Oh My. Orchids! Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Setup
• Flow of the Game
  • 1. Take Seeds
  • 2. Plant Flowers
  • Player Aid Card (I. On Your Turn)
• End of the Game and Scoring
• Notes from the Designer

Setup

Determine a Starting Player by any method, preferably the player who most recently did any gardening.

1. Sort and shuffle the 3 separate card types face-down to form 3 separate decks.
2. Place the Orchid deck in the top left of the shared playing area and flip over 3 Orchid cards face-up to the right of the deck. This is the Orchid display.
3. Place the Flora deck below the Orchid deck and flip over 4 Flora cards face-up to the right of the deck. This is the Flora display.
4. Place the Seed deck below the Flora deck and flip over 5 cards face-up to the right of the deck. This is the Seed display. Leave room to the left of the Seed deck for a discard pile.
5. Each player leaves some room in front of them that is at least 7 cards wide for their Seed and Flower cards. This is their garden. Give all players a Player Aid card to be placed in this space. Return any unused Player Aid cards to the box.

The 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th players draw 1, 2, 3, and 4 Seed cards respectively from the top of the Seed deck at random, placing the cards face-up in front of them.

Flow of the Game

Beginning with the Starting Player, players take turns in a clockwise order. On their turn, a player chooses one of two possible actions:

1. Take Seeds
2. Plant Flowers

1. Take Seeds

A player taking seeds must take either:

• all cards of the same Seed type, or
• all cards of the same colour

They then place the Seed cards face-up in front of them in a row. They must take all cards of the same colour or type that they have chosen.

Example: It is Miss Lily's turn. She wants to take Seed cards. She has 6 choices: 1 red Seed card, 3 green Seed cards, 1 yellow Seed card, 2 cards of 1 seed, 2 cards of 3 seeds, and 1 card of 4 seeds. She chooses to take 3 green Seed cards.

After a player chooses the Take Seeds action, the Seed display is refilled with 5 cards. If there are insufficient cards in the Seed deck, shuffle the discard pile to form a new deck. It is now the turn of the player on the left.

If a player has more than 7 Seed cards, they must immediately compost the excess. They may choose which cards to compost. Place composted Seed cards face-down underneath their Player Aid card. Each face-down Seed card here will count as a negative point towards the player's score at the end of the game.

Example: As she already has 5 Seed cards, she chooses 1 card from the 8 cards that she currently has to put face-down under her Player Aid card. This face-down Seed card counts as -1 point at the end of the game.

2. Plant Flowers

A player planting flowers may choose any of the 7 Flower cards in the Orchid or Flora displays to plant. Orchid and Flora cards are considered to be Flower cards. The player discards Seed cards that match the cost of the Flower card, and places the Flower card in their personal play area.

They may plant more than one flower if they can discard the Seed card cost for each individual Flower card. For a complete list of the cost for each Flower, please scan the QR code and refer to the Oh My. Orchids! web page and the Player Aid card.

Example: Miss Calla wants to plant flowers and discards 3 blue cards of 2 seeds to plant the Bamboo Orchid and 3 yellow Seed cards to plant a White Kopsia. An excellent turn!

After a player takes the Plant Flowers action, the Orchid and Flora display is replenished to 3 and 4 face-up cards respectively. In the rare case that there are insufficient Orchids, there will be less cards in the display. It is now the turn of the player on the left.

Player Aid Card (I. On Your Turn)

The Player Aid card summarises the turn in two options:

• A. Pick Seed cards by colour or type — Colours: same Seed colours. Types: different Seed types, or exact number of Seeds.
• ~ OR ~
• B. Plant Flower(s) by discarding Seed cards — Same Seed colours; Different Seed types; Exact number of Seeds.

End of the Game and Scoring

The game will enter its last round when one player has at least 7 flowers planted in front of them.

All other players now have one last turn, but they can only take the 'Plant Flowers' action.

Players now tally their Flower points on their Flower cards, indicated by the Flower icon on the top left of the cards.

In addition, players add a Variety bonus score for having planted different unique flower types:

• ≠4 : +3
• ≠5 : +6
• ≠6 : +10
• ≠7 : +15

Note that Orchid cards are all unique (i.e. there is only one copy of each orchid in the game), whereas there are multiple copies of each Flora card.

Players also deduct 1 point for each face-down Seed card underneath their Player Aid card.

The final score is: Flower points + Variety bonus points - Composted Seed cards = Total points.

Example: Miss Shihui ends the game with these flowers. Her Flower points total (4 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 7 + 8 + 10) is 37. 6 different types of flowers gives her a Variety bonus of +10. Her composted Seed cards result in -2. Her total score is 37 + 10 - 2 = 45.

The player with the most Flower points wins the game! In the case of a tie, the player with the most Orchid cards wins.

Scoring reference (End Game Scoring, Player Aid card): this card prints sections C (Score all Flowers) and D (Score a Variety Bonus for different Flowers) only; sections A and B are not printed in this document.

Notes from the Designer

Oh my, where to begin? Orchids are a prized flower around the world, and there is so much to learn about this flower family.

One thing I wanted to convey in the game was the sheer number of varieties of orchids - Orchidaceae is one of the two largest families of flowering plants on earth (that is why each orchid card is unique in the game). This is even before you take into consideration the number of hybrids!

In the game, players collect 'seeds' to plant flowers. In real life, orchids are mostly grown from tissue culture and rarely grown from seeds.

All the orchids and flowers in the game are also native to Singapore, and were chosen after consulting the Singapore Botanic Gardens (thanks folks!). The non-orchid flowers in particular are commonplace and can be spotted on a stroll through a park or a neighbourhood estate.

Although orchids can be found all around the world, orchids have a special meaning to Singapore. Singapore's national flower is an orchid (the Vanda Miss Joachim), and Singapore is home to the National Orchid Garden, which features hundreds of species and hybrids of orchids in addition to being world renowned for orchid breeding.

Singapore also engages in orchid diplomacy, which is the practice of gifting orchid hybrids to important guests who visit Singapore, such as Nelson Mandela, Princess Diana, and Jackie Chan.

As you flip through the cards in Oh My. Orchids!, please enjoy your journey through the different flowers of Singapore. I hope you pay more attention to the flowers around you in your daily life!

Captions to the seed illustrations: "The seeds in Oh My. Orchids! are actually seeds from iconic Singaporean trees": 1. Angsana, 2. Dipterocarp, 3. Rubber, 4. Saga.