kCaloria: East Texas Piney Woods Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Objective
• Setup
• Placement
• Adjacency
• Ecosystem Collapse
• Winning
• A Turn
• Solo Mode
• Classification
• Biomes
• Deck Building
• Modifiers

Components

To play kCaloria with friends, each player needs their own 60 tile deck with adequate kCalorie counters (to play the solitaire version of kCaloria, see the Solo Mode section). Counters are not supposed to run out, but if they do, use convenient replacements. Decks can be built from scratch, or can be purchased as themed preconstructed sets (to build your own deck, see the Deck Building section). A deck will include the following:

• 20 blue kCalorie cubes
• 20 green kCalorie cubes
• 20 yellow kCalorie cubes
• 18 orange kCalorie cubes
• 18 red kCalorie cubes
• 14 purple kCalorie cubes
• 6 counting dice
• 60 playing tiles

Objective

In kCaloria, your goal is to develop the most abundant and resilient ecosystem, able to withstand natural disasters, novel diseases, and rival predators alike. You achieve this by placing tiles that increase your food chain's total kCalories. Each tile type is identified by its background color.

• Water resource tiles produce blue kCalories worth 0 points.
• Fungi/plant tiles produce green kCalories worth 1 point.
• Herbivore tiles produce yellow kCalories worth 2 points.
• Omnivore tiles produce orange kCalories worth 3 points.
• Carnivore tiles produce red kCalories worth 4 points.
• Human tiles produce purple kCalories worth 5 points.
• Microbe tiles can produce kCalories and may affect adjacent tiles.
• Event tiles (actions & weather) can produce kCalories and may affect adjacent tiles.

In order to score the greatest number of points, you must create a suitable environment for tiles higher up the food chain. In order to play human or carnivore tiles worth the greatest amount of points, there must be sufficient water resources, fungi/plant, herbivore, and omnivore tiles that satisfy those tiles' cost.

As you place tiles, you will contribute kCalories to your ecosystem. At the end of the game, each player will count the points from the unused kCalories on their tiles. The player with the most points wins the game.

Setup

To start, each player will shuffle their deck of 60 tiles and then place this next to themselves, facing down. Players then draw 7 tiles from the top of their deck. Keep these tiles hidden from your opponents until you place them on your turn. If you don't draw a water resource tile initially, reshuffle, redraw and try again. kCaloria is about building intricate food chains - not bad luck! What do all lifeforms on earth require? Water. You will typically use your first turn to build the foundation of your food chain by placing a water resource tile.

kCaloria has no game board. You will build it as you play, every game as unique as the colorful flora and fauna you choose to place. kCaloria can be played anywhere with a flat surface, and depending on the number of players, the start configuration will change.

You will always start 5 tile spaces away from the next closest player. The cardboard insert included in a preconstructed box helps to measure this distance. In a 2-player game you will use the A-B configuration (shown in the setup diagram), a 3-player game will have the A-B-D layout, and a 4-player game will have the A-B-C-D layout. To play the solitaire version of kCaloria, see the Solo Mode section.

Placement

So, who plays first? The player who has most recently gone camping or hiking makes the first move. If there's a tie or all players hate the outdoors, the player who has the highest roll of a die begins. Turns progress in clockwise order.

After the first player makes their move, the next player must place their first tile anywhere 5 tile spaces away. Players three and four will follow this rule to create a layout as pictured.

When you place your tiles, ensure that you can read the text and symbols of your tiles as each player will orient their own tiles differently. You will orient your tiles the same way for the rest of the game, allowing players to distinguish their own tiles. After you've placed your first tile, use the included cardboard holder insert to quickly measure where the next player places their first tile. Repeat this step until everyone has made their first move.

Every tile you place should be placed contiguously from your starting position (shown here as position 1). Every subsequent move played should connect back to your food chain, unless a modifier allows this.

You will alternate placing tiles as players build their respective food chains from simple water resource tiles to complex carnivore and human tiles. Once you begin spreading out from your start locations, you may eventually end up competing for each other's resources and territory.

