Santa Monica Rulebook

Table of Contents

Components
Setup
Game Overview
- Turn Order
1. Select and Place Feature Cards
Feature Card Breakdown
2. Take Placement Actions
3. Refresh the Display
End of the Game
Scoring the Cards
Scoring the Activity Rings
Scoring the Footprints
Scoring the Objectives
Tally Your Scores
Sand Dollar Actions
Ability Clarifications
Scoring Objectives
Credits

Components

Your game of Santa Monica should include the following components. If it does not, please contact [email protected] for assistance.

78 Feature Cards — These represent the beach and street locations that may be built in the game.
4 Reference Cards — Cards given to each player to remind them of rules.
6 Starting Feature Tiles — Each player will start with one of these double-high tiles in their city.
4 Sand Dollar Tiles — These double-sided tiles feature different actions that players may pay sand dollars to use during the game.
3 Scoring Objective Tiles — These tiles list different scoring objectives for each game.
30 Locals — These blue tokens represent the local residents of your city.
30 Tourists — These orange tokens represent the visitors that come to Santa Monica.
8 VIPs — These green tokens represent Very Important Persons who want to visit certain types of locations. Each player receives one or two at the beginning of the game, as noted on their Starting Feature Tile.
28 Footprint Tokens — These cardboard tokens are used to mark the places that your VIP has visited.
25 Sand Dollars — These wooden tokens are earned throughout the game and can be spent to carry out the actions on the Sand Dollar Tiles.
4 Sand Dollar Multipliers — These cardboard tokens can be used if the Sand Dollar supply is running low.
1 Food Truck Token and 1 Foodie Token — These tokens move beneath the display and provide bonuses for choosing cards.
1 Start Player Token — This cardboard token is a reminder of which player started the game. It stays with that player.
1 Scorepad — This is used at the end of the game to help total each player's points and determine the winner.
1 Rulebook

Setup

Shuffle the Feature Cards to form a face-down deck, and deal out 2 rows of 4 cards each face-up. These back and front rows form the display of feature cards that are available to take during the game. Place the remaining deck above the back row of the display.
Randomly select and place 2 of the Sand Dollar Tiles to the left of the display. These will be the 2 Sand Dollar Actions available in this game.
Randomly select 1 of the 3 Scoring Objective Tiles and place it face-up to the right of the display. For your first game, we recommend using the blue scoring objective card.
Place the Locals, Tourists, Sand Dollars, Sand Dollar Multipliers, and Footprint Tokens in piles somewhere near the display so that all players can reach them.
The player who has most recently visited a beach becomes the Starting Player. Give them the Start Player Token.
Randomly draw Starting Feature Tiles equal to the number of players and place them on the table. In reverse player order (beginning with the last player in the turn order and moving counter-clockwise), each player chooses a starting feature tile.
Give each player their starting feature tile's Placement Bonuses, and a Reference Card if they would like one.
The last player in the turn order places the Food Truck Token under any of the 4 display columns of their choice. The Foodie Token begins 2 spaces (cards) away.
The starting player can now begin the game.

Game Overview

Players' turns will consist of choosing and placing new feature cards for their city, then taking placement actions to gain sand dollars, attract new visitors, and move people around their city. All players will begin the game with 3 common scoring goals, and a starting tile with 1 or 2 VIPs. The VIPs offer each player a unique scoring objective, and as you move them around the city, they will drop footprint tokens that will grant points at the end of the game. In addition, individual feature cards that are selected by players will expand the range of possibilities for scoring with activity rings for people to move to, points for adjacent and chained location symbols, and more.

Turn Order

Play begins with the starting player, and moves clockwise around the table. The game will continue until one player has placed 14 feature cards in their city, which triggers the final round. On each player's turn, they will take actions in the following order:

Select and Place Feature Cards
Take Placement Actions
Refresh the Display

1. Select and Place Feature Cards

To begin your turn, you will either select one feature card from the display or use a sand dollar action to acquire cards in a different way. However you acquired the cards, you will place them in your city.

A1. Select a Feature From the Display

The display has a front row and a back row. You must select one card from the front row and place it in your city. The back row shows which card will slide down and be added to the front row when you refresh the display, but is not otherwise selectable. Selecting a feature card may enable you to claim rewards from the foodie or the food truck. An explanation of these rewards is on page 7 (see The Foodie and the Food Truck).

