Islet Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• How to Play
  • Explore
  • Move
• Explore
  • 1. Place tiles
  • 2. Gain resources
  • 3. Gain tiles
• Move
  • Advance your pawn
  • Lay an egg
• How to Pay Costs
• End of Game
• Solo Mode
  • Additional Components
  • Setup
  • Game Flow
  • End of Game (Solo)
  • Game Variants
• Quick Reference

Components

• 90 islet tiles: each tile shows 1 type of terrain (fresh water, sand, and clay) and 1 type of nest (leaves, branches, and flowers).
• 36 terrain cards: 12 of each of the 3 terrain types.
• 36 nest cards: 12 of each of the 3 nest types.
  • In these rules, terrain cards and nest cards are called resources. If you must take one and none remain, you take none.
• 13 day and night cards, used only in solo mode.
• 4 bird pawns, one per species.
• 34 egg tokens: 10, 10, 8, and 6, one color per species.
• 1 bag and these rules.

Setup

If you are playing solo, skip ahead to the Solo Mode section.

1. Separate the resources by type, forming 6 stacks, and place them to one side of the table.
2. Place the 90 islet tiles in the bag and shuffle them.
3. Draw 6 tiles at random from the bag and place them in the center of the table, forming the islet, as shown in the picture. The surface of the table around the islet is called the sea.
4. Each player draws 4 islet tiles at random from the bag, then takes the following pieces to form their reserve:
   • 2 players: 10 eggs of the same color and the associated bird pawn. In 2-player games, only two of the colors are available.
   • 3 players: 8 eggs of the same color and the associated bird pawn. In 3-player games, only three of the colors are available.
   • 4 players: 6 eggs of the same color and the associated bird pawn.
5. Each player places their bird pawn in the sea.

Note: During the game, keep your islet tiles either in your hand or face down in front of you. Each player may check their own tiles at any time, but may not look at other players' tiles. However, the resources you acquire must remain visible to the other players at all times. The set of tiles, resources, and eggs belonging to each player is called their reserve.

How to Play

Whoever most recently laid an egg (in real life) starts the game. Starting with that player, you take turns in clockwise order. On your turn, you must perform an EXPLORE action or a MOVE action.

Explore

This action lets you place 1 to 4 tiles from your reserve to grow the islet and gain resources.

1. Place tiles
2. Gain resources
3. Gain tiles

Move

This action lets you advance your pawn and lay eggs, as many times as you want, in any order and combination, as long as you can pay the required resource cost.

Explore

This action lets you place 1 to 4 tiles on the islet and gain the corresponding resources. Follow these steps:

1. Place tiles

1st tile: this tile must be placed in the sea, adjacent to the islet.

2nd, 3rd, and 4th tile: placing these tiles is optional. If you place them, you must place them on the islet, and each tile must satisfy these 3 conditions:

• A. On a tile adjacent to the last tile placed in this action.
• B. Empty: without a bird or an egg.
• C. Ascending, leaving the placed tile one level (or more) higher than the last tile placed in this action.

Example of Exploration: Thomas places the 1st tile in the sea, the 2nd tile on the same terrain type (adjacent, empty, and ascending), the 3rd tile on a different terrain type (adjacent, empty, and ascending), and the 4th tile on another terrain type. This way, he gains the resources: 1 Clay terrain, 1 Sand terrain, 2 Sand nests. Then he draws 4 tiles from the reserve, and since he has 10 unguaranteed resources, he discards 2 to keep 8.

2. Gain resources

The resources you gain this way go into your reserve. For each tile you placed in step 1:

• If you placed it in the sea, or on top of a tile of the same terrain type, take a terrain card of the same type as the placed tile.
  • Clay tile on Clay tile: CLAY TERRAIN
• If you placed it on a tile of a different terrain type, take a nest card according to the combination of tiles:
  • Fresh Water tile on Sand tile, or vice versa: BRANCH NEST
  • Fresh Water tile on Clay tile, or vice versa: LEAF NEST
  • Sand tile on Clay tile, or vice versa: FLOWER NEST

Note: When gaining resources, the nest shown on the tile is not taken into account, only its terrain type. The nest type shown on the tile is only taken into account during the MOVE action.

3. Gain tiles

Draw tiles at random from the bag until you have 4 in your reserve. Then, if you have more than 8 unguaranteed resources (see next section), return them to their respective stacks until you have a maximum of 8 unguaranteed resources in your reserve.

Move

With this action, you may ADVANCE your pawn and LAY EGGS as many times as you wish, in any order and combination, as long as you can pay the required resource cost. You may not end this action with your pawn on a tile occupied by another bird pawn.

