Another Christmas Romance Movie Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Goal
• Components
  • Star Love Interests
  • Headliner Love Interests
  • Stage Cards
  • Christmas Romance Cards
  • Movie Element Cards
  • Santa's Dice Bag
• Terms
• Player Setup
• Play Area Setup
• Your Turn
  • 1. Decide How many Dice to Roll
  • 2. Roll your dice
  • 3. Add copied dice to your roll
  • 4. Incorporate Movie Elements
  • 5. Place Dice
  • 6. completing a Christmas Romance Card
    • Example
  • 7. Moving up a stage
  • 8. Ending Your Turn
    • Example
• Not your turn
• Winning the game
  • Example Story
• Variations
  • Couples Mode
  • 2 Player Co-Op
  • Bonus Watch Along Game
  • Single Player
• Clarifications

Goal

It's the Christmas season and love is in the air! Your goal is to successfully make another Christmas romance movie by being the first to guide your love interests through the five stages of a Christmas romance. You'll participate in festive activities, mix in some dramatic movie elements, and create a unique movie with a cherished Merrily Ever After at the end.

Components

• 8 Star Love Interests
• 8 Headliner Love Interests
• 35 Stage Cards
• 21 Christmas Romance Cards
• 24 Movie Elements Cards
• 84 Custom Frosted Dice
• Santa's Dice Bag

Star Love Interests

These cards have a star in the top left corner on a red background. They have three locations for copied dice. There are four different men and four different women, but all of these cards behave the same. You can assign these randomly or let people choose.

Headliner Love Interests

These cards have an ornament in the top left corner on a green background. They have five locations for unrolled deferred dice and follow the same distribution as the star love interests. All cards function identically for gameplay.

Stage Cards

These cards are marked by a dark green background in the top left corner, as well as the number of the stage. They represent the stages of a romance that your love interests must go through in order to find true love. There are seven cards each for Stage 1 through Stage 5. While every card is unique regarding its story and dice locations, they are of equal difficulty within each stage. Players will need to complete one of each stage in order to win the game. At the bottom of the card, you'll see the name of the stage, as well as the total number of dice you'll need to place on that card in order to complete it and move up to the next stage.

Christmas Romance Cards

These cards are marked in the top left corner on a dark red background and show the amount of deferred dice that players receive when this card is completed. Every one of these cards have four dice locations at the bottom of the card. These cards represent the festive activities your love interests will participate in while their love blossoms this holiday season. NOTE: There is only one of these cards in play at any given time in a game with 3 or fewer players (or two cards for 4 or more players). Unlike your stage cards, any player may place on these cards.

Movie Element Cards

These cards are common elements that show up in many of our favorite Christmas romance movies. They can be side characters, plot points, certain scenes, or other fun things that you're going to include in your unique movie. They are marked by their grayish-blue backgrounds and the wreath in the top left corner. Within the game, they'll help you complete stage and Christmas romance cards by allowing you to exchange dice in various ways. Red background dice follow all the placing rules and must be the same matching types. These must be dice that have been rolled, OR copied dice that have been added to your roll.

Green background dice with numbers refer to deferred dice from your headliner love interest. The arrow in the middle denotes the exchange. You must give up the dice on the left to receive the dice on the right. When used, add a die from Santa's Dice Bag to an open location on the card (types do not matter).

Santa's Dice Bag

These custom frosted dice are all identical and have six different faces.

Terms

• "Dice Locations" — These are dice-sized locations on cards. You'll place dice on these locations while you play to progress through the game.
• "Unmarked Dice Locations" — These are dice locations that do not have a type. These can be dice of any type, but if those locations are touching they must be the same type and placed simultaneously.
• "Place Dice" — This refers to the physical act of setting a matching dice on the dice location.
• "Copied Dice" — These are dice that have a specific type (top face showing). They are not rolled or re-rolled. They are stored on your star love interest card.
• "Deferred Dice" — These are dice that have not been rolled yet, and they are stored on your headliner love interest.
• "Movie Deck" — As players complete cards, they'll keep them to the side of their playing area in a pile called movie deck. At the end of the game, the winner reads aloud all the cards they completed, creating a unique Christmas romance movie.

