Gamehelplettershome

Overview

You have moved to a new town and you have one year to get to know it. Walk its streets, pin what you find to your corkboard, note down memories, and visit a postbox to write letters home about them.

When someone's corkboard is full, the year draws to a close. Score points for your letters and for Reflections on the town you got to know.

The town

• 16 tiles in a 4 by 4 grid, with streets running between them (never round the outside).
• Each street has four stops. Every stop sits between two tiles, so wherever you stand you can take one of two tiles.
• Two postboxes stand at opposite corners of the town. The four stops around each postbox are postbox stops, the only places you can write home.

Tiles

Every tile is one of three categories: People, Places or Events.

• Tiles show one or two everyday icons: Food, Nature, Book, Craft, Music.
• Only People can show a Heart. Only Events can show Fireworks. These count as icons too.
• A sent tile is flipped face down: each flipped tile is a letter home. It keeps its category but shows no icons.

Your turn

Move your pawn one stop, then either take a tile or write home.

Move

• First turn: walk into town by placing your pawn on any free stop at the end of a street.
• After that: move to a free stop next to yours (two stops are next to each other if they touch the same crossing).
• You may walk through one pawn: if a pawn stands next to you, you may move to any free stop next to it.
• You must move, and you may not finish on a stop with a pawn on it.

Take a tile

1. Take one of the two tiles beside your stop and pin it to any empty space on your corkboard. It stays there.
2. You may note a memory. If you have a free memory slot (you have 3), take one memory from the market that shows any icon on the tile you just took.
3. A new tile fills the gap in town, and the market is refilled.

Write home

Only from a postbox stop. Send as many letters as your corkboard allows, one at a time:

1. Choose a memory from your slots that your corkboard meets right now.
2. Flip one face-up tile that formed part of the pattern. That flipped tile is your letter, worth 2 points.
3. The memory is used up and leaves your slot.

Each flip removes that tile's icons, so the order you write in matters.

A full corkboard

Once your corkboard is full you cannot take tiles. You just move, and write home if you are at a postbox.

Memories

"Next to" means touching along an edge. Only face-up tiles count, except where a memory asks for a sent tile.

• A category and an icon: e.g. a Craft Place next to Food.
• One icon between two others: e.g. Food next to Nature and Craft (one tile touching both).
• Three of an icon: e.g. three Music tiles anywhere.
• Heart or Fireworks: e.g. Heart next to Craft.
• Building on a letter: e.g. a sent Person next to Food. Flip the Food tile when you send it.

You can note a memory you cannot yet meet and build towards it, but it fills a slot until you send it or let it go. Memories still in your slots at the end score nothing.

End of the year

When a player fills the last space on their corkboard, the year ends at the end of that round, so everyone has had the same number of turns. The First player badge shows who started each round.

Then everyone gets one final letter-writing turn, all at the same time: send letters from the memories in your slots, wherever you are (no move, no postbox needed). You may send as many as your corkboard allows, or none. Players with nothing they could send skip this step.

Scoring

• Letters: 2 points for each flipped tile on your corkboard.
• Reflections: 3 shared Reflections, plus 1 private Reflection each (revealed at the end).

Each Reflection says which tiles it counts: any tile, only tiles still face up, or only tiles written home about.

Highest total wins. Ties go to whoever has the most flipped tiles. If still tied, players share the win.

Tips for playing on BGA

• Hover over a memory to light up the tiles on your corkboard that make it (green) or that it could build on (yellow).
• A green envelope on one of your memories means you could send it now.
• On a phone, press and hold a tile or memory to see its details.
• Nothing is sent until you confirm. Use Reset to start your turn again.