You can only place a tile adjacent to a tile you have already played, unless your tile has a special modifier that says otherwise (for modifier information, see the Modifiers section).

To start, you will place a tile from your hand onto the table. However, in the example used below, placing the armadillo tile first would be an illegal move. In order to play more complex tiles, the required cost of colored kCalorie counting cubes must already be on the board adjacent to where you want to play.

To play the armadillo tile, it costs 4 adjacent fungi/plant kCalories OR 2 adjacent herbivore kCalories. When in play, the armadillo tile produces 3 omnivore kCalories.

Instead of the armadillo, begin the game with a water resource tile which has no cost to place and is therefore a legal move. This Bayou water resource tile produces 2 water resource kCalories (the blue colored counting cubes).

End your turn by drawing a new tile to bring your hand total back to 7. What about the next turn? You will alternate placing tiles with your opponent(s) and expand your respective food chains to dominate the table! What should you do on your next turn? Why, play a fungi/plant tile of course! This Phlox nivalis plant tile requires 1 water resource kCalorie adjacent to play and yields 2 fungi/plant kCalories.

After all players place their first tile, every subsequent tile must be placed adjacent to one of your previously placed tiles. NOTE: the placement cost of your tiles can be paid using ANY adjacent tiles, even another player's!

On your next turn you want to place a squirrel tile. This has a cost of 1 adjacent water resource kCalorie and 1 adjacent fungi/plant kCalorie. The locations that satisfy this adjacency cost are highlighted.

On the following turn you attempt to play your heron tile (cost of 2 adjacent water resource and herbivore kCalories). This would be an illegal move as the 2 water resource kCalories provided by the bayou tile are already being consumed. You will need to place additional water resource tiles in order to place the heron!

This mushroom tile has a cost of 1 adjacent water resource kCalorie. Fortunately, there are 2 available water resource kCalories at all the highlighted locations. Once your new mushroom tile has been placed, remove the required amount of water resource kCalories from the Bayou tile to pay its cost. Don't forget to add the 2 new fungi/plant kCalories that were created as a result!

Adjacency

A tile's scientific name, their classification, as well as their preferred biome (more on the Biomes section) may all be used to refer to specific adjacency effects. Adjacency effects can either increase or decrease neighboring tile's outputs based on tile modifiers (more on the Modifiers section). If a tile has a modifier icon, it means there are additional adjacency effects to consider when placing. These can be additional yield from neighboring weather tiles, food sources, etc. Refer to the modifiers page for a complete list and their effects.

Some tiles like "sunlight" have multiple modifiers that can affect a variety of tiles. Modifiers can affect tiles based on their classification, like how "Alligator mississipiensis", being a reptile, gets an additional yield due to the sunlight's cold-blooded modifier. Other tiles like "Rhizophora racemosa" have modifiers that affect tile's preferred biomes, when they match (see the Biomes section).

Over the course of a game of kCaloria, like in real life, when you place two of the same species next to each other, they can multiply! For any adjacent animal that shares the same name, you can add +1 to each tile's yield. Placing like animal tiles together for greater kCalorie output also works for neighboring opponent pieces too. It's a double-edged sword, increase your own tile yields at the cost of also helping your opponent!

NOTE: Some tiles, like the frog tile, yield multiple colors of kCalories. When receiving an adjacency bonus, you can choose which color kCalorie to produce from the colors the tile normally creates.

Here, two sunlight tiles neighbor a "Eichhornia crassipes". Sunlight's photosynthesis modifier adds an additional base yield to any adjacent plant tiles. This single plant tile's initial base yield of 2 fungi/plant kCalories receives 4 additional kCalories from the adjacent sunlight tiles! These additional kCalories allow it to pay for more herbivore tiles than normally allowed. Make sure to pay attention to tiles that have already been placed- you can maximize the amount of kCalories you produce with careful planning!