Player Setup

1. Give (or let players choose) one star love interest and one headliner love interest. Players should place these two cards closest to them as they'll be adding and removing dice from these cards often.
2. Give each player one of every stage card in a pile, with Stage 1 face up and ready for dice, and the rest beneath and unseen in ascending order, with Stage 5 at the bottom of the pile.

Play Area Setup

1. Shuffle and place the Christmas romance cards in a single pile in the middle of the play area. Flip over one card for a game of 3 or fewer players (or 2 cards for 4 or more players) and place it next to the deck. This is the active Christmas romance card(s).
2. Shuffle and place the movie element cards face down in the center of the table, and then turn over three movie elements.

Your Turn

On your turn, you'll make a few decisions: roll dice, place dice, add cards to your movie deck, and maybe even win the game.

1. Decide How many Dice to Roll

Every turn you get three dice to roll. You may defer up to two of those dice to future rolls by placing those deferred dice on your headliner love interest. If you do not have available locations, you cannot defer those dice.

You must always roll at least one die.

You may also choose to remove all deferred dice from your headliner love interest and add those dice to your roll. At this point, if you remove dice from your headliner love interest, you must roll all of them.

2. Roll your dice

You must roll your dice! That can be a single die (if you deferred two), or as many as eight if you add five deferred dice to your roll. Good luck! We hope you get exactly what you need! After you roll, pause and allow other players to decide if they'd like to copy a die to their love interest.

3. Add copied dice to your roll

You may decide to add the copied dice from your Star Love Interest to your roll. If you choose to do this, you must add all copied dice from your Star Love Interest. Do not re-roll or change these dice.

4. Incorporate Movie Elements

Any of the three active movie element cards may be used by exchanging the required dice to the left of the arrow to receive what's to the right of the arrow. These are dice from your roll (including copied dice you've added), and even deferred dice from your headliner love interest. You may use each of these movie element cards once per turn, but you cannot use a single movie element card twice on a turn. If you use a movie element, perform the exchange immediately, and place a die from Santa's Dice Bag on an available location on that movie element card.

5. Place Dice

You place dice by setting any die from your final roll (copied dice, post movie elements incorporation) on matching dice locations on an active Christmas romance card and/or your current stage card. Dice must match the dice location — meaning the die's face-up value must be the same as shown on the dice location. If there is no type shown on the dice location, you may place a die of any type on that location; HOWEVER, unmarked locations must be the same type as all other touching (orthogonal — above/below or side by side) unmarked locations. AND YOU MUST PLACE THEM ON A SINGLE TURN.

This means two touching unmarked locations require doubles, three triples, and so forth — all on a single turn and placed at once. These same "unmarked" rules apply to movie element cards as well. ALSO: Every placed die must be touching (orthogonally) to an already placed die. This means every die must touch side by side. Have a die that matches a location but it's not touching an existing placed die? Too bad, you cannot place that die.

6. completing a Christmas Romance Card

There are a limited number of Christmas Romance cards in play at a time for all players. These are the cards in the center and referred to as "active." Any player may place dice on them on their turn. BUT only the player who places the final die on that card completes it. As soon as you complete a Christmas romance card, place it next to your stage card. This shows everyone that you have completed a Christmas romance card for this stage. This is crucial because you cannot advance to your next stage in the story until you've completed a Christmas romance card.

But there's good news for everyone else who isn't winning! The reward in the top left corner of that Christmas romance card (in the form of a number of deferred dice) goes to every player who DID NOT complete the card AND who aren't on the highest stage. So, it's good for you because you get the Christmas romance card — and that helps you advance in the game — but it's good for others as they also get to add deferred dice to their headliner love interest. It's a Christmas win-win.

Flip over a new active Christmas romance card in the center of the play area to replace the one you completed, and all players may start placing dice on it on their turns. You can only complete 1 Christmas romance card at a time.

Example

Reward Example: One player is on stage 4, while all other players are on stage 3. The player who completes the Christmas romance card does not receive the reward, and neither does the player on stage 4 (since they are on the highest stage).

