Urban Sketchers Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Set Up
• Goal of the Game
• Cards and Personal Boards
• Playing the Game
• Choose a Die for an Action
• Actions
  • Travel
  • Sketch
  • Funding
  • Supply
  • Publish
• Game Pieces
  • Opportunity Tiles
  • Improvement Tiles
  • Bonus Tiles
  • Theme Tiles
• End of the Game and Determine Victory
• Examples
  • Travel
  • Sketch
  • Publish
  • Funding
  • Supply
• Round Structure Reference
  • 1) Roll Dice
  • 2) Take Actions
  • 3) End of Round
  • Track Rewards
  • Opportunity Tiles Reference
  • Improvement Tiles Reference

Components

• 9 dice (5 white and 4 in different colors)
• 64 resource tokens (16 of each type)
• 1 central board
• 65 travel cards
• 1 "Total published sketchbooks" token
• 1 "First player" token
• 6 dice tiles
• 1 travel board (in 2 pieces)
• 4 large theme tiles
• 20 improvement tiles
• 56 theme tiles
• 30 bonus tiles
• 12 opportunity tiles
• 38 bill tokens with values of 1, 5, and 20
• 1 cloth bag

Every player also has (4 sets):

• 1 personal board
• 3 wooden discs
• 1 traveler meeple
• 1 +50/+100 points tile

Set Up

1. Place the central board and the travel board in the center of the table, next to each other.
2. Randomly place the dice tiles, one in each of the assigned spaces on the central board. In games with fewer than four or three players, leave the indicated spaces empty. Return any unused tiles to the box.
3. Shuffle the four large theme tiles and place one in each designated space on the central board.
4. Place all the bonus tiles in the cloth bag, mix them thoroughly, then draw five to place in their assigned spaces on the central board. Keep the bag close to the central board.
5. Sort the improvement tiles by type and place each pile in the space assigned to it on the central board.
6. Sort the theme tiles by type and place them next to the central board.
7. Prepare the set of dice to be used in the game, depending on the number of players. Always use the four dice of color and add the following number of white dice:
   • For a two-player game, add one white die and return the rest to the box.
   • In a three-player game, add three white dice and leave the remaining two in the box.
   • In a four-player game, use all the dice.
8. Place the "Total published sketchbooks" token on the 0 space of its track.
9. Give each player a personal board and all the pieces of their corresponding color. Each player places a disc in the 0 space on all three tracks (Victory points, Prestige and Published sketchbooks track). Finally, players place an opportunity tile of the appropriate type in each space on their personal board.
10. Shuffle the deck of travel cards. Place one face-up card in each space on the travel board. Then, give each player five cards. Keep the deck of cards close to the travel board.
11. Each player may discard any number of cards from their hand and immediately receive all the resources printed on those cards, up to their Backpack capacity of 12. Players keep the cards they did not discard in their hands.

Goal of the Game

In Urban Sketchers, players compete to publish travel sketchbooks. Publishing grants you victory points, money, and prestige, and also advances the "Total published sketchbooks" token. The game ends when this token reaches a specific space on its track, depending on the number of players. Keep this in mind at all times!

When the game ends, the player with the most victory points wins.

Every drawing counts—victory is not necessarily determined by who published the most sketchbooks.

Cards and Personal Boards

In Urban Sketchers, cards represent the drawings that will fill your sketchbook. Each card has the following information beside its illustration:

A) Cost: These are the resources required to sketch the card into one of your sketchbooks.

Important: Some cards have one of the necessary resources listed on the white bar to the left of the card. This icon still counts as part of the cost but becomes a discount for future cards in that sketchbook once the card is played.

B) Bonus: When you sketch a card with this icon, you may choose a bonus tile from those available on the central board to improve one of your sketchbooks.

C) Región: Some cards belong to a region. The more cards from the same region you play consecutively in a sketchbook, the more Prestige you earn when you publish it. The three regions are Africa, America, and Asia.

D) Theme: When publishing a sketchbook, you gain theme tiles according to the icons in the lower-left corner of each card. The four themes are Urban Landscape, Gastronomy, Monuments, and Folklore.

Each player has their own personal board for managing the various resources and additional tiles earned during the game:

E) The Sketchbooks: Each player can work on two sketchbooks at the same time. Once a sketchbook is published, its space becomes available again. Each sketchbook can hold up to six cards and three bonus tiles.