OR A2. Use a Sand Dollar Action

If you have Sand Dollars that you have gained on previous turns, you may spend these to use a Sand Dollar Action. This is done instead of normal selection, and may only be done once per turn. To activate a sand dollar tile, (1) pay the sand dollar cost indicated on the tile, then (2) follow the action that is written on the tile. If you use a sand dollar action to take a card that the foodie or food truck is on, you do not gain their bonuses and they will not move. A detailed explanation of the sand dollar actions is in the Sand Dollar Actions section.

B. Place the Feature Card(s) Into Your City

There are two types of feature cards: beach cards which have the ocean at the top, and street cards, which have a wooden boardwalk and a street at the bottom.

When placing the feature cards in your city, 2 rules apply:

Beach cards must be placed in the top row of your city, and street cards must be placed in the bottom row.
Every feature card must be placed with one of its sides aligned to another feature or with your starting feature tile. Features placed diagonally are not adjacent to each other, and features cannot be placed on top of other features.

Some sand dollar actions will let you select and place 2 feature cards. As long as the 2 placement rules are obeyed, the cards can be placed in any order.

Some other sand dollar actions give you the option to swap the location of 2 of your feature cards. This must be done after placing the feature cards you selected this turn, and must obey the 2 placement rules. If there are any people or footprints on a feature card that is swapped, they are moved with the feature card.

Feature Card Breakdown

Each feature card is either a Beach Card or a Street Card, indicated by the art and the placement of the icons.

1. Placement Actions

These actions are taken as soon as you place the card, such as gaining sand dollars and people tokens, or moving previously placed people.

2. Scoring Opportunities

These icons indicate how each card scores at the end of the game. Though there are several types of scoring opportunities (which are covered in detail in Scoring the Cards), there are two types that are referenced on most of the cards:

Adjacencies grant points for location tags that are on the features that are adjacent to the feature card. These score only once, even if there are multiple adjacent cards that fit the criteria.
Chains grant points for groups of similar location tags that this card is part of. Chains only score if the minimum number of location tags is met in a single group. Some chains score a set number of points, and some chains score per location tag, allowing you to score more points if you exceed the minimum number of needed tags.

3. Location Tags

These icons indicate the card's type, and are used for gaining points from your VIP and scoring at the end of the game. The types of locations are:

Local Spots: These are the places where locals live or the places they like to gather. Sure, tourists are allowed in these areas—that is, if they know about them.
Tourist Spots: Locations where tourists like to gather. These sometimes represent the areas and restaurants that are recommended by all the travel books, while others represent the tourist traps that no local would ever go to.
Businesses: Locations where your visitors spend their money on trinkets, equipment, or food. You know, a business.
Sports: Locations where your visitors can work out, surf, or play sports. Sometimes this tag also represents places where people can buy sporting goods.
Nature: Locations that show off the natural beauty of your city or that simply have beautiful plants or palm trees near them.
Waves: These are the locations that are good for swimming, surfing, or just admiring the ocean view. These places get some killer waves that surfers get stoked about.

4. Activity Rings

To score the indicated points, you must fill the activity ring on the card with the right combination of people by the end of the game. The symbol shows the type and exact number of people a ring can hold. Any people not in activity rings are considered to be unplaced.

5. Footprint Scoring

Each starting feature tile has a unique way to score points for footprint tokens placed during the game. When your VIP visits a location with the desired attribute(s), you will place a footprint token on that card. At the end of the game, each feature card with a footprint token on it can be scored accordingly.

2. Take Placement Actions

The placement action on your feature card may show symbols that will either add people to your city, give you sand dollars, or allow you to move people that you placed on previous turns. Not every card will have a placement action, but many of them do.

Gaining Tokens

Sand Dollars (e.g. "2 sand dollars"): This symbol tells you to take a certain number of sand dollars from the supply. The sand dollars may be placed anywhere in front of you, but they are not actually part of your city; they are currency that you may spend on future turns to take sand dollar actions or possibly turn into points at the end of the game.
People (e.g. "2 locals"): This symbol will show you a color and a number that indicates how many people must be added to the card. This is not optional. In this example, you would take two locals from the supply and place them on the card.