Reward Example 2: All players are on stage 2 and a player completes a Christmas romance card. All players but the player who completed the card will receive the reward. This is because they are all on the "lowest" stage and no one is on a higher stage at the time of completion.

7. Moving up a stage

Once you have placed the required number of dice on your active stage card (shown in the bottom right corner, but in general it's 3 more dice than the number of the stage), AND have completed a Christmas romance card for this stage, you move up a stage and your love story progresses.

NOTE stage dice requirements: The requirements are 4 dice for Stage 1, 5 dice for Stage 2, 6 dice for Stage 3, 7 dice for Stage 4, and all 8 dice for stage 5. If you complete your stage card BEFORE completing a Christmas romance card, you do not move up a stage. You must complete both your stage card AND a Christmas romance card. If you have completed your stage card and a Christmas romance card for this stage, remove all dice from those cards and add them both to your movie deck, and flip over your next stage card.

8. Ending Your Turn

Once you've placed dice, completed cards, and potentially moved up a stage, all you need to do to end your turn is to add any completed movie elements card to your movie deck. You complete the card if you placed the final die on an available die location on that card. Flip over new movie element cards to replace the cards you added to your movie deck (if any). It reads like a lot to do on your turn, but it'll move really quickly when you're used to it.

Example

You might decide to focus on building up your deferred dice and roll only one die, in order to have a powerful turn next round. Little progress this turn may lead to much progress on your next turn!

Not your turn

If you want your love interests to achieve their Merrily Ever After, it's key that you pay close attention to other people's turns. Using your Star Love Interest, you can copy one die from their roll and place it on any available location on your Star Love Interest card. You can only copy one die per player turn, and you must copy those values from dice which they rolled. You do not have to copy a die on a turn, and should you forget to copy a die? Well ... too bad! But hey, at least it's still Christmas!

Winning the game

If you're the first player to finish Stage 5 Merrily Ever After (by placing all eight dice, and completing a final Christmas romance card) you win the game! Place your Stage 5 card and last Christmas romance movie into your movie deck. And then turn your movie deck over and read out your unique Christmas Movie. Start with your love interests and then generally proceed in this fashion: Stage Card - "WHILE" - Christmas Romance Card. So, it'll read like: [Love Interest 1] and [Love Interest 2] [stage name] when they [stage text] WHILE [Christmas Romance]. Mix in your movie element cards while you go and in the end you should have a movie that you've PROBABLY never seen before. Don't gloat too much over your victory — it's Christmas!

Example Story

Miss Broke and Mr. Handsome Widower meet cute when they are reunited while decorating the town Christmas tree. Miss Broke's dog escapes the next day, and Mr. Handsome Widower finds it while he was building a snowman in the exact way they he did when they use to be together, which they both remember, which is a sign to them. They quickly fall back in love, but things get complicated when...

Variations

Couples Mode

The big differences in this mode are the following:

• You'll play with a partner
• You'll work on a single stage card together at the same time
• You'll both play with a single love interest (one star, one headliner)

Couples should sit next to each other. Love interest powers must be used on an individual player's turn (just like normal). All other rules apply. The first couple to complete Stage 5 wins!

2 Player Co-Op

You'll play the same rules as couples mode above. But you'll be playing against fate! Set aside 10 dice at the start of the game for fate. After both players have taken a turn (a round), you'll roll all of fate's dice and remove any snowflakes rolled. At the end of the next round, you'll roll fate's remaining dice. As soon as there are no dice left, then you lose, your love interests were not meant to be together, your movie does not get made, and Christmas is ruined (until you try again and win next time).

Bonus Watch Along Game

Settle down and prepare to watch an actual Christmas romance movie. It must be a movie that no one has ever seen before. Only share the title (and cover image if one is available). Using only this knowledge every player will attempt to predict most accurately how the movie will go. Lay out all 96 cards, or pass them around in piles if you don't have the space. Every player takes turns selecting cards they believe will happen in the movie until everyone has 2 of all card types: 2 love interests, 2 Christmas romance cards, 2 stages, and 2 movie element cards, resulting in 8 cards total.