F) The Backpack: There are 12 spaces to store resources. If you acquire more resources than you can store, you may discard older ones to make space for new ones.

G) Opportunity tiles and improvement tiles: At the start of the game, each player places three opportunity tiles face up on their board. There is also space for up to four improvement tiles, which are acquired during play. See Section 9 to learn how these tiles work.

H) Game Aid: A reference on your board provides a reminder of the steps for a Publish action—one of the key actions in the game.

Playing the Game

Urban Sketchers is played over an undefined number of rounds until the end-game condition is triggered. Each round consists of the following three steps, performed in order:

1. Roll the dice: The First player rolls all dice, always the four dice of color plus a number of white dice depending on the number of players: one for two players, three for three players, and five for four players.

2. Take actions: In turn order (clockwise from the First player), each player selects one die and places it on the central board to choose and perform an action. Players continue taking turns until each has used two dice and performed two actions.

3. End of round: Once there is only one die remaining, the round ends. Check whether the end-of-game condition has been met. If not, pass the First player token to the next player clockwise and start a new round.

Choose a Die for an Action

On your turn, you must choose a die and place it on the central board to perform one of the game's five available actions. Four actions are color-coded, and one is neutral. The color-coded actions have specific spaces for each player.

• To perform a color-coded action, choose a die of the matching color or a white die and place it in your player-specific space for that action. If your space is already occupied, you cannot perform that action again this round.

If the space is empty, place your die and check if the action has a money cost:

• Using a die that matches the action's color is always free.
• Using a white die requires you to pay money.

If another player has already performed the same action using the matching colored die, you must pay them money equal to the difference between the two die values (1 money per point), regardless of which die is higher.

If no player has taken that action yet, or they used a white die, pay the difference to the bank based on the die tile next to the action spaces.

If you cannot pay the cost, you cannot perform the action (unless you use an opportunity tile—see Section 9.1).

Important: You may only use a die of the matching color or a white die for a color-coded action. If neither is available, you cannot take that action this round.

Example 01: You want to travel (red action), but the Black player has already used the red die this turn. You choose the white die closest in value to the 4 shown on the red die (e.g., a 3) and pay 1 money to the Black player to take the action.

• The Supply action works differently: It has no associated color and does not have player-specific spaces. Instead, there are three, four, or five spaces available, depending on the number of players. Each space is associated with a random value determined by the dice tile placed above it. Any player may place any die in an empty supply space to receive the net difference between the die placed and the value shown on the tile above it.

This action is always free, and the color of the die does not matter—only the value does.

Example 02: It is your turn again, and you want to sketch (blue action) the cards you received in your previous action. However, the Black player has already used the blue die to collect resources with the Supply action (A).

If you use the remaining white die, you will have to pay four money to the bank due to the 4-point difference (the white die played by the Pink player is irrelevant here). Since that cost is too high, you choose to use the green die instead and take the Funding action to get money (B). You'll sketch next round!

Actions

The space in which you place your die determines the action you will perform. You can find detailed examples of each action at the end of this rulebook. Below is a summary of the five available actions and their effects.

Travel

Move your traveler around the travel board and collect cards to add to your sketchbooks later. You may move your traveler in any direction and change course mid-action as needed. You may also collect any cards in the spaces your traveler visits, including the starting space. You must pay one money for every space your traveler moves through and one money for every card you pick up. Passing through the same space multiple times requires payment each time. When you finish your turn, refill all empty spaces with new cards from the deck. If the deck is empty, reshuffle all the cards in the discard pile to form a new one.

There is no limit to the number of cards in your hand.

Sketch

Use the cards in your hand to sketch drawings into your sketchbooks.

Play each card one by one in sequence and overlapping them in the same sketchbook, ensuring that the white bar on the left side of each card remains visible. If it is the first card played in a sketchbook, place it next to the space designated for that sketchbook on the right side of your personal board.

To sketch a card, discard the resources depicted as the card's cost from your Backpack. You must also pay one money for every extra card you sketch this turn beyond the first, one money for the second card, two money for the third, and so on. This cost is tracked separately for each sketchbook, and is independent of the number of cards already sketched in the sketchbook in previous actions.

Some bonus tiles and cards offer discounts. The discount that a card provides is also part of its cost. Once played, however, it immediately becomes a discount for the next cards sketched on that particular sketchbook. Therefore, the order in which you sketch cards is very important. You may even sketch a card for free if you have enough discounts. Each sketchbook is independent, and discounts from one cannot be used to sketch in the other one.

