Tofu Shifu
Tofu Shifu Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 80 Tofu Production Cards
- 14 Town Objective Cards
- 56 Tofu Dish Tokens: 16 Soymilk, 16 Silken Tofu, 12 Tofu, 12 Dried Tofu
- 80 Coins
- 36 Hat Tokens: 9 Chef Hat, 9 Waiter Hat, 9 Cashier Hat, 9 Master Hat
- 40 Customer Tiles
- 1 Town Map
- 1 Tile Bag
- 4 Player Aid Cards
- 1 Small Stone Mill
Player Components
There are 4 sets of player components.
- 1 Shifu Marker
- 4 Player Objective Cards
- 1 Player Board
- 1 Player Color Indicator
Setup
Around the Town
- Stack all Town Objective Cards by their coin value, lower on top. Place them to the left of the Tofu banner.
- Place all Dish, Hat and Coin tokens in separate piles beside the Town map as reserve.
- Shuffle all Production cards into a deck. Place them to the left of the Market banner.
- Draw 5 Production cards and place them face up to the right of the Market banner.
- Randomly draw Town Objective cards equal to the player count and place them face up to the right of the Tofu banner. Return the rest to the box.
- Place all customer tiles into the tile bag. Place the bag near the building.
Player Setup
- Deal 4 Production cards to each player.
- Give each player a Soymilk and a Silken Tofu on 8-A and a Master Hat on 8-B.
- Give each player a matching set of Player Objective Cards.
- Give each player a Shifu Marker and place it on the Rest board space.
- The First Player. The player who enjoyed Tofu most recently becomes the first player. Give each player coins in clockwise order: 1st Player 1 Coin, 2nd Player 2 Coins, 3rd Player 2 Coins, 4th Player 3 Coins.
Component Overview
Town Objective card:
- Objective Requirement.
- Bonus Power.
Production card: 3. Upgrade Cost and Bonus Type — pay resources shown to the left of the upgrade icon for the bonus to the right of it. 4. Hat Type — discard this card to pay a cost of this hat type. 5. Objective Requirement — requirement to complete this card as an Objective.
Customer tiles: 6. Customers can be served Dishes that they order. 7. Some customers give a coin when they leave the table.
Board layout: 8. Dish Upgrades — they provide extra Dish tokens during Production. 9. Hat Upgrades — they provide extra Hat tokens during Rest. 10. Lantern Upgrades — they unlock new tables. 11. Customer Zone — where Customer Tiles are placed. 12. Rest Zone — where cards are discarded to. 13. Restaurant Objectives — where Objective cards are placed.
Play a Turn
Game Flow
Starting with the first player, players take turns in clockwise order. During a player's turn, they must perform one Shifu Action. Additionally if the player meets the conditions for either a Town Objective or a Player Objective, they may complete the corresponding card by flipping it over.
Before each of the first player's rounds, if any player has completed 8 or more Objectives, the game ends.
Shifu Action
Move your Shifu Marker to a board space, pay its Hat cost, then take the corresponding board space action.
1. Move your Shifu Marker. You must move to a different board space that you can afford. There are 9 board spaces available to each player. 8 of them — Upgrade / Produce / Seat / Serve / Checkout / Hire / Set Objective / Copy — are on the Town map, while Rest is on the player board.
Hat cost Signposts on Boardspaces. There are 2 Signposts on each board space showing hat costs. Each board space can hold a maximum of 2 Shifu markers. To move to a board space without another Shifu marker, pay the lower cost. Otherwise, pay the higher cost.
Exceptions:
- The Copy board space has only one signpost and can only hold one Shifu marker.
- The Rest board space is player-exclusive and has no cost.
2. Pay the Hat Cost. To pay one Hat cost, spend a Hat token to the reserve piles, or discard a card to your Rest zone.
A token or card of the Master Hat type can be used for any type of hat cost. A token or card of the Chef/Waiter/Cashier types can be used for either their own types of hat cost, or for the Apprentice hat cost. The Apprentice Hat can only be used to pay for the Apprentice hat cost.
Take the Board Space Action
Iron Wok (Upgrade). Play a card from your hand as an Upgrade card, paying its cost. You must be able to afford the upgrade cost.
The upgrade cost and its benefits are shown on the upgrade flag part of the production card. Cyan flags show Dish upgrades, deep blue flags show Lantern upgrades, and light brown flags show Hat upgrades.
Example: a Silken Tofu upgrade costs a Chef Hat, a Soymilk and 2 Coins.
Stone Mill (Produce). Take Dish tokens from the reserve, adding to your board. Each cyan flag on the board and on the upgrade cards produces a Dish token. A flag with an unsold Dish token does not produce an extra one. After production, Dish tokens on the board always match the cyan flags.
Example: a Silken Tofu and a Tofu are produced, while the Soymilk misses the production.
Chopsticks (Seat). Draw 2 Customer Tiles from the Tile Bag. You may spend a maximum of 3 extra Waiter Hats to draw 2 extra tiles per extra hat spent.
