Waddle (2021) Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Places and Neighborhoods
• How to Play
  • I. Play a Card
  • II. Perform an Action
    • Standard Action: Choose A or B
    • Special Actions
  • III. Score Your Card
  • IV. Draw a Card and End Your Turn
• Scoring Examples
• End of Game and Winning
• Single Deck Variant

Components

• 32 Penguins (16 yellow and 16 red)
• 52 Cards (in 4 sets, by color)
• 4 +30 Tokens
• 4 Player Score Markers
• 1 Round and Score Board
• 1 Start Player Marker
• 1 Round Marker
• 10 Places

Setup

1. Give each player four Yellow Penguins and four Red Penguins. Put any remaining Penguins back in the box; they won't be used.
2. Give each player a set of 13 cards in their color. Each player should pull their Copy card out of the deck and place it to the side.
3. Shuffle your deck of cards and draw four into your hand, then add your Copy card to your hand. Keep your deck facedown near you.
4. Choose a player to go first and hand them the Start Player Marker. All other players draw an additional card from their deck into their hand and discard any one card into their scoring piles, faceup. Do not score those cards.
5. Use the side of the Round and Score Board that displays the number of players in the game, shown in a red circle. Place each player's Scoring Marker on the score track on the "0/30" space, and the Round Marker on the round track at the "1" space in the middle of the board. Place the +30 markers near the Round and Score Board.
6. Lay out five Places for 2-player games, eight for 3-player, and ten for 4-player. In 4-player, lay the Places out as two rings of 5 Places, side by side. In a 3-player game, lay out the Places in a 3,2,3 arrangement.

(The printed rulebook shows diagrams of the 2-player, 3-player and 4-player Place layouts for step 6. They are not reproduced here.)

Places and Neighborhoods

Each Place can hold up to 5 Penguins, indicated by the white circles.

On the back of each Place is a double color border which is considered to be in both Neighborhoods.

Each Place is part of a Neighborhood: its border color tells you to which Neighborhood it belongs.

Each Neighborhood always consists of 5 Places.

In a 2-player game, there is only one Neighborhood (every border will be all light or all dark colored).

In a 3-player game, the three Places with a light border form one Neighborhood and the three darker bordered Places, another Neighborhood. The two Places in the center are considered to be in both Neighborhoods (as shown by having both a light and dark colored border).

In a 4-player game, there are two Neighborhoods.

How to Play

Each turn, play a scoring card, then perform a Standard or Special Action, and finally, score based on the card you played. Play passes to the left.

I. Play a Card

Play a scoring card from your hand faceup onto your scoring pile. You may not play the same card that is faceup on top of any opponent's scoring pile, unless you have no other cards in your hand that you can play.

II. Perform an Action

Unless otherwise indicated on the card, take a Standard Action. If a card describes a Special Action (in red), you MUST take that action instead of a Standard Action.

Standard Action: Choose A or B

A. Add Penguins in any number and combination to one Neighborhood from your Supply. This Neighborhood is the Active Neighborhood for the turn.

(Example layouts for Standard Action A are shown as diagrams in the printed rulebook. They are not reproduced here.)

OR

B. Empty a Place with at least one Penguin in it of all of its Penguins. Redistribute the Penguin(s) as you wish among the four other Places in that Neighborhood, OR among any of the Places in the other Neighborhood. You must place all the Penguins in the same Neighborhood. You may not return any of the Penguins to the Place you emptied at the start of the turn. The Neighborhood where the Penguins are placed is the Active Neighborhood for the turn.

(Example layouts for Standard Action B are shown as diagrams in the printed rulebook. They are not reproduced here.)

Special Actions

When you play a card with a Special Action on it, do not take a Standard Action. Instead, perform the Special Action printed in red, then score the card as usual.

III. Score Your Card

Score points based on the scoring rule on the cards. You will move your Score Marker on the score track based on how many points you score. Most cards score in a single Active Neighborhood. But some, denoted with this symbol, considers all Neighborhoods. Note: In a 2-player game there is only ever one Active Neighborhood.

(The "all Neighborhoods" symbol is a pictogram in the printed rulebook and is not reproduced here.)

IV. Draw a Card and End Your Turn

After you have scored, draw a card, and end your turn. Play passes clockwise.

(The printed rulebook says "Play passes to the left" in the How to Play overview and "Play passes clockwise" here. Both are transcribed as printed.)

Once every player has had a turn, move the round marker, and continue play, until the final round is completed.

Scoring Examples

Example 1: Player 1 uses Standard Action A and adds two Yellow Penguins to the light bordered Neighborhood, making it the Active Neighborhood. In that Neighborhood, there are two Places that contain both Red and Yellow Penguins but more Red Penguins. The player scores 2 points.

Example 2: Player 2 uses Standard Action B to empty a Place of its Penguins and redistribute them to the light bordered Neighborhood making it the Active Neighborhood. However, the card "Equal" scores for Places in both Neighborhoods containing an equal amount of Red and Yellow Penguins. Player 2 scores 4 points.

Example 3: Player 3 plays "Consecutive" and uses Standard Action B to empty a Place and redistribute the Penguins into the dark bordered Neighborhood. Then Player 3 scores 5 points as there are 5 Places in a set that has a consecutive number of Penguins (from 1-5 in this example).

Note that some Places have the same number of Penguins but you only need to count one of them as part of the set.

(The example board layouts are shown as diagrams in the printed rulebook. They are not reproduced here.)

End of Game and Winning

Play a set number of rounds based on the number of players in the game:

• 8 rounds in a 2-player game
• 7 rounds in a 3-player game
• 6 rounds in a 4-player game

When the final round is completed, the player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, only the tied players continue playing one round at a time until one player is ahead at the conclusion of the round.

Single Deck Variant

Another fun way to play Waddle Downtown is to shuffle all the cards together in Setup, instead of giving each player their own deck. Deal a hand to each player, as usual, and lay 3 cards, faceup, near the deck. Play is unchanged, except that when you draw a card you may draw from the faceup cards, or from the deck. Refill the faceup display after drawing from it.