You can sketch as many cards as you want in each sketchbook during the same action. However, keep in mind that a sketchbook cannot contain more than six cards and three bonus tiles.

Once you have sketched and paid for all the cards you want, choose a bonus tile for each bonus icon on the cards you sketched in this action. Choose a tile from the pool on the central board and place it in any sketchbook; it does not have to be the same sketchbook as the card. You cannot gain a bonus tile in a sketchbook that already has three, but you can choose to gain 1 money instead of a tile. Once you have chosen all the tiles, refill the empty spaces on the main board with new tiles from the bag.

Funding

Receive funding from your backers and supporters.

Gain 4 money from the bank, plus 1 money as royalties for each sketchbook published during the game so far.

Optionally, if you have theme tiles related to this action, you may also flip them to gain three money for each one (see Section 9.4 for more details).

Supply

Refill your Backpack with the necessary supplies.

You will receive a number of resources equal to the net difference between the die you place and the die tile above the action space. You may choose freely the type of each resource you receive, in any combination, as long as they are available in the reserve. Place the resources in your Backpack. Remember, your Backpack can hold a maximum of 12 resources, so you may have to discard some to make space for new ones.

Publish

Select the sketchbook you want to publish and follow these steps:

1. Gain Victory points depending on the number of cards in the sketchbook.

2. Gain money equal to the number of cards in the sketchbook.

3. Obtain all the theme tiles depicted in the cards, one for each icon. Place them face up beside your personal board.

4. Advance your disc one space on the Published sketchbooks track. Also, advance the Total published sketchbooks token one space.

5. Advance your disc on the Prestige Track by the number of spaces equal to the longest uninterrupted region streak in the sketchbook. If your disc passes the last space on the track, gain 5 money every time that happens instead.

   The streak must be of the same region and formed by consecutive cards, played one after the other. Any card without a region icon, or with a different icon, placed in between, breaks the streak.

   Example: a streak of 3 matching region icons is worth 3.

6. While advancing on the different tracks, you may earn extra bonuses:

   • Unflip an opportunity tile to its unused side.
   • Choose an improvement tile and place it on your personal board, or gain 3 money instead.
   • Gain 5 money.

7. Discard all cards and bonus tiles in the published sketchbook.

Don't forget to check which bonus tiles you have in your sketchbook and the benefits they provide when publishing it!

Game Pieces

Opportunity Tiles

Each player starts the game with three opportunity tiles face up on their personal board. These tokens can be flipped at any time during your turn to activate their effects.

Once flipped, an opportunity tile remains face down until another game effect allows you to unflip it. When that happens, the tile becomes available for use again.

The effects of each of the three opportunity tiles are as follows:

Wanderer: During a travel action (red), flip this tile to move your traveler to another space on the travel board at no cost.

Efficient: During a sketch action (blue), flip this tile to reduce the cost of a card you are sketching by any two resources of your choice.

Opportunist: Before placing a white die on an action space, flip this tile to ignore the placement cost. If another player would have received money from the action, they instead receive the full amount from the bank.

Improvement Tiles

You can gain improvement tiles by publishing sketchbooks and advancing on the Prestige or Published sketchbooks track. There are five types of improvement tiles, each with a basic and an advanced side. When you gain an improvement, you can either add a new one to your personal board (basic side) or flip an improvement you already have to its advanced side. If you earn more than one improvement at once, you may immediately place a new tile on its advanced side, but it counts as having earned two improvements. Alternatively, you may gain 3 money instead of taking an improvement tile.

Note that there are only four spaces for improvements on your personal board, so choose carefully!

Each improvement tile gives you an advantage during the game:

• Basic: Reduce the total cost of Travel actions by 2 money. Advanced: Reduce the total cost of Travel actions by 3 money.
• Basic: Always gain at least one bonus tile during the Sketch action, even if none of the cards you have sketched have a bonus icon. Advanced: Gain an additional bonus tile when you sketch.
• Basic: Advance 1 extra space on the Prestige track each time you publish. Advanced: Advance 2 extra spaces on the Prestige track each time you publish.
• Basic: Gain 3 additional money when you perform the Funding action. Advanced: Gain 3 additional money when you perform the Funding action and also choose one bonus tile to place in one of your sketchbooks.
• Basic: Gain 1 extra resource when performing the Supply action. Advanced: Gain 2 extra resources when performing the Supply action.

