Twisted Trumpets Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal
• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay
  • Perform Two Actions
    • Draw a Basic Tile
    • Buy a Premium Tile
    • Place a Tile
    • King's Favor Effects
    • Pass
  • Claim Royal Decrees
    • Royal Decree Clarifications
  • Check for Game End
• Scoring
  • Pipe Length
  • Flag Collection
  • Birds and Notes
  • Royal Decrees
  • Queen's Plans
  • Penalties
• Tally Scores
• Scoring Example

Goal

In Twisted Trumpets, players aim to build the best trumpet by strategically drawing and placing pipe tiles. These tiles feature accessories like flags, birds, and notes that help complete private Queen's Plans, achieve public Royal Decrees, and ultimately score points. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins!

Components

• Main Board
• 1st Player Token
• Player Boards x4
• Basic Tiles x44
• Premium Tiles x30 (gold-embellished corners)
• Starting Tiles x20 (5 tiles in 4 colors)
• Queen's Plan cards
• Royal Decree cards
• Player Aid Cards x4
• Player Discs x12 (3 discs in 4 colors)
• Score Pad
• King's Favor Tokens x12

Setup

1. Place the Main Board in the center of the playing area.
2. Separate the Starting Tiles, Basic Tiles, and Premium Tiles.
3. Remove Basic and Premium tiles based on number of players:
   • 4 Players: Do not remove any tiles.
   • 3 Players: Remove tiles with four dots at the bottom.
   • 2 Players: Remove tiles with three or four dots at the bottom.
4. Shuffle the remaining Basic Tiles facedown to form one or more Basic Tile Stacks. Place these stacks within easy reach of all players. Leave space for a Discard Stack.
5. Shuffle the Premium Tiles facedown and place them near the bottom-right corner of the Main Board to form the Premium Tile Stack.
6. Reveal the top four Premium Tiles from the Premium Tile Stack and place one faceup on each of the gold-outlined spaces on the Main Board. This is the Premium Tile Market.
7. Shuffle the Queen's Plan cards and place the deck facedown within reach of all players.
8. Shuffle the Royal Decree cards, draw three, and place them faceup on the designated spaces on the Main Board. Return the remaining Royal Decree cards to the game box; they will not be used this game.

Each player does the following:

• A. Select a Player Board and place it in front of you.
• B. Take all three Player Discs matching your chosen player board's color and place them near your Player Board.
• C. Take the five Starting Tiles with backs matching your player board's color. This is your starting hand. Keep your hand of tiles hidden from other players. There is no hand size limit.
• D. Take one of each of the three different King's Favor tokens and place them in the designated slots on your Player Board, gold side up.
• E. Draw a starting Queen's Plan card. Keep your Queen's Plans hidden from other players.
• F. Take a Player Aid card.
• G. The First Player is the person who most recently played a musical instrument (or chosen randomly). They take the First Player Marker.

Gameplay

Starting with the First Player, play proceeds clockwise around the table until the end of the game is triggered. Once triggered, players finish the current round and then complete one final round. After this final round, proceed to Scoring.

On your turn, perform the following steps in order: 1) Perform Two Actions, 2) Claim Royal Decrees, 3) Check for Game End.

Perform Two Actions

On your turn, you may perform two actions. You may choose to perform the same action twice. The available actions are: Draw a Basic Tile, Buy a Premium Tile, Place a Tile, Pass.

Draw a Basic Tile

Take the top tile from the Basic Tile Stack and add it to your hand. There is no hand size limit.

If all Basic Tile Stacks are empty, shuffle the tiles in the Discard Stack and place them facedown to form new Basic Tile Stacks.

Buy a Premium Tile

To buy a Premium Tile, discard the number of Basic or Starting Tiles from your hand equal to the number of tiles shown below the desired tile in the Premium Tile Market. Alternatively, you may discard one Basic or Starting Tile from your hand to take the top tile from the Premium Tile Stack.

Place discarded tiles faceup onto a Discard Stack, then take the purchased tile and add it to your hand.