Ecosystem Collapse

In kCaloria, as in the real world, the delicate balance a food chain must maintain between producers and consumers must be upheld. If any of this is disrupted by the removal of a small insect or plant, it can have devastating effects higher up the food chain!

An opponent has placed a microbe tile that has the modifier "Pesticide". This modifier removes all adjacent tiles with the insect classification. Neighboring insect tiles are removed from the table at the end of your opponent's next turn. As these insect tiles' herbivore kCalories formed the backbone of your food chain, you're now faced with an ecosystem collapse!

Use counting dice to mark how many turns away a tile is from being removed from play. Tiles to be removed at the end of your opponent's next turn (the cicadas) start at 1, as they are 1 turn away from being removed. Tiles that depend on those tiles for their own cost (the frog) are 2 turns away from being removed, and so on. Every turn the ecosystem collapse continues, dice values decrease by 1. When the value reaches 0, the tile will be removed.

At the end of your opponent's next turn your "Tibicen tibicen" insect tiles are removed. Every subsequent tile that was built from your insects now faces starvation, and will be removed in sequence at the end of every one of your opponent's turns unless an adequate replacement kCalorie source can be found. NOTE: the fungi/plant kCalories that your insects had used for their cost are returned to the board.

In this scenario an opponent has played a "Remove the Invader" action tile instead of a microorganism to remove your "Tibicen tibicen" insects from play. As with any other tile, action tiles need to be placed next to tiles that you already own but, importantly, are discarded after use the same turn. At the end of your opponent's next turn, your insect tiles are removed and your frog tile faces starvation as the herbivore kCalories it had been receiving no longer exist.

The fungi/plant kCalories that your insects had used are now returned to the board. It is in this moment, before the next player's turn, that the player whose tiles were removed may redistribute kCalories returned to the food chain to avert a collapse. This action does not count as a turn. While "Tibicen tibicen" tiles were removed, your "Dryophytes squirellus" can be satisfied by the newly available fungi/plant kCalories. Crisis averted! Remove the collapse counter dice and continue building your biome!

The ecosystem collapse continues every turn until all starving tile's costs are satisfied. Having extra kCalories supplying your carnivore and human tiles can help protect against these punishing events! If an ecosystem collapse has more stages than you have dice (yikes!), you can either borrow another player's or continually take dice from the beginning of the collapse as they leave the board and add them to the end.

Multiple collapses can occur simultaneously within a food chain. It is important that the player initiating the collapse use their own dice to keep track. When multiple dice are placed on a tile, the lowest value takes priority. Remember to only adjust your own counting dice at the end of your turn!

Opponent "A" has placed a 'Remove the Invader' tile that triggers an ecosystem collapse, shown in red. Your human tile is 5 turns away from starvation. Opponent "B" places a removal tile, shown in yellow, to remove the "Phlox nivalis". This puts the human tile only 2 turns away from starvation. Both collapses happen concurrently.

Sometimes it pays to be risky! Tiles can be placed within a collapsing ecosystem to earn last minute points before an inevitable last turn, or simply to claim a space before your opponent can. On your turn, you can still place this "Caedo Tribe" human. Perhaps you plan to replace the grasshoppers with a squirrel when the spaces become available? Any player can take advantage of the freed-up space and kCalories, so be careful when your tiles leave the game!

Ecosystem collapses add a dynamic to biome-building that can quickly change a stagnant board and allow new life to flourish as easily as they can take it away. Beginners and younger audiences can choose to play kCaloria without the ecosystem collapse mechanic until they feel more comfortable with gameplay. Tiles such as 'Remove the Invader' would simply remove all available kCalories of a desired tile instead of removing the tile from gameplay.

Winning

Continue to place your tiles anywhere and everywhere - quickly building your fledgling food chains into robust ecosystems, competing for resources and earning as many kCalories as possible. The game ends when one of the following conditions occur:

• you have successfully placed your second human tile
• you have successfully placed three adjacent tiles with the "Pack Tactics" modifier
• you have run out of your original 60 tile set

This triggers the game ending and final points are tallied from all unused kCalories each player has remaining on the tabletop. The player with the highest score has dominated all opponents to have their food chain reign supreme and wins the game!