Bonus Tiles

Cards with the bonus icon allow you to earn a bonus tile when you sketch them in one of your sketchbooks. This is the most common way to obtain them, though not the only one.

When you gain a bonus tile, choose among the five displayed on the central board and place it on an empty space in any of your sketchbooks. If you gain multiple tiles, pick them all before refilling the central board from the bag. Alternatively, instead of choosing a tile, you may gain 1 money.

These bonus tiles can help you while creating the sketchbook because they provide discounts or give you benefits when publishing it. However, all bonus tiles assigned to a sketchbook are discarded when you publish it.

If at any time, there are no more tiles left in the bag, return all the discarded bonus tiles to it and mix them well.

The bonus tiles are:

• Discount of one resource in this sketchbook. (four variants, one per resource type)
• Your streak of Asia icons is considered one icon longer when publishing this sketchbook.
• Your streak of Africa icons is considered one icon longer when publishing this sketchbook.
• Your streak of America icons is considered one icon longer when publishing this sketchbook.
• Gain four additional money when publishing this sketchbook.
• Get an additional theme tile of the same type as one you are already getting from this sketchbook.
• This sketchbook is considered one card longer when calculating Victory points and money. If the sketchbook has more than six cards, you earn an extra 5 money for each additional card.

Theme Tiles

Some cards display theme icons. When you publish a sketchbook containing those cards, you receive a theme tile for each icon shown. These tiles are important at the end of the game, but they may also be used during the game.

At setup, four large theme tiles are placed in their assigned spaces on the central board, indicating how theme tiles can be used.

During your turn, you may flip two different theme tiles to gain the benefit displayed between them. Each tile can only be flipped once, but you may flip as many pairs as you wish. The available pairings are:

• Unflip an opportunity tile to its unused side.
• Choose a bonus tile from those displayed on the central board and place it in one of your sketchbooks.
• Advance one space on the Prestige track.

During a Funding action, you may flip matching theme tiles to gain three extra money per tile flipped.

Once flipped, theme tiles remain face down and cannot be used for the rest of the game, but they still count for end-game scoring.

End of the Game and Determine Victory

Each time you publish a sketchbook, you advance both your disc and the Total sketchbooks published token along the Published sketchbooks track.

While advancing your own disc grants bonuses, advancing the global token can trigger the end of the game.

The game ends when the Total published sketchbooks token reaches the designated space based on the player count: the 6th space for two players, the 9th space for three players, and the 12th space for four players.

Once this happens, finish the current round, then proceed to final scoring:

1. All players discard their unpublished sketchbooks and earn money as if they were published, but gain no Victory points, no theme tiles, and no Prestige.

2. Each player arranges their theme tiles and earns 7 Victory points for every complete set of four different theme tiles.

3. Determine the majority bonuses for each of the four themes. The player with the most tiles of the same theme earns 9 Victory points, the player with the second most earns 5 Victory points, and the player with the third most earns 2 Victory points.

   In case of a tie, add the Victory point values of the tied positions and divide evenly (rounded down). For example, if two players tie for first place, each player should earn 7 Victory points (nine plus five, divided by two), and the next player should earn 2. In a three-way tie, all three players should each earn 5 Victory points (nine plus five plus two, divided by three), and no other points are awarded.

4. Each player adds the value of the space their disc occupies on the Prestige track to their total Victory points.

5. Each player receives 1 Victory point for every group of five money and/or resources remaining on their personal boards.

The player with the most Victory points is the winner. In case of a tie, the winner is the player with the most theme tiles.

Examples

Travel

You want to visit the four Africa locations on the travel board so you can sketch them later. First, you decide to move clockwise to card A, then retrace your steps back to card B. Next, you flip your Wanderer Opportunity tile to move to card C at no additional cost. You continue moving up to card D, ending your trip there. You should pay eight money, four from the cards you collected and four for the steps taken (one to A, two back from A to B, and one from C to D).

However, you only pay six money because you have the Basic Red improvement tile on your personal board, which gives you a -2 discount on this action.

Sketch

You want to sketch three cards in your upper sketchbook. You start with card B, but since you don't have the needed resource in your Backpack, you flip your Efficient Opportunity tile (1) to reduce the cost by two resources. Since you already have a discount in this sketchbook (2), you end up paying nothing for this card. Next, you play card A, which benefits from the discount on the bonus tile and the discount on card B. You end up paying only one resource and two money.