Then, place any of the tiles drawn into the customer zone in any order. Each table can hold a maximum of 2 customers. Return unplaced customer tiles to the tile bag.
Only one table is available to each player at the start of the game. Each Lantern upgrade unlocks a new table, for a maximum of 4.
Carrying Pole (Serve). Sell Dish tokens to customers. In addition, you may sell 1 Dish token to the market.
Take coins as the prices shown: 1 coin per Soymilk, 2 coins per Silken Tofu, 3 coins per Tofu, 4 coins per Dried Tofu.
Dish tokens sold to a customer are kept on the tile. A customer only accepts one of each Dish they order. The Dish token sold to the Market can be of any type, but only one can be sold per Serve action.
Example: a Silken Tofu and a Tofu are served to Customers, and a Soymilk is sold to the Market, gaining 2+3+1=6 coins.
Abacus (Checkout). Clean up any number of tables, returning customer tiles to the tile bag and dish tokens to the reserve.
You may clean up a table without fully serving all orders. When a customer with a coin in hand leaves the table, you gain 1 coin. When a table is cleaned up, if it is served enough Dishes to match the Requirement of a Restaurant Objective, you may complete that Objective by flipping it over (see Set Objective).
Hiring Fair (Hire). Gain a Production card from the Market area for free, adding to your Rest zone.
Shift the remaining Production cards right to fill the gap, then deal a new Production card to the leftmost space.
Plaque (Set Objective). Play a Production card as a Restaurant Objective to the Restaurant Objective zone face up.
You may complete this Objective by flipping it over when a table is cleaned up (see Checkout).
To meet the requirement, a table must have each of the Dish tokens shown on the Objective card been served to either customer.
Only one Objective can be completed per table, but you may complete multiple Objectives per Abacus (Checkout).
Leaf Fan (Copy). Copy the board space action occupied by another player's Shifu Marker.
The Copy board space has only 1 signpost to hold 1 Shifu Marker.
When the Seat action is copied, you cannot use 2 Apprentice Hats in place of a Waiter Hat to get the 2 extra customer tiles.
Herbal Tea (Rest). The Rest action consists of 3 steps: Refill hats, Buy cards, Refill hand.
Refill hats. Each light brown flag on the board and on the upgrade cards refills a Hat token. A flag with an unused Hat token does not produce an extra one. After the refill, Hat tokens on the board always match the light brown flags.
Example: a Cashier and a Chef token is refilled.
Buy production cards. Spend coins to buy Production cards from the market to your Rest zone. The price for a card is shown on the bottom. You can buy any number of cards.
Then shift the remaining Production cards right to fill the gap, and deal new Production cards to fill all empty spaces.
Refill hand. Return all cards in the Rest zone to your hand.
You can keep a maximum of 6 cards in your hand. You must put the excess cards back to the Rest Zone. You may choose which cards to keep.
Town & Player Objectives
Town Objective cards and Player Objective cards can be completed during a player's turn, as long as their requirements are met.
Completed Objectives are flipped to the back side and placed in the player's Restaurant Objectives zone.
Town Objectives also provide bonus powers to the players who complete them. Follow the instruction text on the card for specifics.
Meet the Requirement of Town and Player Objectives
To meet the requirement of a Town/Player Objective, you must complete the matching upgrades shown on the Objective card.
Some Objectives require Coins to complete. You must pay the coins as you complete them.
Player Objectives are exclusive to each player. Each player can only take at most 1 Town Objective card each turn.
Game End & Scoring
Once a player has completed 8 or more Objectives, the game ends after each player has had the same amount of turns.
The player with the most completed Objective cards wins the game!
Tie Breakers
In case of a tie, the player with more coins wins the game. If there's still a tie, the player with more remaining tokens (Dish + Hats) wins the game.
If there's still a tie, the players share the victory!
How Tofu Is Made
Stone Mill. The stone mill consists of two grinding discs, with a feed hole on the upper disc. After soybeans are poured in, the upper disc is rotated, grinding the beans into pulp.
Cotton Filter. A finely woven cotton cloth is used as the filtering tool. The ground soy milk is poured into the cloth, and by tying the four corners of the cloth, the soy milk is allowed to drip naturally, separating the smooth soy milk (Soymilk) from the coarse bean residue.
Boiling and Coagulation. The filtered soy milk is poured into an iron pot, then put on a low heat while stirring until boils. After cooling slightly, a coagulant is slowly added and gently stirred, causing the soy milk to gradually coagulate into curds (Silken Tofu).
Pressing Tofu. The curds (silken tofu) are poured into a mold lined with filter cloth, neatly wrapped, covered with a wooden board, and weighted. As pressure increases, moisture is squeezed out. After some time, the cloth is unwrapped, and tofu takes shape.
Dried tofu is a reprocessed tofu product. Firm tofu is cut into pieces, simmered in brine for flavor, pressed to remove moisture, and air-dried or baked for a firmer texture. It comes in flavors like five-spice, spicy, or smoked, and can be eaten as a snack or used in dishes.