Gamehelpmicrochip

Goal

Build the most valuable microchip from the tiles you collect. A microchip is a structure of tiles whose white paths join up with no open ends. Each connection is worth 1 point, and every tile you hold outside your microchip costs 2 points.

Setup

• The pool holds the tiles, face up: 60 tiles in 5 colours (12 each) for 3 or 4 players, 60 for 5 players (6 rows), and 50 for 2 players (10 tiles go back to the box).
• Each player receives a board: a 5 x 5 grid of coloured spaces. Each colour appears five times on a board.
• The right-hand column of the pool is the draw column.
• The starting player is chosen at random. Play goes clockwise.

Tiles

Each tile has white paths. A path that reaches a side of the tile is a connection. There are five shapes, 12 tiles per colour:

Shape	Connections	Copies per colour
Cross	4	1
T	3	3
Corner	2	2
Straight	2	2
End (with a square pad)	1	4

Your turn

• Draw. On your turn take one tile from the draw column. Players take turns clockwise. When the draw column is empty, the next column to the left becomes the draw column.
• Arrange. You may arrange your tiles on your board at any time, including on other players' turns. Tap a tile in your tray, then tap a space on your board to place it. You can move a tile on the board, turn it (if turning is allowed), exchange it with another tile, or take it back to your tray.

Placing a tile

A tile can be placed only if all of these are true:

• The space is empty.
• The colour of the tile matches the colour of the space.
• No connection points at the edge of the board.

Click a tile to select it, click it again to turn it, and click an empty space to move it there. A tile stays selected until you click somewhere else. A tile placed where it cannot legally go (wrong colour, a path off the board, or a path that does not match a neighbouring tile) is marked with a red ! badge, and you cannot finish while one is on your board. A tile with a path leading to an empty space shows a yellow warning triangle; this does not block finishing, but open structures do not score.

A connection may point at an empty space while you build. It is an open path until a tile is placed there.

Finishing

When the pool is empty, every player builds their final microchip. Press Finish when you are done. The game ends when every player has finished.

Scoring

• Your microchip is your biggest structure with no open paths (most tiles). A structure with an open path is not a microchip and does not count.
• Its value is the sum of the connections of its tiles.
• Your score is the value of your microchip, minus 2 for each tile you hold that is outside it.
• If the scores are equal, the player whose microchip has more tiles wins. If that is also equal, the players share the win.

Preferences

• Colourblind support (preference): shows a shape on every space and tile. Triangle is blue, square is red, circle is green, diamond is yellow and cross is pink.

Notes on the rules

• Tiles can be turned in 90-degree steps to fit legally onto the board.
• Boards are generated with the rulebook's method for making a board, one for each player.
• The rulebook says to play again when there is a tie that cannot be broken. Online, the players share the win instead.