Then, hit play on the movie, enjoy some snacks, and get cozy.

Every time during the film when a player believes their card has shown up in the movie (or there is substantial evidence of it), they read out their card and present their best argument. If the majority of players agree, that player earns a point. Everyone can then draft one additional card that wasn't previously selected (so they can earn more points). At the end of the movie, the player with the most points wins the game — and probably an extra present from Santa!

We recommend lots of treats and a generous heart when listening to others' cases. Have fun and thanks for playing!

Single Player

You'll be racing against fate to bring your love interests together in time for Christmas. You'll have to complete your movie before fate can roll 10 snowflakes and your romance freezes over.

Set aside 10 dice as "fate". After each of your turns you'll roll all of fate's dice that haven't landed on a snowflake previously. Any new snowflakes set aside with the rest of fate's snowflakes. If all of fate's dice are snowflakes before your movie is complete then it wasn't true love!

On your turn you'll still roll dice, use movie elements, and place dice HOWEVER it gets a little more complicated.

• You can only use 1 of your love interests each turn. This means you can either use copied dice OR deferred dice. You cannot use both on the same turn. So before you roll you must decide which you're going to use that turn.
• You must complete your stage card BEFORE completing your Christmas romance card
• When you complete a Christmas romance card instead of being rewarded, things get more complicated... take the number of dice displayed in the top left corner and roll them. You must remove 1 of each matching types you've placed on your stage card (if any).

Sounds tough right? Well, some good news! These are the rest of the changes and they'll help you make movie magic!

• On your turn, at any time, you can trade in 3 of the same type of dice to "melt" one of fate's snowflakes and return it to the remaining dice instead.
• On fate's turn you can either copy 1 die from it's roll OR place a free deferred die on your headliner love interest.
• Creating a combo with multiple available movie elements card is allowed. For example, if on your turn you're using your star love interest card, and you use a movie element card to earn deferred dice, you can immediately use those new deferred dice with another available movie element card on that turn.

To setup the single player game, draw 6 random Christmas romance cards, your 5 stage cards, and 5 movie elements cards. You'll work on a single stage card and a single Christmas romance card at a time. Set 3 of the movie element cards out and replace them when complete, until no movie elements card remain.

If you want a special treat, you may instead setup a specific movie experience. Find the plot of a Christmas romance movie, and recreate the 5 stages, select the correct 5 Christmas romance cards that best fit the movie, and do the same with the movie elements. You'll now be playing that specific movie! We've found this to be a lot of fun when rewatching one of your previous favorites.

We plan to provide a list of movies to play through on this page: HERE

We'll add some when we get the chance (if you're reading this in 2023 we're focused on getting games delivered right now). If you want to submit a movie please email us at [email protected] and we'll add it to the list

Clarifications

Players can only place dice on open dice locations, this applies to both love interest cards. This makes for some interesting decisions where players have to make decisions about copying a dice that is less than ideal, or risk it and wait for a perfect dice on another player's roll. When combined with the rules around "when you use a copied dice you must clear all copied dice from your star love interest card", creates an importance on managing your copied dice.

When playing couples mode, copied dice will be handled by the player with the star love interest. The Headliner love interest player will have to work with all the deferred dice. This can make for some interesting decisions, or at least more complexity than you might experience when a single player has both love interests at their disposal.

When playing couples mode, teams should sit together. Yes, it's advantageous to have couples sit next to each other. You can make a lot of progress on a stage card, or a Christmas romance card, or both with back to back turns. On some turns, you may look to your partner with a full set of copied dice already, and defer more dice to build up for next turn instead. Or you may decide to try to use both of your turns to try to capture a Christmas romance card AND complete a stage in one turn. As the star love interest player you may be sure to leave an available copy spot open, if your headliner love interest has a large roll ready to go giving you more options to copy. There can be some fun interplay and very light strategy with this separation of concerns on the team. Early stages tend to move very quickly in couples mode with back to back turns, but later stages can be a bit more tricky to manage. Generally, it's a light game by default, and couples mode can feel even lighter.