Deep Dreams
Deep Dreams Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 1 First Player card
- 54 Dream Cards
- 5 Player aid cards
- 1 Rulebook
Dream Card Icon Effects
The Dream Cards carry the following icon effects (explained in full under Icon Effects below):
- Dream Moon: Place the card face up on top of one of your cards (it cannot be the last card on the right).
- Predictions: Look at the next 3 cards in the deck, choose 1 card to keep, and put the other 2 back in the deck.
- Deep Sleep: Take an extra turn after the one in play.
- Steal from another player: Take a random card from another player's hand and put it in your own.
- Eliminate to the left: Discard the card on the farthest left end of another player's playing area.
- Eliminate to the right: Discard the card on the farthest right end of another player's playing area.
- X2: This card counts as if it were two cards when scoring. This means it will add to the length of a Sleep Path and/or a Dream Group.
The Goal of the Game
Your goal in Deep Dreams is to help Bruno have the sweetest dreams. The dreams appear as four different colors on the Dream cards. You want to make the largest Dream Groups of matching colors you can by playing cards together. But you also have to make sure that Bruno doesn't wake up in the middle of the night by making an unbroken Sleep Path through your cards. At the end of the game, the player with the most points wins.
Setup
Shuffle the deck of Dream cards and deal 5 cards to each player. Leave the rest of the deck in the middle of the table where everyone can reach it.
Card Structure
Let's look at a Dream Card!
- Player Choise [sic] Symbol (in the upper left).
- Dream Levels (colors).
- Sleep Paths.
- White Arrow.
- Black Arrow.
- Bruno.
- Action Symbol.
Playing the Game
Whoever slept in the latest today gets to start the game. Give them the First Player card. You will take turns one at a time going to the left around the table.
During your turn, you must do one of these two actions:
- Play a card.
- Draw a card from the deck.
1. Play a Card
You will create your own row of cards in front of you. You can play any card from your hand as your first card. After that you must obey these three card-playing rules:
- You must play the card next to a card already in your row.
- You must play the card on the far right end of your row unless your card has the player's choice symbol in the top-left corner. If it does, you can put the card at the left end or the right end of your row, your choice!
- At least one arrow on your card must connect to a Sleep Path on the card next to it.
The first card in each play area is not subject to the conditions.
What Happens When I Add a Card to My Row?
Every time a card is played in their playing area, the player will connect that card's arrows to other arrows and icon effects, which then activate the effects below:
- Connecting two sets of arrows in different Dream Levels on the card, regardless of their color, allows the player to draw a card from the deck in the middle of the table.
- Connecting an arrow to an icon effect activates that effect (see Icon Effects at the end of the rulebook).
- Additionally, at the end of the game, the player will get 1 extra point for each pair of black arrows that are connected to one another.
2. Draw a Card from the Deck
If you cannot or do not want to play any card during your turn, you may draw a card from the deck in the middle of the table and then end your turn.
There is no limit to the number of cards you can have in your hand.
Don't Let Bruno Wake Up!
Every card has at least one drawing of Little Bruno sleeping. The white Sleep Paths show how deeply he is sleeping. As you join the arrows together, you can make sure that Bruno sleeps soundly and does not wake up by creating an unbroken path where Bruno is always sleeping. (The pictures around Bruno have no effect on the game and are only decorations.) You want to create the longest possible Sleep Path that you can.
A good Sleep Path is made up of a group of cards where Bruno is always located on the same white line, connected by black or white arrows in any combination.
In the example from the rulebook, the cards are perfectly placed, since one or more arrows are connected to one another on every card. Bruno has a Sleep Path of 4 cards in a row, counting the upper white lines on the first, second, and third cards, as well as the lower white line on the fourth card. This path is then cut because on the fifth card, Bruno is on a different Sleep Path. There is another Sleep Path, on the lower white lines of the first and second cards, but it is shorter and only your longest path is counted.
Bruno's Dreams
Each card shows at least 2 different colors out of the 4 colors in the game (green, blue, yellow, and pink). Each color is a different kind of dream that Bruno might enjoy. You want to connect Dream Levels that are the same color together, creating the largest groups, which will give you points at the end of the game (see Scoring below).
A Dream Group is made up of 2 or more cards placed next to each other that share the same color on the same Dream Level.
In the example from the rulebook, Bruno dreamed a blue dream for 3 cards in a row, and a yellow dream for 2 cards in a row. The green and pink dreams do not have any groups of 2 or more, so they are not counted for scoring.
End of the Game
A 2- to 4-player game ends when any player has 10 cards in their row. In a 5-player game, the game ends when any player reaches 8 cards.
When this happens, the players still have to play until the end of the current round. That is to say, until all players have played the same number of total turns, ending with the player to the right of the First Player.
If any player can undo the event that caused the end of the game during that final round (by using an Action Symbol to remove cards from another player's row), then the game continues until a player has 10 cards in their row again (or 8 in a 5-player game). That could even happen later in the same final round.
Scoring
You score points for making the longest Sleep Path and largest Dream Groups and for joining black arrows together. Each of these things scores in a different way.
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Don't let Bruno wake up! Check who has the longest Sleep Path for Bruno. The player with the longest Sleep Path gets 5 points. The player with the second-longest path gets 3 points. If there is a tie for longest, add the two rewards together (8 points) and split it equally between the players who tied for first. If there is a tie for second place, divide those points (3 points) equally between the tied players. If you cannot split the points equally, then nobody gets those points!
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Bruno's Dreams: Check your Dream Groups. How you score depends on how many players are in the game:
- In a 2-player game, each player counts their single largest Dream Group for each of the 4 colors and scores that many points.
- In 3- to 5-player games, the player with the largest Dream Group of each color gets 4 points, and the player with the second-largest gets 2 points (so, the largest blue group gets 4 points, the largest yellow group, and so on). If there is a tie for first, the points for first and second place are added together (6 points) and split equally between the tied players. If there is a tie for second place, those points (2 points) are split equally between them. If you cannot split the points equally, then nobody gets the points!
Note: remember that cards with the X2 count twice as much!
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Black arrows: Each pair of black arrows connected to each other grants the player 1 point.
The player with the most points at the end is the winner! If there is a tie, whichever one has more connected black arrows is the winner. If there is still a tie after checking the black arrows, then the tied players share the victory.
Icon Effects
Dream Moon: Place the card face up on top of one of your cards. It cannot be the last card on the right. This will make your Dream Groups grow, but will also interrupt Bruno's Sleep Path and may cancel out the connection between two black arrows.
Predictions: Look at the next 3 cards in the deck, choose 1 card to add to your hand, and put the other 2 back on top of the deck.
Deep Sleep: Take an extra turn after your current turn.
Steal from Another Player: Take 1 random card from another player's hand and put it in your own.
Eliminate to the Left: Discard the card on the farthest left end of another player's row.
Eliminate to the Right: Discard the card on the farthest right end of another player's row.
X2: This card counts as if it were 2 cards when scoring. This means it will add to the length of a Sleep Path and/or a Dream Group.