At the end of your turn, slide the remaining Premium Tiles in the market to the left to fill any empty spaces. Then draw tiles from the top of the Premium Tile Stack and place them faceup to fill in the empty slots.

Place a Tile

Take one tile from your hand and place it in an empty grid square on your Player Board following these rules:

• At least one end of the pipe you place must connect to a pipe already on your trumpet.
• You may rotate the tile to any orientation before placing it.
• When placing a Premium Tile, you may place them front-side up or back-side up (every Premium Tile has a bell on the back).

NOTE: Because tiles can be oriented in any direction, you may have birds hanging upside down or flags hanging upwards!

Completed Pipes. It's important to try to have a complete trumpet by the end of the game. A pipe segment that ends in a bell is considered a "completed pipe" that will score points at the end of the game based on its length. Pipes that do not end in a bell will score minus 3 points per end with an open pipe (see Scoring section for details).

NOTE: In rare circumstances, you may inadvertently close your trumpet early and not have a valid placement. If this happens, you may spend an action to discard a tile from your player board to open your trumpet to a valid placement.

King's Favors. If you place a tile on a square that contains a closed King's Favor scroll, you must immediately resolve the effect on one of the three King's Favor tokens on your board.

After resolving a King's Favor effect, either flip the tile over if it was your first time using it, indicated by a green arrow in the corner, or discard it from your Player Board if the tile shows a red "X" in the corner.

King's Favors are bonus actions and do not count as one of your two actions. If a King's Favor is triggered during the first action of your turn, you must resolve it completely before taking your second action.

NOTE: Additional actions earned from a King's Favor may allow you to place a tile that triggers additional King's Favors. Setting up a combo like this is a great strategy!

King's Favor Effects

There are three King's Favor tokens, each with a Gold Side Up (First Use) effect and a Grey Side Up (Second Use) effect:

Token	Gold Side Up (First Use)	Grey Side Up (Second Use)
Extra actions	Perform two additional actions. This gives you a total of 4 actions this turn.	Perform one additional action. This gives you a total of 3 actions this turn.
Queen's Plans	Draw two Queen's Plan cards, discard one. You may discard one of the newly drawn cards or one you already had.	Draw one Queen's Plan card.
Premium Tile	Buy a Premium Tile with a three-tile discount, allowing you to take any Premium Tile for free.	Buy a Premium Tile with a two-tile discount. Pay extra tiles from your hand if needed.

Pass

In rare circumstances, you may choose to pass and forgo performing one or both of your actions. Even if you pass, you must still proceed with the remaining steps of your turn: Claim Royal Decrees and Check for Game End.

Claim Royal Decrees

After you've completed your two actions, check to see if you've met the criteria for any Royal Decree. If so, for each decree that you've achieved, place one of your Player Discs onto the leftmost available circle slot on that card.

Each slot is available to everyone for a full round, so if another player has already claimed that slot during this round, stack your disc on top of theirs.

You will earn the points listed below the slots you occupy at the end of the game.

Example: On her turn, Clora meets the criteria for both 'Bell Boss' and 'Well Represented'. Arturo had claimed the 'Bell Boss' slot earlier this round. Therefore, Clora places her Player Disc on top of Arturo's. They will both score 8 points at the end of the game. Patti had previously claimed the first slot on 'Well Represented' in a prior round, so Clora now places her Player Disc in the next available slot, worth 3 points at the end of the game.

NOTE: The last (third) slot on a decree is always available to claim. Meaning, in a 4-player game, the last player to achieve a specific Royal Decree can always place their disc on the last slot no matter when they accomplish it.

Royal Decree Clarifications

• You do not lose previously claimed Royal Decrees, even if you no longer meet the criteria.
• You cannot claim the same Royal Decree more than once in a game.

Check for Game End

The end of the game is triggered when any player has filled all but 3 of the grid squares on their player board. The 3 empty squares do not need to be adjacent to each other.

If the end of the game is triggered, that player announces it to the rest of the table. Players finish the current round and then complete one more final round. Then move on to Scoring.

Scoring

At the end of the game players evaluate their skillfully constructed horns and score points based on the criteria below.

