Gamehelpgardensofenceladus

Goal

Help your little Martian gardener harvest flowers from the icy garden of Enceladus. Collect a good mix of colours: the player with the best hand wins. A hand is the number of flowers of each of the five colours, sorted from lowest to highest. A hand with no flowers of some colour is terribly low.

Setup

• The 10 x 10 garden is filled: 95 flowers (19 of each of the five colours) and 5 peaks (huge ice structures that block the Martians). The peaks never fence off a section of the garden.
• Each player chooses a Martian type (Bot, Ali, Marty, Bob or Robby; the type does not change how the game plays) and places the Martian on a start square outside the garden: on the left, right or bottom side. Players choose in turn order.
• The carrying tube starts empty. Flowers paid for special actions go into the tube.
• The starting player goes first, then play continues in turn order.

Your turn

#	Step	What you do
1	Special actions (optional)	Pay 3 flowers of one colour from your reserve to use a special action. You can do this as many times as you like, each time with a different colour if you wish. Each special action can be used only once in the whole game.
2	Move your Martian (mandatory)	Move your Martian in a straight line (up, down, left or right) to any flower in that line. It can pass over flowers and other Martians, but never over a peak. Pick up the flower you land on, then pick up one flower next to it (up, down, left or right) if there is one.
3	Soliflowers (mandatory)	Pick up every soliflower on the board: a flower with no flower directly next to it (up, down, left or right). Diagonal flowers do not count.

Special actions

Pay 3 flowers of one colour. The paid flowers go into the carrying tube. The icons read left to right on the strip above the garden.

Icon	Action
1	Tube: pick 3 random flowers from the tube (you do not look). It needs at least 3 flowers in the tube.
2	Jump: jump over a peak directly next to your Martian. Land on the square straight beyond the peak. You cannot land on a peak or another Martian. A flower there goes to your reserve.
3	Diagonal: move your Martian diagonally, as far as you like, but not over a peak. You cannot land on a peak or another Martian. A flower on the square goes to your reserve.
4	Pick: pick any flower from the garden.
5	Swap Martian: swap your Martian with any one peak or flower.
6	Swap peak and flower: swap any one peak with any one flower.
7	Swap flowers: swap any two flowers.
8	Move flower: move any one flower to any empty square.
9	Move peak: move any one peak to any empty square.
10	Wildflower: take the grey wildflower into your reserve. It is not covered with a counter: once it is taken, this action is no longer available.

After a special action is used, it is covered with a disc in the colour of the player who used it, showing that player's Martian. On wide screens the special actions and the tube form a column to the right of the garden; the tube lists how many flowers of each colour are inside it (payments are public). A Martian still standing outside the garden cannot use the actions that move a Martian (jump, diagonal and swap Martian). It enters the garden with its first move.

Scoring your hand

• Count the flowers of each colour in your reserve, including zeros, and sort the five numbers from lowest to highest.
• The grey wildflower counts as any one colour. It is declared automatically as the colour that gives the best hand.
• The player panel shows your hand as Score: 2-3-3-4-5: the five counts sorted from lowest to highest.
• Example: 0, 4, 5, 5, 6 is shown as 0-4-5-5-6 and is a low hand. 3, 4, 5, 5, 6 is a better hand because its lowest colour is higher. Hands are compared by the lowest count first; if equal, by the next, and so on.
• The highest hand wins. Two equal hands share the win.
• The score star (and BGA's ranking table) shows rank points: with N players the best hand gets N-1, the next N-2, and so on down to 0. Equal hands share the same (higher) rank points. During the game the star shows the current ranking.

Game end

• If, on your turn, your Martian cannot reach any flower, the game ends immediately. You can still use special actions first to make a move. If you cannot move and have nothing else to do, the game ends with the scoring.
• The scoring shows each player's sorted hand at the end of the game.

Variants (game options)

• Game mode: Competitive (standard), or Cooperative. In the cooperative game the team score is the lowest hand (all players get the same score), and everyone works to make it as high as possible.
• Martians per player: One (standard), or Two for the 2-player variant. Each player places two Martians and can move either one on the turn. All the special actions in a turn must use the Martian you move that turn.
• Tube action: Available (standard), or not available (purely combinatorial game). With the combinatorial variant, the tube action is covered at the start.
• Hidden score (reserves behind a screen) is not in this version: reserves are always visible, as the standard rules require.

Notes on the rules

• Flowers that are not in a Martian's line cannot be reached: a Martian only moves along its row or column.
• A flower can end up under a Martian only through a swap. It is picked up later by the Pick action or by the soliflower step.
• A payment is always 3 flowers of one colour. The grey wildflower cannot be used to pay, because it has no colour until scoring.