A Gentle Rain
A Gentle Rain Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
1 — Get comfortable...
Change into some loose clothing if you can. Perhaps turn on some soft music or make yourself some tea or hot cocoa. Take a moment to stand up and stretch and roll the stress out of your shoulders. Inhale through your nose, hold that breath for a moment, then exhale through your mouth.
2 — Now begin...
You'll need a flat area to play on. First, place the blossom tokens nearby, then shuffle up the lake tiles, turning them facedown and stacking them in a pile. Draw the first tile, turning it faceup and placing it in the center of your play area. This is your starting tile.
3 — Keep going...
Draw another tile from the draw pile and look at it. Try to place it next to your starting tile in a way that completes one of the flowers along its edge with a matching color.
If you are able to place the tile somewhere, you must. If you cannot, discard the tile. After you have either placed the tile or discarded it, draw again.
4 — Growing the lake...
Place each new tile you draw next to a tile already in play, making sure to match the colors of all the tile edges that touch the tile you are placing. Any time you cannot place a tile you've drawn, discard it.
5 — Blossoming...
Each time you manage to complete a square of four touching tiles, a blossom opens between them. Look at the four completed flowers on the four touching tiles. Choose an unplayed blossom that matches the color of one of those four flowers and place it in the hole between them. If all blossoms matching the colors of the surrounding four flowers have already been played, then no blossom opens after all.
6 — The end...
As soon as the eighth blossom opens, the game ends as you stand at the lakeside admiring the view. Your score is equal to the number of unplayed tiles left in the draw pile + 8 (since all 8 blossoms have opened). So, if you have 4 tiles left after all 8 blossoms open, your score would be 12 (4 unplayed tiles + 8 opened blossoms). It's possible (but very unlikely) to get a score of 21.
However, if you run out of tiles before all 8 blossoms open, the rain ends and the game comes to a close. Count up the number of blossoms that opened – that's your score.
Don't worry if all eight blossoms don't open in time, though. You can always return to the lake again. In A Gentle Rain, it is the journey that matters, not the destination.
Bringing a friend...
More than one player can visit the lake at the same time. Simply take turns drawing and placing tiles. As you play, admire the view of the lake, and be glad for the company of your friends.
Credits
Created By: Kevin Wilson
Game Design: Kevin Wilson
Art by: W. Kozyra
Product Design: Zack Marsh
Project Management & Operations: Kris Green, Elle Lee
Special Thanks: Cathy Bock, Katarzyna 'Ulvar' Bekus, Sandra 'Razuri' Chlewińska, Ines Możdżyńska, Ilya Ushakov, Matt Molandes
Incredible Dream: Jane Chung Hoffacker, Jamie Seltzer, Tucker Roberts, Robert Hunt
Copyright © 2023 Incredible Dream Studios Inc.