A Turn

Your turn will have the following steps:

• Place a new tile from your hand onto the table.
• If the new tile has a cost, pay the cost by removing the relevant neighboring kCalories.
• If the new tile has a yield, place its yield on top of the new tile, making sure to include any modifier or biome effects.
• If the new tile has an effect (e.g. a modifier, reproduces with neighboring tiles, etc.) or is placed next to any other tiles with effects, resolve the effect.
• Draw a new tile replenishing your hand back to 7 tiles.
• You can always discard and draw up to 3 tiles, ending your turn. Discarded tiles are put to the side face-down in a separate "discard" pile, unable to be played for the remainder of the game.

Solo Mode

To play the solo format of kCaloria, you will need all contents as shown on the Components section. As in normal play, your deck can be built from scratch or preconstructed. Your aim is to build the most expansive, kCalorie-dense food chain as possible using as many tiles as you can to score as high as possible.

Setting up the game involves creating 7 piles of face-down tiles. Starting from left-to-right, the 1st pile will have 1 tile face-down, the 2nd pile, two tiles face-down, the 3rd, three tiles, etc. You will place all 7 piles of tiles face-down, and then flip the top tile of each stack, as shown below. You will keep the rest of your deck face-down near these 7 piles for future use. If you don't draw a water resource tile initially, reshuffle, redraw and try again.

You now play a regular game of kCaloria, adhering to all rules of play regarding placement, adjacency, biomes, classes, and modifiers. Using the face-up tiles as your starting hand, you will add one tile at a time to your food chain. With every face-up tile placed, turn over the next tile in its respective face-down pile to replenish your hand. When all face-down tiles of a pile have been used, draw a tile from the top of your deck and place this in the depleted pile.

In solo play, you are unable to discard tiles if you cannot play them. In some instances, you may find that you can no longer make a valid move as you can no longer play any tiles in your hand. In this case the game is over, your ecosystem has stagnated, and you have lost! If you are able to continue expanding your food chain, however, the game ends when you have either placed your 2nd human, or you have successfully placed three adjacent tiles with the "Pack Tactics" modifier. You will then count all unused kCalories in play to calculate your score.

Classification

A tile's rarity in game can be seen from the color of its classification symbol. Bronze symbols are common, silver are uncommon, gold are exceptional tiles, and red symbols belong to the rarest type of tile. A tile's rarity relates to its conservation status and in-game abilities.

Water resource: Water resources are as varied as they are plentiful. From "Flowing Rivers" to "Blessed rain", tiles with this classification yield blue kCalories.

Plant classifications: Tiles with these classifications breathe for the earth. Flowers, plants, and trees bask in sunlight photosynthesizing while fungi prefer the shade, content recycling nutrients. These tiles yield green kCalories. The plant classifications are algae, flower, fungi, lichen, plant, succulent, and tree.

Animal classifications: These tiles scurry, fly, swim, and stride. They are the herbivores, omnivores, carnivores, and humans. These animals exhibit a vast diversity of forms, behaviors, and adaptations, each contributing to the intricate web of life. The animal classifications are actinopterygii, amphibian, arachnid, bird, cephalopod, chondrichthyes, human, insect, mammal, myriapod, petromyzontida, reptile, and sacropterygii.

Microbe and virus: The smallest of creatures you will encounter, often times microbes and viruses can have the largest impact in an ecosystem. Microbes and viruses produce no kCalories but affect adjacent tiles.

Weather and events: From devastating earthquakes to powerful hurricanes, events and weather regularly shape ecosystems in their image. These may produce kCalories and greatly affect adjacent tiles.

Action and manmade: Action tiles can quickly alter an environment by affecting adjacent tiles. Action tiles disappear from food chains after the turn in which they are played whereas manmade tiles stay behind.

