Parkies Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Objective
• Setup
• Game Play
  • 3-6 Player Game
    • Flip Over New Tiles
    • Place Bids
    • Pay, Place, Adjust
    • Collect Income
    • Move Parkies
    • Pick Parkies
    • Pass First Player Marker
  • 2 Player Variant
    • Flip Over A New Tile
    • Place Bids
• Attractions
  • Placing Attractions
  • Demolishing Attractions
• Parkie Powers
• Picking Parkies
• The Parkie Pool
• Placing Parkies
• Moving Parkies
• Ending The Game
• Scoring
  • Money
  • Attraction Types
  • Matching Parkies
  • Special Tiles
  • Allure, Profitability, and Satisfaction
  • Connections
  • The Winner
• The Lake Variant
• Strategy Guide
  • Keep Balance
  • Use Discounts
  • Tactical Parkies
  • Connections Are Gold
  • Late Game Money
• Play Example

Components

• 35 Small Attraction Tiles
• 22 Medium Attraction Tiles
• 8 Major Attraction Tiles
• 6 Player Reference Tiles
• This Manual
• 6 Bidding Pawns
• 40 Parkies
• 6 Player Mats
• 18 Track Markers
• First Player Pawn
• 6 Money Markers
• Bidding Mat

Players: 2-6.

Objective

In Parkies, you'll compete with 1 to 5 other players to build the best theme park possible, while attempting to attract the Parkies. Parkies are the absolute power in the game, so good Parkie management is as important as your ability to construct an interesting park.

Setup

Lay the bidding mat in the center of the table.

Place the parkies near the bidding mat in the center of the table.

Note: Some people prefer to stack the parkies directly on the Parkie Pool space. Feel free to do that if it is more convenient for you to keep track of how many parkies are remaining in the pool.

Place the small attraction tiles face-down on the indicated spot along the edge of the bidding mat. You may stack them in 2 piles. Do the same for the medium and major attraction tiles.

Give each player a player mat and a reference tile. They should place their mat in front of them with the lake side face-down.

Each player: Choose a color (blue, red, yellow, black, white, or green) and take the bidding pawn, money marker disc, and track marker cubes of that color. Place the three cubes in the three "5" positions in the allure, profitability, and satisfaction tracks on your player mat. Place your money disc at the 20 spot on the money track on the bidding mat. (The Money Track is displayed in 2 ways; flip to the side that makes the most sense to you.)

If there are any remaining colored pawns or mats place them back in the box as they will not be used.

Place any remaining reference tiles over the spaces on the bidding mat that will not be used this game. For example, "Small Attractions C" is only used in a 6 player game, so if you have 5 or fewer players it should get covered.

Give the first player pawn to the player who attended a theme park (or carnival with rides) most recently.

Game Play

The steps are laid out in detail below, and in short on each player's reference tile. Most games will last approximately 10 turns.

3-6 Player Game

The following rules are for a 3 to 6 player game. The rules for a 2 player game are slightly different, and the differences are documented in a section called "2 Player Variant", which directly follows this section.

Flip Over New Tiles

Flip over attraction tiles to fill the bidding spaces not covered by reference tiles. For example, in a 5 player game you'd flip over 2 small, 2 medium, and one major attraction tile.

Note: If there were any tiles left over from a previous round, they'll shift right to a cheaper bidding location (where possible), but stays in play until bought.

Place Bids

Starting with the first player, each player should place their pawn on a bidding space next to one of the attraction spaces. You cannot bid more than you have (except with Parkie Powers), and each player starts the game with $20. Therefore no one will be able to bid on the major attraction the first turn.

Any number of players may place their bid marker in the Parkie Pool to gain a Parkie of their choice instead of a tile.

Bidding continues around the table with each player placing their bid marker on one of the bidding locations (or the Parkie Pool), outbidding each other as needed until there is no contention in bidding.

You may not change your bid, once placed, unless you are outbid by another player. If outbid you may move your bidding pawn to any other valid bidding location.

Pay, Place, Adjust

Once there is no contention, each player shall pay for the tile they won (move your disc on the money track), place it in their park (see "Placing Attractions" for details), and then adjust their Allure, Profitability, and Satisfaction values according to the values listed on the tile you just purchased.

For each player who placed their bid marker in the Parkie Pool, starting with the first player and travelling left, add 3 to your money on the money track, and pick a Parkie of your choice to add to your park.

Collect Income

Once all players have adjusted their Allure, Profitability, and Satisfaction tracks they should collect income equal to the lowest of those 3 values. So if you have 8 Allure, 5 Profitability, and 6 Satisfaction, you'd move your money tracker disc up 5 positions on the money track.