Running out of sand dollars? Depending on your strategy, you might be trying to collect a lot of sand dollars. In those games, you can use the Sand Dollar Multiplier tokens if you're running out of wooden pieces. If you have five sand dollars, return four to the bank and place the remaining one on the multiplier to show that it counts for five. You can keep stacking sand dollar tokens on here to get to 10 or even 15.

Moving People

A move symbol (e.g. "4 tourists, move 2") will show you a color, a number, and a movement number, indicating how many people can be moved and how far. This is an optional action. In this example, you would be able to move up to 4 different tourists up to two spaces each. These people can be moved independently; they do not need to start or end on the same card. You cannot move the same person twice.

The multi-colored symbol is a wild, and allows you to move any person in your city: local, tourist, or even a VIP. It cannot, however, be used to move the foodie.

When moving people, you can only move them up, down, left, or right—diagonal movement is not allowed. Each card counts as one space, and the starting feature tiles count as two (one beach space and one street space). People cannot be moved onto empty spaces; they can only move onto placed feature cards. Activity rings are not a separate space on the card; if a person is on the card, it can be added to or removed from the activity ring at any time.

VIPs and Footprints

If you moved a VIP, you may be able to add a footprint token to your city. Check your starting feature tile to see which location attributes your VIP is trying to get to. If you moved to or through a feature card with one of those attributes, place a footprint token on the card. Note that a footprint token will score for each attribute on the feature card, but there can only be one footprint token per card, even if the VIPs visit multiple times.

The Foodie and the Food Truck

There is another way that you can gain and move pieces on your turn. Underneath the display, there are two wooden tokens: a Food Truck and a Foodie. If you made a regular feature card selection, and you chose the card above one of these tokens, you will get an additional reward. If you used a sand dollar action, you do not get the reward.

The rewards are as follows:

Food Truck: The food truck increases the value of a feature. Take one sand dollar from the supply.
Foodie: The foodie allows you to move any one person (local, tourist, or VIP) by one space.
Foodie and Food Truck: When the foodie catches up with the food truck, it is a happy day. You may take one sand dollar and move one person, or you may choose to double either action, taking two sand dollars or moving up to 2 people by one space each or 1 person twice.

When you gain a reward from the foodie or food truck, the token will move one space to the right. If you're at the edge of the display, the movement wraps around, and you place the token under the leftmost display card. If the feature card you selected was directly above both the foodie and the food truck, instead of moving each token one space to the right, only move the food truck two spaces to the right.

3. Refresh the Display

If the front row has any empty spaces, fill those spaces in with the back row card immediately above it. Then, deal new cards from the feature deck into any blank spaces, starting with the front row cards. The next player may now take their turn.

End of the Game

When one player has placed their 14th feature card, starting feature tile not included, it triggers the end of the game. Continue the round until the last player in turn order has finished their turn, at which point the game will end.

Players will then take the "final movement" on all of their people. Each tourist and VIP will be able to move 1 space, and each local will be able to move up to 3 spaces. When all players are done moving their people, players will score their cities and determine the winner.

Scoring the Cards

There are two scoring types that reference location tags and other icons on your cards, and one that lets you score on unspent sand dollars.

Adjacency

The adjacency symbol shows two things, a point value and a pictured location tag. If there are one or more cards with this tag next to this card, you gain the number of points listed. Tags on the same card as the adjacency do not count.

Example: you would gain 2 points if it was adjacent to at least one card with a tourist spot location tag. Adjacencies do not stack—even if two adjacent cards have the pictured tag, you still only score the points once.

Adjacencies are not limited to location tags. Some adjacencies reference other attributes, such as a sand dollar or a person (e.g. "3 points if adjacent to a sand dollar").

For all of these, the scoring trigger is the symbol from the placement actions, and not the physical pieces that can move around.

Chain

Like adjacencies, a chain symbol pictures a location tag inside a box with a number, and how many points it is worth. If this card is in a chain of tags that meets or exceeds the number on the left, you get the points.

Chains do not need to be in a straight line. They can weave around your city, as long as each card in the chain is adjacent to at least one other card with the tag.

