and appearance may vary from those shown here.

In many tourism regions in middle Europe there are hiking pins as a reward for disciplined wanderers that successfully complete a number of tours and document them.

Aim of the Game

What am I actually supposed to do in this game?

A dream come true for every hiker — a lovely spring meadow in the lofty mountains without a patch of snow. Skillfully place your Meadow tiles to create the largest snow free area before a Scoring phase is triggered. The first player to win 2 Scoring phases wins the game.

Game Overview

What am I doing in Spring Meadow?

Choose 1 Meadow tile from the Signpost Path on the Hiking Map, marked with the Signpost, and place it on your Mountain board.

Pay attention to the Holes in the Meadow tiles and the Burrows on your Mountain board. Burrows will challenge your puzzle skills and placing adjacent Holes will allow you to place extra Rock tiles on your Mountain board.

If you wish to cover a Burrow, you must place a Marmot over a Burrow that has already been cleared.

When the Signpost stands next to a Signpost Path on the Hiking Map containing zero or one Meadow tile(s), a Scoring phase is triggered.

Starting from the bottom of your Mountain board, count all covered spaces up to and including your first incomplete row to tally your score.

The player with the most points earns a Hiking Pin and must place Marmots over all of their cleared Burrows.

Once Scoring is completed, refill the Hiking Map with randomly drawn Meadow tiles afterwards.

The first player to earn their second Hiking Pin wins the game.

Set-up

How do I set up the game?

A. Place the Hiking Map with the side that corresponds to the number of players face up in the center of the table (one side for 2/4 players, the other side for 1/3 players).

B. Shuffle all Meadow tiles and randomly place one on each of the 25 spaces of the Hiking Map.

C. Return the remaining Meadow tiles to the box. You will need them later to refill the Hiking Map.

D. Place the Rock tiles, Marmots, Picnics / Hiking Pins, and Compass within reach of the players in a common supply.

E. Place the Signpost next to the player count icon on the Hiking Map.

F. Shuffle the double-sided Mountain boards and give one to each player. Orient the Mountain board with the arrow pointing up.

Depending on your table space, choose if you want to orient the double-sided Mountain boards vertically or horizontally. For a better game, we recommend that all players use the same orientation. All examples in the manual show a vertical orientation.

G. The player who was most recently on a mountain becomes the start player. Each successive player will take a Rock tile, the size of which will depend on the player count and the player order:

• With 2 players: the second player takes a 2-space Rock tile.
• With 3 players: the second player takes a 1-space Rock tile and the third player takes a 3-space Rock tile.
• With 4 players: the second player takes a 1-space Rock tile, the third player takes a 2-space Rock tile, and the fourth player takes a 3-space Rock tile.

Place this Rock tile on your first turn in addition to your Meadow tile.

The Placement Rules

What is important?

The following rules are valid for manipulating Meadow tiles and Rock tiles.

You may:

• only place tiles on your Mountain board.
• flip and rotate the tiles.
• place tiles adjacent to existing tiles or separate from existing tiles.
• place a tile with its Hole over a Burrow.

You may not:

• move a tile after it has been placed.
• place a tile on top of or overlapping another tile.
• place a tile so it extends over the edge of your Mountain board.
• place a tile so that it covers a Burrow (unless you have a cleared Burrow on your Mountain board — see the Burrows section below).

Burrows

What's up with those spaces?

You can see Burrows on every Mountain board. These Burrows count as covered spaces for Scoring and do not need to be covered.

A Burrow that is visible through a Hole in a Meadow tile is a cleared Burrow. Each cleared Burrow is worth 1 additional point in the Scoring phase.

If you cover a Burrow with a Meadow tile so that it is no longer visible, you must place a Marmot on top of one of your cleared Burrows. If you do not have a cleared Burrow, you may not cover a Burrow with a tile.

A Burrow covered by a Marmot is no longer considered cleared and does not earn an extra point during the Scoring phase.

Example: Astrid places a Meadow tile and covers a Burrow with it. She must place a Marmot on top of a cleared Burrow. Marmots are rather shy!

The Player Turn

What can I do when it's my turn?

Starting with the start player, the game proceeds in a clockwise direction.

On your turn:

1. Determine if a Scoring phase is triggered.
2. Choose a Meadow tile from the Signpost Path and place it.
3. Claim any Rock tiles you may have earned.
4. Move the Signpost to the next Path.

