Faulpelz
Faulpelz Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Goal of the Game (Spielziel)
The players collect animal tiles and arrange them into sets of the same kind. Each animal set scores points. The player who has the most points at the end of the game wins.
Components
- 105 animal tiles: 15 each of Walrus, Wild Boar, Hippo, Panda, Lion and Sloth; 5 each of Pelican, Toucan and Cockatoo.
- 24 animal cards: 6 each in the player colours Red, Yellow, Green and Blue.
- 1 boundary frame (made of 5 parts).
Setup
- Before the first game, carefully punch out all the die-cut pieces from the boards.
- Assemble the boundary frame according to the letters and place it in the middle of the table. Then shuffle the 105 animal tiles well and lay them face up in a random layout of 15 x 7 tiles, starting in the corner of the frame. Leave some space between the tiles so that they can be picked up easily during play.
- Tip: It is clearer if all the tiles are laid out in the same orientation.
- The frame encloses the tiles from two sides. Note: the left column and the bottom row of tiles lie outside the frame (see the illustration).
- Each player chooses a colour and receives the matching set of six different animal cards. They shuffle these, place them face down in front of them as a draw pile, and draw three of them into their hand. The youngest player begins the game. Play then continues clockwise.
Turn Sequence (Spielablauf)
1. Play one hand card and take two animal tiles
The player whose turn it is plays one card from their hand. They place it face up next to their draw pile.
Then they must take one tile from the layout that shows the same animal as the card. However, the animal tile must be "reachable". Only tiles that have at least one free edge are reachable. The boundary frame and other tiles prevent some tiles from being taken.
Note: In rare cases, no matching tile can be taken. In this case the player must still discard a hand card and then pass.
After taking an animal tile from the layout, the player must immediately take a second animal tile. This tile must lie horizontally or vertically (not diagonally!) next to the first tile. The second animal tile may show the same animal or a different one. No card is played for the second tile.
Note: Later in the game, it happens that tiles lie isolated. If a player chooses such a tile, they do not take a second tile in this turn.
The player places the collected tiles face up in front of them. Tiles with the same animals are placed one below the other, and so arranged into sets.
Example: The player plays a Wild Boar card and takes the Wild Boar tile from the lower edge (1). Then they also take the neighbouring Panda tile (2). With both tiles they begin two animal sets by laying them out face up, separately from each other.
The Wild Boar tiles marked with an X could not be taken. All three have no free edge.
The Wild Boar tile on the left side could have been taken, but since it has only one animal symbol, the player chose the one with two symbols.
Complete Animal Sets (Komplette Tier-Sets)
For a set to be complete, it must consist of as many symbols (not tiles!) as the number in the upper right corner of each animal tile indicates:
Examples: For a set of Wild Boars to be complete, the player must collect Wild Boar tiles with at least three symbols in total.
A complete set of Sloths consists of seven symbols.
As soon as a player has collected a complete set, they push all of these tiles together into a stack and place this stack face down in front of them.
Important: A set is complete even if more symbols than required are in play in total.
A player is allowed to collect another set of animal tiles of a kind they already have a complete set of. These sets are then scored separately at the end.
Odd Birds (Schräge Vögel)
The odd birds are joker tiles. There are three kinds of odd birds (Pelican, Cockatoo, Toucan). Because there are no cards for the odd birds, they can never be taken as the first tile from the layout in a turn. They can only be taken as the second, neighbouring tile.
Each odd bird replaces one animal symbol in a set.
An odd bird must always be assigned to an animal set immediately. Later reassignment to other animal sets is not allowed.
Within one set, several odd birds may be used. However, they must then all be birds of the same kind. Example: In a Lion set with one Pelican, another Pelican may be added, but no Cockatoo or Toucan may be added to it.
Important: An animal set cannot be started with an odd bird.
2. Draw a hand card
To conclude the turn, the player draws the top card of their draw pile and tops up their hand of cards to three again. If, however, no card can be drawn any more, then over the next two rounds the remaining two cards in hand are played first. After that, the discard pile with the six played cards is shuffled and placed face down as the new draw pile. The player then draws three cards again, and the draw pile is played through a second time.
End of the Game and Scoring (Spielende und Wertung)
The game ends as soon as the draw pile has been played through a second time (that is, each player has played each animal card twice).
In very rare cases the game ends early, if no player was able to take an animal tile for two rounds in a row.
Each player turns over their animal tile stacks and adds up their values. A stack scores exactly as many points as the number on its animal tiles. It does not matter how many tiles the stack consists of, or whether odd birds were used or not. Animal tiles still lying face up in front of the players do not count.
Example: The player has 3 + 3 + 4 + 6 + 7 + 2 = 25 points. The two unfinished sets "Walrus" and "Panda", which they could not complete, score no points.
The player with the most points in total wins.
Only in the case of a tie does the tied player who still has the most face-up tiles win (regardless of their values and the number of symbols). Otherwise there are several winners.