Sometimes, the chains will have a continuous scoring condition. When this happens, you will gain the number of points per tag in the chain. Example: with a "5 nature: 1 point per nature tag" chain, you would need this card to be in a chain of at least five nature tags to score, and you would gain 1 point per nature tag, for 5 points. If you had a chain of seven nature tags, it would be worth 7 points. If you had four nature tags, you would not fulfill the minimum chain requirement, and would score 0 points.

Unspent Sand Dollars

Cards that have this symbol will give you points for groups of unspent sand dollars at the end of the game. Example ("2 sand dollars: 1 point"): you would gain 1 point for every 2 remaining sand dollars. These abilities stack; you can count your remaining sand dollars for each card that has this ability. So, for example, if you had four sand dollars, one card with 2:1, and one card with 1:1, then you would get 2 points from the 2:1 and 4 points from the 1:1, totaling 6 points.

Miscellaneous

Santa Monica is a colorful, lively place, and some of the feature cards do not easily fit into boxes. Please reference the Ability Clarifications section for anything not covered in the main scoring types.

Scoring the Activity Rings

Each ring symbol will picture a number of people and victory points. If, at the end of the game, the ring contains exactly the pictured number of people, it will score the points. The ring may only hold the pictured number of people, and no more.

Example: 1 tourist in the ring will score 3 points. If the icon is multi-colored, then the ring can be filled by a local, tourist, or VIP.

Two cards in the game feature the "Any Number of People" symbol. For this card, you must have at least 1 person to score, and it will get you 3 points. After that, you may place as many people as you like in this ring. However, it still only scores 3 points.

Scoring the Footprints

Your starting tile will allow you to score on your footprint tokens. For each card with a footprint token, count up the number of matching attributes on that card. You will get points for each attribute.

So in this example, if you placed a footprint on a location with 2 Local Tags, you would gain 2 points for that footprint, not 1.

Scoring the Objectives

The objective card is chosen during setup, so you will know the objectives for the whole game. Each objective card will list 3 things:

A wave bonus
A miscellaneous bonus
A penalty for people that end the game outside of a ring

These are detailed in the Scoring Objectives section.

Tally Your Scores

Go around the table tallying up each line on the scorepad. Then add each player's score together. The player with the most victory points is the winner. In the event of a tie, the tied player with the most leftover sand dollars is the winner. If the players are still tied, the player with the longest chain of tags is the winner. If players are still tied, the next player to write "I WIN" into sand is the winner.

Sand Dollar Actions

Pay 4 sand dollars: Take 2 cards from the front row. Take 2 feature cards from the front row and place them into your city. You may also move up to 1 person of any type 1 space.
Pay 4 sand dollars: Take 1 card from the front & the card behind it. Take 1 feature card from the front row and the feature card behind it and place them both into your city. You may also move 1 person of any type 1 space.
Pay 2 sand dollars: Take a Local Spot / Tourist Spot from anywhere. Take a feature card from anywhere in the display as long as it has a Local Spot or Tourist Spot Tag. You then may move up to 2 people of any type 1 space each.
Pay 2 sand dollars: Take a Business / Nature / Sports card from anywhere. Take a feature card from anywhere in the display as long as it contains a Business, Nature, or Sports tag. You may then move up to 2 people of any type 1 space each.
Pay 3 sand dollars: Take 1 card from the back. Take a feature card from the back row of the display. You may then move up to 4 people of any type 1 space each.
Pay 2 sand dollars: Take 1 card from the front. Swap 2 cards in your city. Take a feature card from the front row of the display then you may swap any 2 feature cards in your city.
Pay 2 sand dollars: Take 1 card from the front. Swap 2 cards in your city. Remove 0-2 people from your city. Take a feature card from the front of the display, then swap 2 feature cards in your city, then finally you may return up to 2 people in your city back to the supply.
Pay 1 sand dollar: Take 1 card from the front. Take a feature card from the front row of the display. Then you may move up to 3 tourists 1 space each.

