Koala
Koala Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
110 cards:
- 66 food cards (22 each of Spaghetti, Hamburger and Pizza)
- 26 action cards (12 Bump, 6 Sticky Fingers, 4 Ring-a-Roses, 4 Leapfrog)
- 8 feast cards
- 10 team cards for the team variant
Game Idea
All players are starving koalas who want to eat as much as possible. They try to win as many food cards as they can. The food they win can be eaten or stored in a storage cave. At the end of the game there are points for the food eaten and for the storage caves holding the most cards of each of the three foods. The player with the most points wins.
Setup
First the storage caves are occupied:
- With 3 to 6 players, everyone sits around the table.
- With 7 to 10 players, 6 players sit at the table. The remaining players stand behind the seated players. They should spread out so that they stand as evenly apart from one another as possible.
Players seated at the table are called white koalas. Players standing behind white koalas are called black koalas. One white koala and one black koala together form a koalation. The black koala can see the hand cards of its white koala, but not the other way round.
Important: every seat at the table that is occupied by a white koala at the start of the game is a storage cave. If there is a koalation, the storage cave belongs to both koalas.
- Example: With 4 players, all players are white koalas at the start. There are therefore always 4 storage caves in the game.
- Example: With 8 players, 6 players begin as white koalas and 2 players as black koalas. The two black koalas stand behind two white koalas who sit opposite each other. There are then always 6 storage caves in the game.
Set the feast cards aside, ready to hand.
Shuffle the food and action cards together and place them face down in the middle of the table as the draw pile. Leave some room beside the draw pile for the discard pile that will form during play.
Each koala takes 3 cards from the pile and holds them face down in hand.
The player who looks most like a koala begins.
Note: the team cards are only needed for the team variant and go back into the box otherwise.
Game Play
A round consists of four phases:
- Reveal a card
- Hold a feast
- Play action cards from hand
- Refill hand
After the fourth phase a new round begins. The game ends when a player cannot take or reveal a card from the draw pile because the pile is used up.
1. Reveal a card
The starting player quickly turns the top card of the draw pile face up and places it beside the pile.
If the first card revealed is an action card, the player carries it out and places it on the discard pile. The action cards are described further below (see "The Action Cards").
The player then keeps revealing cards until a food card is revealed. If he reveals further action cards in the meantime, he ignores them and places them on the discard pile.
As soon as the player reveals a food card, an auction begins immediately.
The Auction
During the auction, all players may simultaneously play food cards. They may only play cards showing the same food as the card just revealed.
The first player who plays exactly 1 card of the matching food wins both cards, provided no other player outbids him. A player can outbid another at any time by playing exactly 1 card more from his hand than the player who last placed a bid into the middle. That is, to outbid by 2 cards, a player must play 3 cards of the food in question, and so on.
If a player is outbid, the cards from his bid are lost to him. If he makes a new bid, he must pay for it in full again.
Note: the two koalas in a koalation may agree to take part in the auction together. They may also make a joint bid by both putting down the number of food cards required for the next bid. However, the black koala must on no account show its cards to its white partner.
The auction ends when no player can or will make a higher bid. The player who made the last bid receives all the cards from the middle and must place them in front of himself on the table, in his storage cave. This player immediately becomes the new starting player.
If the auction ends without anyone bidding for the revealed food card, that card is set aside. The starting player then keeps revealing cards until he reveals a food card and a new auction begins. The winner of the auction receives the card that was set aside as a bonus. If the starting player reveals further action cards in the meantime, he ignores them.
If the players hesitate for too long, the starting player may slowly and loudly count to three by calling out "KO! – A! – LA!". If no player makes a bid in that time, the auction ends.
The call "KO! – A! – LA!" may not be used to end a game phase early. It only serves to make sure bids are placed promptly. If play continues before the call has run its course, the starting player begins counting to three again at the next pause.
If a player plays fewer or more food cards than his bid requires, the bid is invalid and he must take his cards back into his hand.
Moving the Koalas
Some cards require players at the table to move. When a player is moved to the right or left, he must stand up and take the corresponding seat at the table.
If a player takes a seat that was previously unoccupied, he automatically becomes a white koala and takes over the storage cave belonging to that seat, with all the cards in it.
If the seat is not empty and holds only a single white koala, the player must stand behind that white koala and becomes a black koala. The two form a koalation.
If the seat is not empty and holds a koalation, the black koala of that koalation must in turn move one seat further along, and so on (see the illustration).
If a white koala has to move out of a koalation without another white koala moving into its place, the black koala slides forward and is now a white koala.
If a single white koala has to move, the storage cave at that seat stays unoccupied, even if food cards lie in it. There are always as many caves as there were white koalas at the start of the game.