Move Parkies

Normally at this point you'd move parkies (see "Moving Parkies" for details), but you have nowhere to move them now so we'll skip this step in the first turn.

Pick Parkies

Starting with the first player, each player should pick a Parkie from the pool that matches a color of the flag in the upper right corner of an attraction tile they have in their park. If a player doesn't have an attraction tile then they do not pick one at this time.

Pass First Player Marker

The first player should pass the first player marker to the player on their left.

2 Player Variant

Tile flipping and bidding are slightly different in a 2 player game from a 3-6 player game.

Flip Over A New Tile

Instead of flipping over tiles to fill all the bidding spaces, the first player will flip over a new tile of his or her choice. It can be any of the 3 sizes of tiles, but only 1 tile.

Place Bids

Starting with the first player, both players will place a bid on the currently flipped over tile. Bidding will continue until at least one player passes.

If one player won the first round of bidding, the player that did not win the bid will choose and flip over a new tile. That player may pay the cheapest cost for that tile or pass. If they pass, the tile is discarded and they are forced to bid on the Parkie Pool.

If both players passed in the first round of bidding, then the original tile is discarded, and the second player will flip over a new tile and start the bidding again. The loser will be forced to bid on the Parkie Pool.

If neither player bid on either tile during the 2 rounds of bidding, then both players will be forced to bid on the Parkie Pool.

Other than the changes described above, the 2 player variant is the same as a 3-6 player game.

Attractions

Attractions are how you build out your park, and give you allure, profitability, and satisfaction.

An attraction tile shows: Attraction Type, Bonus Victory Point, Connecting Path, Allure, Profitability, and Satisfaction.

Placing Attractions

Attractions must be able to draw a direct path back to an entrance. Therefore you can never place an attraction in the middle of your park. One of the paths of the tile must face the entrance.

Attractions may never dead-end into each other. They may, however, have paths off the mat in addition to entrances.

You may rotate tiles however you wish to make them fit into your park.

(The manual illustrates legal and illegal placements with diagrams.)

Demolishing Attractions

You may demolish an attraction in your park as a free action at any time. However, if there are any Parkies on that attraction, they must be discarded back to the Parkie Pool and you will gain $5 for each Parkie discarded.

The demolished attraction is placed at the bottom of the appropriate pile to be bid on again later in the game.

Parkie Powers

Bid Discounts - A Parkie is worth a $2 discount when making bids on attractions of their type. So if you have 2 green Parkies when bidding on a coaster, then your bid will actually cost you $4 less when it comes time to pay.

Cash - You can discard a Parkie back to the Parkie Pool at any time to gain $5 instantly. If you're using that money to bid more than you have, then you must discard the Parkie before placing the bid.

Trump - If you want to outbid someone at the highest spot on an attraction, you can spend a Parkie to outbid that player. The Parkie must be of the same color as the attraction you are bidding on. Therefore, if it is a water attraction, then you must use a blue Parkie as trump.

When you take this action, place your trump Parkie on the tile and your bid marker on the top spot. Give the other player's bid marker back to them.

You can overtrump by spending more Parkies than the previous trump. At least one of the Parkies spent in this way must be of the matching color.

All Parkies spent as trump return to the Parkie Pool after bidding has ended. As such, they cannot also be used as a discount.

Picking Parkies

When you choose a Parkie from the Parkie Pool you must choose a Parkie that matches the color of any attraction type in your park. As an example, if you do not have a coaster, then you cannot pick a green Parkie.

There is one exception to this rule: If you placed your pawn on the Parkie Pool during the bidding phase, that action allows you to pick any color Parkie you want.

The Parkie Pool

The Parkie Pool is a special place on the bidding mat. It is a corral where you find new Parkies to bring to your park, and also it is a bid location. When it is used as a bid location, you get $3 and a Parkie of any color left in the pool. Parkies are always added to an entrance tile in your park.

Placing Parkies

Parkies must always go to an entrance tile attraction. If there is no attraction on an entrance, then the Parkie must go to another entrance. If there are no attractions in your park, then your Parkies will wait outside until there is an entrance tile.

(The manual illustrates legal and illegal placements with diagrams.)

Moving Parkies

One of the phases of a turn allows you to move a Parkie up to 2 spaces. If you prefer, you can move 2 Parkies 1 space each. For the purposes of movement a "space" is a tile, regardless of its size.

Ending The Game

The game ends when at least one player is able to connect all four of their entrances to each other. For them to be connected, you must be able to draw a path using attractions from any entrance to any other entrance.

