Habitopia
Habitopia Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
- 40 Reserve cards
- First Player card
Overview of the Base Game
On each of your turns, add 1 new card to your reserve, choosing which side to use: fauna or habitats. The game continues until the deck runs out. At the end of the game, each fauna card earns you Ranking Points (RP) if its habitat conditions are met. The player with the most RP wins the game.
Note: In the base game, ignore the card's value and suit (colour); they are only used in the advanced game.
Overview of the Cards
There are 5 types of habitat in the game: Grassland, Rainforest, Mountains, Arctic Tundra, Water.
Fauna side: Gives you a scoring opportunity at the end of the game. Gives you 4 habitat tiles for Ranking Points and 2 habitat tiles. (The card shows: card value and card suit (advanced game only), the RP scoring opportunity, the habitat tiles, and a reminder of the habitat tiles showing on the other side.)
Habitats (biotopes) side: Gives 4 habitat tiles. (The deck letter in the corner is for the advanced game only.)
Base Setup
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Shuffle all 40 reserve cards and form a face-down draw pile in the middle of the play area.
Remove a number of cards from the top of the draw pile and return them to the game box, according to the number of players:
- 2-player game: remove 20 cards.
- 3-player game: remove 11 cards.
- 4-player game: remove 2 cards.
Do not look at the RP scoring faces of these cards!
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Each player draws one card at random from the draw pile and places it habitat side up in front of them as the first card of their reserve.
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Reveal the top 3 cards of the deck, "fauna" side up, in a row to the right of the deck: this is the card market.
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Randomly select the first player and give them the First Player card.
How to Play
Players take turns in clockwise order, starting with the first player. On your turn, take 1 market card (from the 3 available) and add it to your reserve. At the end of your turn, add 1 card from the top of the draw pile to the market (fauna side up) so that there are again 3 cards in the market. The next player takes their turn.
End of the game: At the end of your turn, if you cannot add a card to the market (because the draw pile is empty), the game ends immediately. No other player takes a turn. Proceed to calculating RP and determine the winner.
Developing Your Reserve
After taking a card from the market, first choose which side to use in your reserve - the fauna side or the habitat side.
You Must
Place the card so that one or more of its habitat tiles are orthogonally adjacent to one or more habitat tiles of a card already placed.
You May
- You may place a card on top of a habitat card, partially overlapping it.
- You may rotate the placed card exactly 180 degrees. When you rotate a fauna card 180 degrees, the score of that card does not change in any way.
Not Allowed
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Do not place the card separately from the others.
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Do not place the card diagonally adjacent to the others.
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Do not place a card underneath another one that is already in your habitat.
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Do not rotate and/or move cards already placed in your habitat.
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Do not place an adjacent fauna card if the habitat tiles do not touch.
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Do not overlap a fauna card, AND do not use fauna cards to overlap other cards.
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Do not completely overlap one card with another.
Clarification: A card can be completely overlapped if this is done over several turns with 2 or more cards.
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Do not rotate the card 90 degrees (or -90 degrees); cards cannot be placed horizontally as shown.
End of the Game
The game ends — at the end of the current player's turn — when only 2 cards remain in the card market and the deck is empty. If you have done everything correctly, the final turn was taken by the player seated to the right of the player with the First Player card, and each player has 9 cards in their reserve.
Determining the Winner
Determine how many RP your reserve has earned: count and add up the RP for the conditions that are met on all the fauna cards in your reserve. Conditions that are not met do not earn RP. To clarify the rules for calculating conditions, please refer to the Almanac booklet. The player with the most RP wins, and their reserve is recognized as the best in the world ranking. In case of a tie, the player with the fewest cards fauna side up in their reserve wins. Otherwise, a draw is declared: to determine the winner, play another game.