How to play
Setup, how a turn works and how the game ends, summarised from the rulebook by Eko, Meepzy's rules assistant.
Setup
- Place the Central board with the 2-4 players side faceup (p. 7). Put all the tokens into the Pouch and place it next to the Central board (p. 13).
- Fill each of the 5 spaces on the Central board with 3 tokens drawn randomly from the Pouch (p. 13). Shuffle the Animal cards and place 5 faceup next to the Central board, keeping the rest nearby as a draw pile along with the Animal cubes (p. 7).
- Each player takes a Personal board and a matching Reminder card, deciding collectively which side of the board to use (p. 7). The player who last saw a magnificent landscape takes the first turn, indicated by pointing the Central board's arrow toward them (p. 7).
How a Turn Works
Starting with the first player and going clockwise, each player takes a turn by performing mandatory and optional actions in any order they choose (p. 6, 8):
- Take and place tokens (Mandatory): Take 3 tokens from any single space on the Central board and place them on your Personal board following token placement rules (p. 8, 14). You may perform optional actions between placing individual tokens (p. 8).
- Take 1 Animal card (Mandatory): Choose 1 faceup Animal card from the center of the table and place it above your Personal board, taking as many Animal cubes from the reserve as there are spaces to fill on that card (p. 10). You may have up to 4 cards simultaneously above your Personal board (p. 10).
- Place 1 Animal cube (Mandatory): Once you recreate the required Habitat pattern on your Personal board, you may take the bottom-most cube from an Animal card and place it on the corresponding unoccupied token within that Habitat (p. 4, 11).
- End of turn: Draw 3 tokens from the Pouch to refill the Central board, and refill the row of Animal cards so there are 5 faceup cards if needed (p. 8).
How the Game Ends
- The game ends when either the Pouch is empty when you need to refill the Central board, or at least one player has 2 or fewer empty spaces on their Personal board (p. 6).
- Play continues until all players have had an equal number of turns (p. 6). At the end of the game, players tally points for their created Landscapes and placed Animals, and the player with the most points wins (p. 4).
This summary was written by Eko from the game's own rulebook. It covers the essentials, not every edge case. For a specific rule, ask Eko and get the page it came from, or open the manual in the Archive.