Biomes

The world is full of diverse and magnificent ecosystems, home to countless different species specifically adapted to their surroundings. From bountiful tropical rainforests to the rugged windswept taiga, biomes play a large role in creating a synergized food chain.

Plan your next moves carefully! Be sure to take advantage of the adjacency effects of the many different biomes available to you in kCaloria. With shrewd planning and some luck, you can build a sprawling food chain that takes advantage of the biome boost mechanic to the fullest!

Biome boost modifiers appear on tiles that create the backbone of an ecosystem. When placed, tiles with this modifier add +1 kCalorie to the yield of all adjacent tiles with matching biome icons. Biome boosters can even affect each other!

Tiles have a preferred biome in which they can thrive, shown below their classification symbol. Other tiles may create the backbone of these biomes and have corresponding modifiers. When this squirrel tile is placed next to the pine tree that has the Floodplain Forest biome boost modifier, the squirrel benefits and receives additional yield!

Biome reference (number, biome, code):

1. grassland (GL)
2. savanna (SV)
3. shrubland (SH)
4. semi-arid desert (SD)
5. hot & dry desert (HD)
6. coastal desert (CD)
7. cold desert (CL)
8. tropical lowland rainforest (TL)
9. cloud / montane forest (CF)
10. mangrove forest (MF)
11. tropical dry forest (TF)
12. temperate deciduous forest (TD)
13. temperate coniferous forest (TC)
14. floodplain forest (FF)
15. alpine (AL)
16. taiga / boreal forest (TA)
17. tundra (TN)
18. lentic waters (LE)
19. littoral waters (LI)
20. lotic waters (LO)
21. coral reef (CR)
22. oceanic waters (OC)
23. neritic waters (NO)
24. abyssal waters (AO)

Deck Building

You want to design your own unique ecosystem, chalk-full of flora and fauna from around the world? All you'll need are 60 tiles to create a full deck. Assemble this from booster packs or cobble-together multiple preconstructed sets. The only rule about selecting tiles for your deck is that you can have no more than 5 tiles with the same name e.g. "Moonlight" or "Ardea Herodias".

A few tips to help craft a deck with synergy and playability:

• Ensure that your deck has enough producers (fungi/plants, water resources, and microorganisms) to sustain the consumers of your deck (herbivores, omnivore, carnivores, and humans).
• Water is the basic building-block of life! Make sure that you have enough of it.
• If you plan to use your deck for solo format, consider taking-out action tiles or natural disasters that you might normally play against other players.
• To maximize your synergies, make sure to pair species and their respective biome boosters.

Modifiers

Modifiers are an integral part of kCaloria and can quickly alter the state of a game through careful planning. Maximize your score with tiles that synergize, or chip-away at your opponent's food chain with negative modifiers. The shape of a modifier is important. Circular borders affect the individual tile, squares affect other tiles!

• Anchor: When this tile is placed, adjacent tiles can have all of their associated costs satisfied that match the anchor tile's modifier color.

• Barricade: Block opponents from placing their own tiles adjacent to this space for the duration shown. Use a dice to indicate the turn.

• Camouflage: Tiles with camouflage can alter the color of one of their kCalorie yields to another color when placed.

• Communal: When placing this tile adjacent to another tile of the same name, the communal modifier adds +1 to tile yield.

• Critically endangered: Critically endangered tiles lose 1 kCalorie yield if placed next to a human tile due to habitat loss.

• Delectable: Delectable tiles are great sources of food for humans. If a human tile lies adjacent to a delectable tile, add the indicated amount to that human tile's yield.

• Destructive: Tiles with this modifier subtract the indicated yield of any adjacent tiles that share the modifier's color (e.g. fungi/plant tiles as shown).

• Diurnal: Diurnal animals are active during the day and receive the indicated bonus when adjacent to "Sunlight" tiles.

• Drought resistant: Tiles with Drought Resistance receive an extra turn to survive if they are in the path of an ecosystem collapse.