1) Signpost — When is a Scoring triggered?

The Signpost marks the Signpost Path.

If at the beginning of your turn there are fewer than two (0 or 1) Meadow tiles left in the Signpost Path on the Hiking Map, a Scoring phase is triggered.

With 2 players a Scoring phase is triggered if there are two or fewer (0, 1, or 2) Meadow tiles left in the Signpost Path. The Scoring phase is described in detail below.

2) Signpost Path — Which Meadow tile may I choose?

Choose a Meadow tile from the Signpost Path on the Hiking Map and place it on your Mountain board, respecting all placement rules.

NOTE: If you cannot legally place any of the Meadow tiles, you must skip this step of your turn.

In the Solo game and with 3 players you also use the diagonals as Signpost Paths.

Players who received a Rock tile at the start of the game must place it on their Mountain board along with their Meadow tile on their first turn.

If you want to test a Meadow tile on your Mountain board, mark its position in the Signpost Path with the Compass. That way you can easily find it again if you want to choose another tile.

Use the markers on the border of the Hiking Map to see when it will be your turn again. In the 3 and 4-player game it is the start player's turn at the single-arrow marker, the second player's turn at the double-arrow marker, the third player's turn at the triple-arrow marker, the fourth player's turn at the quadruple-arrow marker. In a 2-player game, it is the start player's turn at the odd markers and the second player's turn at the even markers.

3) Rock Tiles — What happens if I place Holes side by side?

If the Hole (or Holes) of a newly placed Meadow tile is horizontally and/or vertically adjacent to at least one other Hole, it is called a Group. When you create or expand a Group, take one Rock tile of the appropriate size from the supply and immediately place it on your Mountain board.

The size of the Rock tile is dependent on the number of Holes in the Group. For 2/3/4/5+ adjacent Holes, take a 1/2/3/4 space Rock tile. Both Holes with snow and cleared Burrows count towards the number of Holes in a Group. Burrows with a Marmot do not count as Holes.

If there are more than 5 Holes in your Group after expanding it, you still only take one 4-space Rock tile.

You may always choose to take one smaller Rock tile instead. You may not split a bigger Rock tile into multiple smaller ones.

Example: Niki places the Meadow tile on her Mountain board in a way that she creates a Group with 4 Holes. She may take one 3-space Rock tile from the supply. She chooses to take a 2-space Rock tile instead and places it immediately to close a gap.

Some of the Meadow tiles have 2 Holes. If you expand a single Group you take one Rock tile. If you expand 2 separate Groups you take 2 Rock tiles.

The number of Rock tiles is considered to be unlimited. If a specific size is not available, use multiple smaller Rock tiles to form that shape. The 4-space Rock tile is only available in square shape. In the rare event that all 1-space Rock tiles have been claimed, please improvise.

Example: By placing the Meadow tile with 2 Holes here, Eva expands 2 Groups simultaneously and takes 2 Rock tiles from the supply. She places them on her Mountain board immediately.

4) Move On — What am I doing at the end of my turn?

At the end of your turn, move the Signpost to the next Path in a clockwise direction.

Scoring

How do I get the Hiking Pins?

If there are fewer than two (0 or 1) Meadow tile(s) in the Signpost Path of the Hiking Map at the beginning of your turn, a Scoring phase is triggered. With 2 players, a Scoring phase is triggered if there are two or fewer (0, 1, or 2) Meadow tiles left in the Signpost Path.

The active player takes a Picnic (Hiking Pin on the other side) as compensation because they do not get a turn before Scoring. The Picnic counts as 2 additional points during Scoring.

Count the fully covered rows starting from the bottom up to the first incomplete row. NOTE: Burrows already count as covered spaces. Each fully covered row is worth 10 points.

Add the covered spaces of the first incomplete row. Each covered space in that row is worth 1 point.

Note: Fully covered rows above the first incomplete row do not count in the Scoring!

If you chose to play with a horizontal orientation, you count the fully covered columns from left to right.

Finally, add all your cleared Burrows independent of their position on your Mountain board. Each cleared Burrow is worth 1 point.

The player with the most points wins the Scoring phase. They take the Picnic tile from the active player and turn the Hiking Pin side face up. In the case of a tie, the tied player who is furthest counter-clockwise from the active player wins the Hiking Pin.

