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Goal
Be the first player to score 12 points (or, if no one has reached 12 points by the time the "End of Game" card is revealed, be the player with the most points).
Players score points by completing complete lines on their board, and points are doubled if the line is composed entirely of window spaces. Specifically, points are scored in the following ways:
- Completing a horizontal row (or "floor") = +1 point
- If all squares of the row have windows, score 1 additional point (for a total of +2 points).
- Completing a vertical column (or "section") = +2 points
- If all squares of the column have windows, score 2 additional points (for a total of +4 points).
Player Turn
On their turn, each player may do ONE of the following:
- Take cards
- Construct facade
Taking Cards
If a player chooses to take cards, they MUST take 1 card of the 7 available, as well as 1 more card that is immediately adjacent to the first.
- The row of available cards does NOT "wrap around" (i.e., the last card in the row is NOT adjacent to the first).
- Empty spaces are not filled with new cards until the end of a player's turn.
After drawing, the player must discard down to the hand limit, which is 7 cards.
Constructing Facade
This option consists of placing a tile from the supply (by discarding cards equal to its cost) as follows:
Discarding cards
When buying a tile, a player first discards a number of cards that is
- equal to the number of square building spaces (each space showing either windows or bricks) on that tile, and
- of the same color as the tile.
Note if this new tile touches another tile of the same color when placed, the player may discard 1 less card to pay for it.
Placing the tile
They then place the tile on a "supported" area of their player board. At least one space on the new tile must be directly above
- the bottom of the player board, or
- a space on an existing tile
Note the laws of physics need not apply here -- the piece does NOT need to "balance" on top of its supporting facade tile, it just has to be supported below at least one space of the new tile.
Coats of Arms
Each player board has 7 Coat of Arms spaces printed on it: 4 on specific square spaces of the board, plus 3 more next to the highlighted rows (these Coats of Arms are printed outside the legal placement spaces of the building). Activating these 2 types of Coat of Arms spaces differs in one key aspect:
- For Coat of Arms printed on building spaces, these are activated as soon as the space is covered by a facade.
- For those off to the side of a row, these are activated once all spaces of the highlighted row are covered by facades.
Activation Actions
As soon as a Coat of Arms is activated, the activating player takes ONE of the following three actions:
- Take and place a 1-square window facade SPECIAL TILE
- Take a NEW ABILITY TILE
- RE-ACTIVATE ALL ABILITY TILES that they have previously used
Take a Special Tile
If a player chooses to take a 1-square Special Tile, then they immediately place it on a supported building space of their board.
- This may be used to cover or complete the row of another Coat of Arms, creating a chain reaction
Take a New Ability Tile
If a player chooses to take a new Ability Tile, they MUST select an Ability Tile that they do not already have in front of them, either used or active.
- Once a player has acquired all 5 Ability Tiles, this option is no longer available to the player.
- Descriptions of all Ability Tiles can be found in the "Ability Tiles" section below.
Re-activate All Their Ability Tiles
Each time a player uses one of their Ability Tiles, they must flip the tile over to its inactive side. The only way to be able to use the ability again is to take the re-activate special action.
When a player re-activates their Ability Tiles, they flip ALL used Ability Tiles back to their active sides.
Ability Tiles
Ability Tiles provide interesting ways for players to bend the rules of the game to their advantage throughout their turn.
- Players always start the game with one active Ability Tile, the "Any Cards" tile, but they may acquire more throughout the game by activating Coats of Arms.
- A player may use ANY NUMBER of their active Ability Tiles on their turn.
The 5 different Ability Tiles are:
Any Cards
Allows the player to take any 2 cards for their "Take Cards" action (i.e., the cards taken need not be adjacent to each other).
- This is the tile that each player starts the game with.
Additional Card
When using the "Take Cards" action, this tile allows a player to take a 3rd card FROM ANYWHERE in the card row (i.e., even if NOT used in conjunction with the "Any Cards" tile, the 3rd card need not be adjacent to either of the first 2 cards)
Construction Discount
When taking the "Construct Facade" action, the player may pay 1 fewer card than they otherwise would have had to pay for the facade tile.
- If this tile is used to lower the cost of a facade tile that will be placed adjacent to another facade of its own color, the two discounts DO "stack" (i.e., the final cost is 2 fewer cards than it otherwise would have been).
Change of Colors
When taking the "Construct Facade" action, a player may treat ALL CARDS of a certain color as if they were any other color.
- This means that a player may add cards of two different colors together to act as all cards of one color or the other.
- Alternatively, a player may use cards of just one color, but may treat that one color as if it were "wild".
Both Actions
On their turn, a player may use this tile to take BOTH the "Take Cards" and the "Construct Facade" actions before play passes to the next player.
- When using this tile, the "Take Cards" action MUST ALWAYS be taken first, followed by the "Construct Facade" action.
- If a player draws above their hand limit (7 cards), they must discard down to 7 cards BEFORE taking the "Construct Facade" action.
End of Game
The game ends IMMEDIATELY as soon as one of the following end game criteria is met:
- A player reaches or exceeds 12 points.
- - Players do NOT finish out the round- the first player to reach or exceed 12 points wins.
- The "End of Game" card is revealed from the draw pile.
- - Again, as soon as this condition is met, the game ends. So, if a player chooses the "Take Cards" action, and then one of the cards drawn to refill the card row is the "End of Game" card, the next player does NOT take a turn.
End of Game Card
In a 2-player game, the "End of Game" card is shuffled into the bottom 9 cards of the draw pile, so players will only cycle through the deck once.
If playing with 3 or 4 players, the deck is fully cycled through once without the "End of Game" card included. After the draw pile is emptied, the discard pile is shuffled and the "End of Game" card is shuffled into the bottom 9 cards of the draw pile.
- When the game ends because the "End of Game" card is revealed, ties are broken by awarding the win to the player with the fewest empty spaces remaining on their board.
- If players are still tied for first place after considering empty spaces, the tied players share the victory.