When someone connects all 4 entrances, you complete the current turn, and then scoring begins.

Note: In very rare circumstances you may run out of tiles before someone has completed all 4 connections. If two piles of tiles and their bidding locations are completely empty, the game will end and scoring can begin.

Scoring

To start scoring, each player should place their bidding pawn (don't move the money marker) on the zero position of the money track. They will move this pawn as they score points. Scoring is as follows:

Money

Before scoring money, all players may discard any Parkies in their park for $5 each. Parkies discarded now will not be used for future scoring.

For each heart that a player's money tracker disc has met or passed on the money track, they'll earn 1 point. If anyone would like, they may sell parkies at this point to earn extra points. A maximum of 7 points may be earned this way.

Attraction Types

A player earns 1 point for each unique attraction type in their park. There are 8 attraction types (food, ride, coaster, show, water, shop, park, and game), so there are a maximum of 8 points to be earned this way. You do not earn extra points for more than one attraction tile of a given type.

Matching Parkies

A player will earn 1 point for each attraction with a Parkie on it that matches the color of the type of attraction. Having more than 1 Parkie of the appropriate color on an attraction will not earn extra points. However, having multiple tiles of a given type, with a matching Parkie on each tile, will earn a point each. So if you have 3 coasters, and 1 green Parkie on each coaster, then that is 3 points earned.

Special Tiles

Each player earns 1 point for each attraction that has a heart on the attraction tile. Most of the larger attractions and dead end attractions have hearts on them.

Allure, Profitability, and Satisfaction

Each player earns 1 point for each heart they have met or passed on their Allure, Profitability, and Satisfaction tracks. Therefore if you have 15 Allure that would earn you 2 points. And 13 Profitability would earn you 1 more point. And 17 Satisfaction will earn you 3 points.

Connections

Finally, if a player has connected 2 entrances to each other, they'll earn 6 points. If they have connected 3 entrances, they'll earn 8 points, and if they've connected all 4, they'll earn 10 points.

If you have all 4 entrances connected, but they are not connected to each other, then you have not connected all 4 entrances. You must be able to draw a path from any entrance to any other entrance.

The Winner

Whichever player has the most points after scoring wins. If there is a tie, that tie should be broken by the amount of money each player has on the money track.

The Lake Variant

Normally Parkies is played without the lake, but if you're looking for a longer or more challenging game, try playing with the lake side of the Player Mat. The position of the lake and the entrances make for a much more challenging game, and as a result the time it takes to play will go up by 15-20 minutes. The rules for playing with the lake are no different than the normal game, except as described below.

When playing on the lake side of the player mat, the lake may be treated as "off the mat". Therefore, tiles may dead-end into the lake.

Water tiles may be placed directly on the lake, but only water tiles. All other tiles must be placed only on grass.

(The manual illustrates legal and illegal placements with diagrams.)

Strategy Guide

Scoring in Parkies will always be very close. It is a game of inches, not miles. Therefore, you should always be looking to pick up any extra points you can get wherever you can get them.

Keep Balance

The Allure, Profitability, and Satisfaction have the most available points of anything on the board. Not only that, if you can keep them balanced you can earn more income which will allow you to pay more for important attractions. Do your best to keep them balanced and raise them quickly.

Use Discounts

In the early game it is often beneficial to get multiple parkies with the same color so that you can maximize your discounts throughout the game. Mid-game you'll likely want to diversify.

Tactical Parkies

Do not be afraid to discard Parkies for $5 or to use them as trump when a tile comes up that could be good for you. You can get more Parkies (especially in early/mid game), but you may not get another tile that has exactly what you need.

Connections Are Gold

Though tiles with lots of connections often don't give much Allure, Profitability, and Satisfaction, they do give you opportunities to add extra paths to both points and tile placement. When you have an opportunity to pick up a tile with lots of connections, take it.

Late Game Money

The extra 5 points you can earn by having some extra money at the end of the game could mean victory. Don't overspend late game, or if you do, make sure you've got plenty of Parkies you can discard to gain some extra cash at the end.

Play Example

In this example, we'll imagine we have 3 players: Sean, Gus, and Mary, and they have already set up the board as depicted in the manual.

As it turns out, Mary just went to the county fair last weekend with some friends, and there were amusement park rides at the fair. Therefore she'll go first.

She flips over one of each tile. For the small attraction she gets the Burger Bar, which has 3 paths, an Allure of 0, a Profitability of 1, and a Satisfaction of 1. For the medium attraction she gets the Dark Coaster, which also has 3 paths, but has Allure, Profitability, and Satisfaction values of 3 0 1. And finally she flips the major attraction and finds the Dragon Loop which has only 2 paths, but has values of 4 0 2, and also scores a victory point!