The winner must place Marmots on top of all their cleared Burrows.

Example: Giulia is the active player as a Scoring is triggered and therefore she takes a Picnic. Giulia has 2 fully covered rows and an incomplete row with 8 covered spaces. The fully covered row above the incomplete row does not count. She has 3 cleared Burrows on her Mountain board. In total Giulia has 2 + 20 + 8 + 3 = 33 points. She has the most points and wins the Scoring. She turns the Picnic to the Hiking Pin side and places Marmots on top of all cleared Burrows.

Refill

When do we refill Meadow tiles?

After the Scoring phase and provided no one has won the game, randomly draw Meadow tiles from the box to refill the empty spaces on the Hiking Map. The active player whose turn was interrupted by the Scoring phase then proceeds with their turn and chooses a Meadow tile.

Game End

Who won?

The first player who earns her second Hiking Pin wins the game! Depending on player count and Scoring results, the game will end after 2 to 5 Scoring phases.

Expert Variant

How can I refill without randomness?

If you do not want any randomness when refilling the Hiking Map with Meadow tiles, follow these rules: Build a queue with Meadow tiles next to the Hiking Map. The corner of the start space marks the beginning of the queue. Refill the empty spaces starting top left in the start space to bottom right with the Meadow tiles from the queue. Slide the remaining tiles to the corner and refill the queue.

There should always be 20 Meadow tiles in the queue.

Solo Rules

What changes?

In the Solo game, the Signpost will make 1 complete circuit of the Hiking Map. You need to fully cover the rows on your Mountain board in the correct order as quickly as possible as the points earned decrease with each turn. Skillfully place the maximum of 20 Meadow tiles to master the game. Try out the campaign for an even bigger challenge.

Set-up (Solo Game)

What do I need to prepare?

Place the Hiking Map with the 1/3-player side face up in the center of the table. Fill the spaces with 25 random Meadow tiles and return the rest to the box — they will not be used unless you play a campaign (see Campaign rules). Place the Rock tiles and the Marmots in the common supply. Take a Mountain board of your choice.

Keep pen and paper close to write down your points.

Game Flow (Solo Game)

What am I doing?

The turns in the Solo game are the same as in the Multiplayer game with the exceptions that there are no Scoring phases and the Hiking Map is never refilled. On your turn you take a Meadow tile, if available, from the Signpost Path.

Whenever you move the Signpost next to a Path where there are no Meadow tiles left, simply skip this turn and move the Signpost one step further. This still counts as 1 of your maximum 24 turns. In the Solo game you also use the diagonals as Signpost Paths.

Points (Solo Game)

What's the best way to place?

As soon as you fully cover the first row on the bottom of your Mountain board, write down the points noted in the Hiking Map border of the Signpost Path. Write down the points again when you have fully covered the second row. Continue to note your points whenever you fully cover subsequent rows. It is possible to fully cover multiple rows in a turn. In that case just write the points down multiple times.

At the end of the game, tally the points you recorded and add 1 point for each cleared Burrow present on your Mountain board.

Example: With this Meadow tile Eva fully covers 2 rows (the third and the fourth) at the same time. She notes 2 x 16 = 32 points for this turn.

Game End (Solo Game)

How long do I keep playing?

The game ends either as soon as there are only 5 Meadow tiles left on the Hiking Map or after 24 turns, whichever occurs first.

Point Objective

How well did I play?

A total of 140 points is a good game. Earning 150 points is an extraordinary achievement.

Campaign

Bigger challenge needed?

Shuffle all the Meadow tiles before your first game and create 4 piles with 25 Meadow tiles each. Play 4 games with 4 different Mountain boards. The point objective for the campaign is 600 points.

Credits

Designer: Uwe Rosenberg. Illustrator: Andrea Boekhoff. Graphics: Martin Kleinke. Realisation: Julian Steindorfer, Roman Rybiczka. Translation: Garry Rice, Roman Rybiczka, T.R. Knight.

© 2018 Edition Spielwiese, Kopernikusstr. 24, D-10245 Berlin — www.edition-spielwiese.de

Stronghold Games edition. Reproduction or publication of the manual, the playing material, or the illustrations is permitted only with prior permission.

Spring Meadow is the third game in the Puzzle-Trilogy, following Cottage Garden and Indian Summer.