Advance your pawn

To ADVANCE your pawn, follow these steps:

1. Choose a DESTINATION tile that is adjacent to your pawn's tile (or adjacent to the sea, if your pawn is in the sea). You may choose a tile containing another bird pawn, but you may not end your Move action there. When you move, ignore other birds, eggs, and height differences between tiles. You may not return to the sea after leaving it.
2. Pay the cost:
   • If the chosen tile is the same terrain type as your pawn's current tile, you pay nothing.
   • Otherwise, you pay 1 terrain card of the destination tile's terrain type.
3. Place your pawn on the destination tile.

Lay an egg

You may LAY AN EGG on the tile your pawn occupies, provided it does not already contain an egg and/or another bird pawn. Proceed as follows:

1. Pay 3 nest cards of the type shown on your pawn's tile.
2. Depending on the number of free eggs in your reserve, do one of the following:
   • If you have 2 or more, take an egg and place it on your pawn's tile: you have gained a guaranteed resource. To do this, draw 1 resource of your choice from the corresponding stack and place it under one of the free eggs in your reserve (this egg is no longer free). You may not have more than 2 identical guaranteed resources.
   • If you have none, take 1 egg from one of your guaranteed resources, place it on your pawn's tile, and return that guaranteed resource to its stack.

Note: As long as you have 2 or more free eggs, you gain guaranteed resources when you lay an egg. These resources will let you pay the costs to advance your pawn and lay eggs more easily, so it is important to choose them wisely! However, once you have no more free eggs in your reserve, you will lose the guaranteed resources each time you lay an egg, and you will have fewer and fewer resources to pay costs... so the order in which you get rid of them also matters!

How to Pay Costs

To pay a cost, you may combine these two options:

• Return the (unguaranteed) resources of the indicated type from your reserve to the corresponding stack.
• Spend your guaranteed resources. To do this, flip over the egg sitting on top of that resource (you may use each guaranteed resource only once per turn, including the turn on which you gain that guaranteed resource). At the end of each of your turns, stand back up the eggs on top of your guaranteed resources.

When paying costs, you may TRANSFORM TERRAIN CARDS of any type (guaranteed or not):

• Spend and/or return to their stack 2 identical terrain cards to obtain 1 terrain card of any other type.
• Spend and/or return to their stacks 2 different terrain cards to obtain 1 nest card matching their terrain combination.

Example of Movement: Thomas will perform a single Move action combining: Advance (twice), Lay an egg (once), and Advance (once). He first advances to the Clay tile A. He pays the cost by flipping over the egg on his guaranteed Clay resource B. He then advances to the Fresh Water tile C, returning a Fresh Water resource D to the stack. He then wants to lay an egg, so he must pay 3 Flower resources. He has 2 in his reserve E, and he obtains the third by transforming 1 Clay resource F and 1 Sand resource G. He then returns the 3 resources to the Flower stack. Since he has more than 2 free eggs in his reserve, he places one of his free eggs H on the islet and gains a guaranteed resource: he chooses to take a Leaf resource I and places one of his free eggs J on top of it. Then, being able to move across the same terrain at no cost, he moves one last time to the adjacent Fresh Water tile K. In this Move action, he used 6 resources (1 guaranteed and 1 terrain to move, and 2 nest and 2 terrain to lay an egg), he laid an egg, and he gained a new guaranteed resource... Not bad!

End of Game

The end of the game can be triggered in 2 different ways:

• When a player LAYS their last egg, their turn ends normally, then the round is completed (so that everyone plays the same number of turns).
• When a player takes the last tile from the bag, the round is completed and one additional round is played (so that everyone plays the same number of turns).

In all cases, the player who has laid the most eggs wins. In case of a tie, the tied player who laid an egg on the highest tile wins. If the tie persists, the tied players compare their next-highest egg, and so on until a winner is determined. If all their eggs are at the same height, the tied players share the victory.

Solo Mode

In this mode of play, you will explore two islets and alternate between them to place your eggs in the safest nests.

The goal is to lay all 10 of your eggs before the islet tiles in the bag run out. If you succeed, the number of tiles remaining in the bag indicates your success rate.

Additional Components

• 13 day and night cards.