The down side is that since all the players start with only $20, none of them can afford to bid on the Dragon Loop.

Mary likes the paths and values of the Dark Coaster and places her bidding pawn at 11 for it.

Sean is up next, and bids 14 on the Dark Coaster.

Gus takes note that someone isn't getting a tile this turn and doesn't want that someone to be him. He maxes out the bid on the Burger Bar at 14.

Now that Mary knows the Burger Bar is out of play and Sean is keen on the Dark Coaster, she maxes out the bid on the Dark Coaster at 20.

Mary's play means that Sean must either trump someone, or visit the Parkie Pool. Since it's the first round, and no one has any Parkies, Sean places his bidding pawn in the Parkie Pool. He slides his marker on the money track from 20 to 23, and then takes a blue Parkie and his bidding pawn and sets them next to his player mat.

Mary collects her bidding pawn and the Dark Coaster tile. She then moves her money marker disc from 20 down to $0, having spent all her money. She places her new coaster in her park and adjusts her Allure, Profitability, and Satisfaction tracks to 8, 5, and 6 respectively.

Gus collects his bidding pawn and the Burger Bar tile. He moves his disc on the money track down to 6. He then places the Burger Bar on one of his entrances and adjusts his tracks to 5, 6, and 6.

All players now collect income. They each earn $5 and adjust their money marker discs accordingly. Mary moves from $0 to 5. Sean moves from 23 to 28. Gus moves from 6 to 11.

At this point they could each move Parkies. Unfortunately, only Sean has a Parkie, but he has no tiles for it to move between. Therefore they skip this step.

Starting with Mary, they each get to pick a Parkie that matches the color of any tile in their park. Mary has the Dark Coaster. Coasters are green tiles, so she takes a green Parkie. Sean has no tile, so he doesn't get to pick a Parkie this turn. The Burger Bar is a food tile, which are red, so Gus takes a red Parkie.

Now the turn is over. Mary passes the first player pawn to Sean.

Sean flips over a small attraction, which turns out to be the Scrambler with 2 paths and values of 2 1 0. He also flips over a medium attraction which is the Curl Slide with 2 paths and values of 1 1 2. He does not flip over a large attraction because the Dragon Loop is still there from the last turn.

Sean has lots of money from the last turn, so he could bid on the Dragon Loop without fear of anyone outbidding him. However, with the $2 discount his blue Parkie gives him, he smells a deal on the Curl Slide and places his bid marker on the 11 spot. If he wins the bid he'll only pay $9.

Gus sees that Mary only has $5 and so confidently places his bidding pawn on the 5 spot for the Scrambler, figuring his bid is safe.

Mary contemplates discarding her Parkie for an instant gain of $5 so that she can bid 8 on the Scrambler. However, she notices that Gus could simply outbid her at 11 and thinks better of it. She reluctantly places her bidding pawn in the Parkie Pool.

With no contention the players can now resolve the bids. Mary collects an orange Parkie from the Parkie Pool and places it on her Dark Coaster. She then slides her money marker disc from 5 to 8 on the money track.

Sean collects his Curl Slide tile and bidding pawn. He slides his money marker from 28 down to 19 (2 less than his bid due to his discount). He then places his Curl Slide on one of his entrances, and places his existing blue Parkie on the slide. He then adjusts his tracks to 6 6 7.

Gus collects his bidding pawn and Scrambler tile. He adjusts his money marker from 11 down to 6. He then attaches his Scrambler to his Burger Bar, and adjusts his tracks to 7 7 6.

Now each collects their income. Sean collects $6 moving his money marker from 19 up to 25. Gus collects $6, sliding his money marker from 6 up to 12. And Mary collects $5, sliding her money marker from 8 to 12.

Gus is the only player with 2 tiles or more tiles, so he can choose whether he wants to move any Parkies. He moves his red Parkie from the Burger Bar to the Scrambler. He figures he may get another red tile along the way, and if not he can always move the Parkie back to the Burger Bar on another turn.

Each player picks a Parkie starting with Sean. Sean has only the Curl Slide, which means his only choice is a blue Parkie. Gus can choose either a red Parkie or a purple Parkie. He selects the purple Parkie and adds it to his Burger Bar, because it must start on an entrance tile. Like Sean, Mary has only the one tile, so adds a second green Parkie to her Dark Coaster.

Sean passes the first player pawn to Gus.

Play continues like this until one player has connected all 4 entrances. Then they score to determine a winner.