Example for moving: white koala 2 in front of cave b is hit by the action card "Bump" and must move to the right (Fig. A). It therefore slides behind white koala 3. As a result, black koala 4 must in turn move to the right, to the seat of 6 (Fig. B). Black koala 6 sits in front of the unoccupied cave e and becomes a white koala (Fig. C).
2. Hold a feast
After the new starting player has placed the won cards into his storage cave, every white koala may hold a feast. The white koala in the starting player's cave goes first. The other white koalas follow clockwise.
If a white koala wants to hold a feast, he needs at least 6 food cards of the same food (6 Pizzas or 6 Spaghetti or 6 Hamburgers) in his storage cave. He must then place all the food cards of that food on the discard pile and receives 1 feast card for it. He keeps this card until the end of the game, holding it so that all other players can see it. Feast cards do not count towards the 3 hand cards of a player.
Note: even if a player discards 12 or more cards of the same food, he receives only 1 feast card for it.
A player may hold a feast with several foods if he has at least 6 cards of each. He then receives 1 feast card for each of those foods.
Note: only white koalas can receive feast cards. A player keeps them until the end of the game, even if he later becomes a black koala.
3. Play action cards from hand
When every white koala has had the opportunity to hold a feast, the starting player gives the command to play action cards.
All players may now simultaneously play action cards from their hand and place them beside the draw pile. If several players have played an action card, the card placed first is carried out immediately. The other players take their cards back into their hand.
As soon as the action has been carried out, the starting player again gives the command to play action cards.
If the players hesitate for too long, the starting player may slowly and loudly count to three by calling out "KO! – A! – LA!". If no player plays an action card in that time, this phase ends.
4. Refill hand
Beginning with the starting player, each player now draws cards from the pile until he again has 3 cards in hand. Feast cards and team cards (see "The Team Variant" below) do not count. Players take their turns clockwise. In a koalation, the white koala draws first.
"Bad cards?": if, after refilling, a player has 3 action cards or 3 identical food cards in hand, he may show his hand immediately. He then places the cards face down under the discard pile and draws 3 new cards. He must keep these cards.
End of the round
Once all players have refilled their hands, the round ends. The next round begins with revealing a card.
End of the Game
The game ends immediately when a player must take or reveal a card from the draw pile and that is not possible because the pile is used up. Scoring then follows.
Scoring
Players receive points for the food cards in their storage caves and for their feast cards.
- The player in front of the storage cave with the most Pizza cards receives 2 points.
- The player in front of the storage cave with the most Hamburger cards receives 2 points.
- The player in front of the storage cave with the most Spaghetti cards receives 2 points. If the cave belongs to a koalation, each of the two players receives 2 points.
- If two or more storage caves are tied for the most cards of a food, the players concerned each receive 1 point.
- Each player receives 1 point for each feast card he holds in hand.
Now the two players of each koalation add their points together. The koalation, or the single koala sitting alone in front of a cave, with the most points wins.
In the event of a tie on points, the player or koalation with more food cards in its storage cave wins. If there is still a tie, the players share the victory and look forward together to the next great feast!
The Action Cards
The player who revealed or played the action card decides how it is carried out. Afterwards he places it on the discard pile.
Bump
With this card a white koala is forced to move one seat to the right or left. The player who plays the card decides the direction. It may only be played against white koalas. The player may not play it on himself!
Sticky Fingers (Langfinger)
The player may steal all the food cards of one food from an unoccupied storage cave. He must place the cards in his own storage cave.
Ring-a-Roses (Ringelreihen)
All white koalas slide one seat to the right or left. The player who plays the card decides the direction. Black koalas are not affected by the card.
Leapfrog (Bocksprung)
The two koalas of a koalation swap places. The white koala therefore becomes the black koala and vice versa. The player may also play this card on his own koalation.
The Team Variant
From four players onward, you can make the game even more interesting and exciting by playing in teams.
Before the game begins, separate the team cards listed in the following table, and shuffle them face down. (The table is a graphic on the original sheet; its contents do not survive as text in the source PDF and are not reproduced here.)
Each player draws one team card face down and keeps it in hand for the whole game. The team card does not count towards his 3 hand cards.
Black koalas may look at the team card of their white koala. So a player who, as a black koala, stands behind different white koalas during play may find his teammate.
The team variant has the following changes:
- As in the game without teams, both koalas of a koalation receive the points for the most cards of a food in the storage cave. However, they do not receive the points for the feast cards in the other's hand.
- The two teammates add together the points for the storage caves in front of which they sit and for the feast cards they hold in hand. The team with the most points wins.
Note:
- With an odd number of players, a team card with a question mark is added. The player with the question mark plays alone until the end of the game. At scoring he joins the team with the fewest points and adds his points to it.
- With 10 players, the two players with question marks count as a normal team.