Ability Clarifications

Connected adjacency tags (e.g. two locals connected: 5 points): Abilities that show connected adjacency tags mean that the card must be adjacent to 2 or more of that tag. Otherwise, it scores 0 points.
All four attributes (e.g. nature/local/tourist/adjacent: 8 points): This card must be adjacent to all four attributes in order to score. 0 points are gained for one to three attributes.
Side-by-side adjacency tags (e.g. nature: 2 points / tourist: 2 points): When adjacency tags are printed side-by-side, it means you can score for either or both. This card will let you score 2 points for a nature adjacency and/or 2 points for a tourist spot adjacency.
Wave adjacency either/or (waves: 3 points / waves waves: 5 points): This scoring opportunity is an either/or. Gain 3 points if this is adjacent to only one wave tag. Gain 5 points if it is adjacent to two or more.
Adjacent to a scoring ring: 2 points. If this card is adjacent to any card with a scoring ring, whether it is filled or not, gain 2 points.
NOT adjacent to a scoring ring: 2 points. If this card is NOT adjacent to a card with a scoring ring, gain 2 points.
Adjacent to a card that gives a sand dollar: 3 points. To score, this card must be adjacent to a card that gives a sand dollar through its placement actions.
Adjacent to a card that gives people: -4 points. This card gives negative points if it is adjacent to a feature card on any of its three sides that gives people through its placement actions.
Tourist spot tags: 1 point per 2. Gain 1 point for every two Tourist spot location tags anywhere in your city.
Move up to 3 people here. You may move 3 people of any type(s) onto this space, regardless of distance.
"No cards to the left of this card": This card signals the end of your beach, and must be the leftmost beach card. When this feature card is placed, this is considered a third placement rule for the rest of the game. Therefore, this card may never be swapped with another feature card.

Scoring Objectives

Blue objective

2 points per wave in your longest wave group. Find your longest group of wave tags. You will gain 2 points per wave in it. A wave group is a contiguous group of 1 or more waves. If you have 2 chains of equal size, you only score one of them.
2 points per tag in your largest chain. Find your longest chain of non-wave location tags, and gain 2 points per tag. If you have 2 or more that are tied for longest chain, only count one of them. A chain is any group of contiguous tags of the same type. You do not need to have a card with the chain symbol for it to count.
The player with the most unplaced people gets -4 points, 2nd -2 points. Unplaced people are people that end the game outside of a ring. Have players compare who had the most unplaced people. That player will lose 4 points. If two or more players are tied for most unplaced people, all of those players lose 4 points and there is no 2nd place.

Green objective

3 points for each separate wave group. For this objective, you want to spread your waves out as far as possible, placing other features between them. A wave group is a contiguous group of 1 or more waves.
3 points for each of your chains of 3 cards or more. Any time you have three or more of a single non-wave location tag in a chain, gain 3 points. If you have six or more location tags chained together, it still only counts as one chain. Just like the waves, spread out your tags for maximum scoring. You do not need to have a card with the chain symbol for it to count.
-1 point per card with unplaced people. Any card that contains one or more people outside of a ring scores -1 point. It doesn't matter how many people are on the card, so try to group your unplaced people together.

Orange objective

Score each wave group of 1|3|6|10. A wave group is a contiguous group of 1 or more waves. Count up the number of waves in the group, and get the corresponding points. Each wave group with 1 wave scores 2 points. Each wave group with 2 waves scores 3 points. Each wave group with 3 waves scores 6 points. Each wave group with 4 waves scores 10 points.
1 point for each set of street and ocean cards in your largest set. Look in your city for columns that have an ocean card directly above a street card. This includes your starting feature tile. Count your largest unbroken chain of pairs of ocean/street cards and get 1 point for each pair.
1 point for each activity ring you fill. -1 point for every 2 unplaced people. A filled activity ring is one that has the exact number of people as what is pictured for the scoring requirement. Gain 1 point per ring that you filled. Total up the number of unplaced people anywhere in your city, and for every 2 people, lose 1 point. People who are placed in an activity ring but do not "fill" the ring are not considered unplaced. The 2 "all people" rings are considered filled as long as there is 1 person inside.

Credits

Game Design: Josh Wood. Artwork: Jeremy Nguyen, Josh Wood. Director of Projects: Nicolas Bongiu. Production: Dave Lepore. Development: Scot Eaton, John Goodenough. Art Direction: Josh Wood. Graphic Design: Brigette Indelicato. Rules: Scot Eaton, John Goodenough. Editing: Andre Chautard.