Pipe Length

The Royal Court likes loud and eccentric things. The longer and twistier your trumpet, the better!

Earn points for the length of each of your completed pipes by counting tiles starting at each bell and following the path of the pipe back to your player character. Each tile along the path is worth 1 point and tiles with twisted pipes are worth 2 points.

Some things to keep in mind when scoring pipes:

• If there are multiple paths that can be counted from a bell back to your character, you should only score the path made up of the fewest tiles. If more than one path has an equal number of tiles, you may choose which path to count (hint: choose the path with more twists!).
• A bell in the middle of the pipe is referred to as a mid-pipe bell and can be used to start scoring a new length of pipe just like a normal pipe-end bell. Mid-pipe bells are a bit better though, because they allow you to continue building your trumpet without closing off that pipe end.

Flag Collection

The flags hanging from the pipes of your trumpet represent the different houses of the royal court. The more you represent a house, the better you'll score.

Score as follows for each flag color (the printed text reads "for each four color"; "flag" is the evident intent, as the scoring example scores per flag color):

• One of a kind: 1 point
• Two of a kind: 2 points
• Three of a kind: 4 points
• Four of a kind: 7 points
• Five of a kind: 11 points
• Six or more of a kind: 16 points

Birds and Notes

The Queen likes to keep her birds happy, and they are happiest when they hear a pleasing melody.

For each bird on your trumpet, score 1 point for each note on the tiles adjacent to the bird, including diagonally. A note that is adjacent to multiple birds may be counted more than once.

(In the printed example, the bird scores 13 points for the 13 notes on the tiles surrounding it.)

Royal Decrees

How quickly were you able to complete the Royal Decrees?

Score the points listed under the position of each of your Player Discs on Royal Decree cards.

Queen's Plans

The Queen privately slipped you some secret objectives during the game that she suspects will give you an edge.

Reveal your Queen's Plan cards and score them according to how well your trumpet meets the criteria on the card.

NOTE: When scoring Royal Decrees and Queen's Plan cards that require bells to point in certain directions, diagonal bells can count as either of the two directions they're angled between for each card you score.

Penalties

It is important to create a completed trumpet to fully appease the Royal Family!

Subtract 3 points for every pipe on your trumpet that doesn't end in a bell.

Tally Scores

Use the included score sheets to tally your scores. The player who has the most points wins the game and is the new Royal Bugler!

1. If there is a tie, the player with the highest Royal Decree score is the winner.
2. If there is still a tie, the player with the highest Queen's Plans score is the winner.
3. In the unlikely event that there is still a tie, the tied players share the victory or may play again to determine the ultimate winner!

Scoring Example

1. Completed Pipe Length. Count the tiles starting from each bell (A, B, C, and D) back to the player character, earning 1 point per tile.
   • A scores 5 points.
   • B scores 5 points.
   • C scores 8 points. This pipe branches off in two directions, both of which are composed of an equal number of tiles. You should choose the path with the twisted pipe (twisted pipes are worth 1 extra point).
   • D scores 7 points. The path with the fewest tiles unfortunately does not include the twisted pipe, so we can't count it here.
2. Flag Collection.
   • 3 Pink flags: 4 points.
   • 2 Blue Flags: 2 points.
   • 1 Green Flag: 1 point.
   • 1 White Flag: 1 point.
3. Bird and Notes. Count the number of notes on the tiles adjacent to each bird (3a and 3b).
   • 3a has 8 notes around it for 8 points.
   • 3b has 3 notes around it for 3 points.
4. Royal Decrees. Score the points below your player token for each Royal Decree card.
   • Noteworthy: 8 points.
   • Row Row Row Your Horn: 3 points.
   • Flag Specialist: 0 points.
5. Queen's Plans Cards.
   • Blow Back: 6 points. There are 2 bells facing the character because the diagonal bell in the bottom corner can count as pointing both left and down.
   • Surround Sound: 4 points. There are 8 notes on tiles along the outside edge of the player board. Divide by two to arrive at 4 points.

TOTAL POINTS: 62