Setup

Follow the same setup as the multiplayer game, with these changes:

1. Draw 12 tiles at random from the bag (instead of 6) and place them in the center of the table, forming 2 separate islets (instead of one) of 6 tiles each, as shown in the picture. The surface of the table around the islets is called the sea.
2. Shuffle the 13 day and night cards into a deck and place it face down to one side of the table.
3. Reveal 2 day and night cards and place them in their day orientation near islet 1. Then reveal 2 more day and night cards and place them in their night orientation near islet 2. Throughout the game, the day and night cards for each islet will always stay in the same orientation (day for islet 1, and night for islet 2), and each islet may have a maximum of 2 day and night cards at any time.
4. Choose one of the islets and place your bird pawn on one of its tiles.

Note: The day and night cards have two orientations, DAY and NIGHT, defined by their light and dark background. Each orientation tells you where to place your bird.

Game Flow

You play a series of turns. On each turn, you must choose either the EXPLORE action or the MOVE action. Follow the normal rules, but apply the following changes:

Explore: During the Place Tiles step, you may only place tiles on the islet where your pawn is located.

Move: At the start of this action, remove 3 tiles from your hand or at random from the bag and return them to the box.

Note: If you removed the tiles from your hand, you will have only a single tile remaining for the Explore action on your next turn.

Whenever you ADVANCE your pawn, you may choose as your destination tile a tile on the other islet that is exactly identical (same terrain and same nest) to your pawn's tile. In that case, you must pay a terrain card of the destination tile's type, then place your pawn on the destination tile as usual.

You may only LAY AN EGG on tiles of your islet that satisfy the conditions of at least one of that islet's day and night cards. Whenever you lay an egg, discard the corresponding day and night card (if you satisfy both conditions, you discard only one). Then, if the other islet has fewer than 2 day and night cards, reveal cards from the deck and place them near that islet until it has 2 cards. Remember that throughout the game, the day and night cards for each islet will always be oriented the same way (day for the day islet, and night for the night islet).

Example: Thomas lays an egg on the day islet, satisfying the condition of one of his cards, and so discards it. Since there are no more cards on the night islet, Thomas reveals 2 day and night cards from the deck and places them in the night orientation near the night islet.

End of Game (Solo)

You lose the game if you must take a tile from the bag, there are no tiles left, and you still have eggs in your reserve.

You win the game if you lay all of your eggs.

If you win the game, count the number of islet tiles remaining in the bag. Compare your score using the table below:

• 15+: IDEAL ECOSYSTEM... The world needs more people like you!
• 10-14: YOU SAVED THE ISLAND'S ENDANGERED SPECIES... Well done!
• 7-9: THE WILDLIFE IS THRIVING... Great!
• 4-6: THE FLORA IS STARTING TO BLOOM... Good!
• 3 or fewer: TRY AGAIN... You can do better!

Game Variants

If you would like a simpler gameplay experience, we recommend laying 6 eggs instead of 10.

Quick Reference

1. Setup

• Form a stack for each resource and an islet of 6 tiles.
• Each player draws 4 tiles and their eggs.
• Leave the players' pawns in the sea.

2. Play

Starting with the first player, you take turns in clockwise order. On your turn, you must perform an EXPLORE action or a MOVE action.

3. End of Game

The end of the game can happen in 2 different ways:

• When someone lays their last egg.
• When someone takes the last islet tile from the bag.

Whoever lays the most eggs wins.

Explore — steps in order

1. Place the tiles: the first tile, adjacent to the islet, in the sea. Place tiles 2 to 4 (the ones you choose to place) following these 3 conditions: (A) on a tile adjacent to the last tile; (B) it must be empty; (C) ascending, leaving the placed tile one level (or more) higher than the last tile.
2. Receive resources: tile placed in the sea or on a tile of the same terrain type — gain 1 terrain card of the tile's terrain. Tile placed on a tile of a different terrain type — gain 1 nest card whose background combines the terrain of the added tile and that of the covered tile.
3. Receive tiles: draw until you have 4 tiles, and discard until you have 8 unguaranteed resources.

Move — in any order and combination, ADVANCE and/or LAY AN EGG as many times as you wish and can pay for

• Advance: choose the adjacent tile you wish to move to. Pay the cost: if the tile is on the same terrain as the one your pawn is on, there is no cost; if the tile is on a different terrain type than the one your pawn is on, pay 1 terrain card of the destination tile's type. Advance your pawn to the destination tile. You may not perform the Move action ending by sharing a tile with another bird.
• Lay an egg: pay 3 nest cards matching the nest on the tile where your pawn is. Depending on the number of free eggs in your reserve: if you have 2 or more, take 1 and place it on your pawn's tile. You gain a guaranteed resource: take 1 resource of your choice for your reserve and place one of your eggs on top of it. If you have none, take 1 egg from one of your guaranteed resources, place it on your pawn's tile, and discard the resource it was guaranteeing.