Tubyrinth
Tubyrinth Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 1 score track
- 6 pipe-layer markers
- 1 sand timer (30 seconds)
- 41 double-sided game boards (82 boards in total)
- 42 pipe pieces (6 sets of 7 pieces of each type/colour)
Before Your First Game
Carefully punch the pipe pieces and tokens out of the cardboard sheets. Afterwards they can be stored in the special bags found inside the box.
Goal of the Game
Be faster than everyone else at assembling a pipeline from pipe pieces on the game boards and score 25 victory points (or more).
Setup
Each player takes one game board, 7 pipe pieces of one type (colour) and the matching pipe-layer marker. Put all remaining pieces, markers and boards back in the box. Place the score track in the centre of the table. Place your markers on the starting space of the score track.
Basic Rules (10+)
Course of the Game
On the signal, the players simultaneously try to lay a pipeline, using pipe pieces to connect the starting point and the end point with water on the board. You must complete this task using 5, 6 or 7 pipe pieces (the more, the better!). You may lay them only on the parts of the board free of objects (in the ground), so that they do not cover squares on which objects are depicted. "Dead ends" and open pipe ends are allowed, but if, when the path on the board is checked, there are pieces without which the path remains unbroken, they are removed from the board and are not counted as used.
The player who is first to finish building their pipeline says "Time!" and turns over the sand timer. All the other players now have 30 seconds to finish their pipelines. As soon as one of them finishes building their pipeline, they shout "I'm second!"; the next player to finish says "I'm third!", and so on until the time runs out. As soon as the sand in the timer runs out, the players stop laying pipes. The participants check whether their pipelines are laid correctly: each pipeline must consist of at least 5 pieces, connect the starting and end points, be unbroken, not enter squares with obstacles, not go beyond the edges of the board, and the pipe pieces must join each other correctly.
(Illustration caption: the board shown is an example and does not show an actual solution.)
Scoring
- The player who was first to finish building their pipeline scores as many points as the number of pieces they used.
- The player who built their pipeline second scores as many points as the number of pieces they used, minus 1; the third player scores as many points as the number of pieces they used, minus 2... and so on, but not fewer than the players who did not complete the task.
- The remaining players (who did not build a pipeline) each score as many points as the number of pieces the first player to correctly build a pipeline did not use.
- Each player who built a pipeline incorrectly loses one point.
Players move their markers on the score track by the appropriate number of spaces.
New Round
After scoring, remove the pipe pieces from your board. Turn the board over or, if you have already played both of its sides, pass the board to your neighbour on the left and receive a new board from your neighbour on the right. If you find that all players have received back boards they have already played, replace them with new boards from the box. Then play the next round as described above.
End of the Game
As soon as someone reaches 25 points or more, the game ends. The player with the most points wins. Sometimes there can be several winners.
Game Variants
Young Pipe-Layer (8+)
Play by the basic rules with the following changes: you may now use any areas of the board to lay pieces, including those where objects are depicted. The winner of the round always gets one victory point, and the other players get nothing. The game ends with the victory of the first player to score 5 points.
Master Plumber (10+)
As in the basic rules, you may not lay the pipeline through squares with obstacles, but now you must use all 7 of your pipe pieces to solve the board. Scoring is the same as in the "Young Pipe-Layer" rules: the game continues until someone has won 5 rounds.
Solo Game (8+)
You can play Tubyrinth alone: lay a pipeline (using any of the variants), record the time it took you to complete the task, and in the next round try to beat your record.
Or disregard time and simply solve all the boards (82 boards) at your leisure, using different numbers of pipe pieces (5, 6 or 7). In total you will need to find 246 solutions - an excellent workout for the brain!