For your third card, you play card C for no resource cost since you already have three discounts on that resource in this sketchbook. Since you played three cards in the same sketchbook, you must pay three money (0 + 1 + 2) to the bank. Normally, since none of the cards played had a bonus icon, you wouldn't receive a bonus tile. However, you have the basic blue improvement tile that grants you at least one bonus tile per Sketch action (3). You choose the extra money tile and add it to the same sketchbook to benefit from it when the time comes (4).

Publish

You decide your sketchbook is ready to publish. By doing so, you earn:

16 Victory points because the bonus tile (C) increases the total number of cards in the sketchbook from 5 to 6.

10 money: 5+1 cards (thanks to the (C) tile) and 4 more for the (B) tile.

3 advances on the Prestige track, 2 for the largest region icon streak plus 1 for the basic yellow Improvement tile (D), which grants an Improvement tile.

A total of 4 theme tiles: 2 Urban landscape, 1 Monument and a fourth granted by bonus tile (A), which can be chosen from among the two types.

1 advance in the Published sketchbooks track, which allows you to flip one of your Opportunity tiles (E).

Finally, advance the Total published sketchbooks token one space, and discard all five cards and all three bonus tiles from your personal board.

Funding

Since the Pink player has already used the green die, you can only use the green action with a white die. You don't have any money left, but thankfully, you still have the Opportunist tile ready (A). By flipping it, you avoid paying 2 money (they get them from the bank instead) when you place your die.

You also have a theme tile of the kind associated with this action, so you flip it to maximize the benefits of the action (B).

You earn 8 money in total, 4 from the action +1 from having a published sketchbook +3 from the theme tile you just flipped.

Supply

You need more supplies to continue sketching. The space with the best ratio is already taken, so your best move is to place the die showing a two below the "5" tile (A), which gives you a total of three resources. Fortunately, you have been improving this action, and you have the purple improvement tile on its advanced side (B). This means you end up with five resources: three from the die difference and two from the improvement. Now, you have to decide which combination of resources you want (C).

Round Structure Reference

1) Roll Dice

The First player rolls the 4 color dice + white dice depending on the number of players (2 players: 1 white die / 3 players: 3 white dice / 4 players: 5 white dice).

2) Take Actions

Each player takes two turns, alternating clockwise.

During each turn, a player chooses and uses one die to perform one action.

3) End of Round

When there is one die left to select:

• Check if game ends, based on the "Total published sketchbooks" token position (2 players: 6 / 3 players: 9 / 4 players: 12).
• If not, pass the First player token and begin a new round.

Track Rewards

Receive rewards from the spaces through which your markers advance:

• Unflip an opportunity tile to its unused side.
• Choose an improvement tile and place it on your personal board, or gain 3 money instead.
• Gain 5 money.

Opportunity Tiles Reference

Flip these tiles at any time during your turn to benefit from their effect.

Wanderer: During a travel action (red), flip this tile to move your traveler to another space on the travel board at no cost.

Efficient: During a sketch action (blue), flip this tile to reduce the cost of a card you are sketching by any two resources of your choice.

Opportunist: Before placing a white die on an action space, flip this tile to ignore the placement cost. If another player would have received money from the action, they instead receive the full amount from the bank.

Improvement Tiles Reference

You can have up to four different improvement tiles on your board, which will remain active throughout the game. Each improvement tile gives you an advantage in one type of action, and can be upgraded to its advanced side (instead of gaining another one).

• Basic: Reduce the total cost of Travel actions by 2 money. Advanced: Reduce the total cost of Travel actions by 3 money.
• Basic: Always gain at least one bonus tile during the Sketch action, even if none of the cards you have sketched have a bonus icon. Advanced: Gain an additional bonus tile when you sketch.
• Basic: Advance 1 extra space on the Prestige track each time you publish. Advanced: Advance 2 extra spaces on the Prestige track each time you publish.
• Basic: Gain 3 additional money when you perform the Funding action. Advanced: Gain 3 additional money when you perform the Funding action and also choose one bonus tile to place in one of your sketchbooks.
• Basic: Gain 1 extra resource when performing the Supply action. Advanced: Gain 2 extra resources when performing the Supply action.