Roots Growy Roots is a Versus board game for 2 to 4 players. In this game, each player takes on the role of a seed. The aim of the game is to spread your roots as far as possible in order to discover artifacts. To achieve this goal, the player must discover resources (such as water and fertilizer). Roots, your own as well as those of your opponents, can become an obstacle just as much as the stones that lurk in the field.
The starting field must be laid out for each player. Each player gets one side of the field, which is occupied with a certain amount of cards. For this, take 25 cards from the deck with the following composition:
- 5x stone
- 2x water
- 3x Fertilizer
- 14x normal
- 1x Seed..
Place your Seed card (as shown). Then take a water card from your deck and put it aside. Then shuffle the remaining 23 cards well(very very well). Place these 25 cards on the board, per player, as shown here.
Please recognize that the water aswell as the Seed card. Need to be put face up as shown in the graphic. To do this, we put the single water card aside beforehand. It is also important to leave space between the two starting areas, as the main field cards must fit in the area between the two fields.
Main stage: Take the following composition of the remaining cards.
- 15x stone
- 5x artifacts
- 8x water
- 10x Fertilizer
- 52x Normal
Place the artifacts "Skrying Runes" and "Flight of Hermes" face up on the field as shown in the diagram. Shuffle the rest of the deck well and then place all the cards face down on the board as shown in the diagram.
Each player now takes one of the set of sticks and its connecting pieces. Place one of your connectors on your starting card.
You can easily make these yourself using matches or toothpicks as sticks, as well as modeling clay shaped into small balls as connectors. For the sake of simplicity, it is recommended to colour the sticks and/or use different coloured modeling clay so that it is easier to see which root belongs to which player.
The player who can recite the root of 2 the furthest starts. Calculators are not allowed. If this is too complicated for you get an education level of at least b+, okay jokes aside, you can alternatively just roll the dice or play paper scissors.
When it's a player's turn, they can use their sticks to expand their root vertically, horizontally and diagonally. Each player receives a stick at the beginning of his turn. In addition, he gets another stick for each water square that is occupied by his root. He can then use these sticks to expand his root. Roots are always extended by a connector. Choose one of your connecting pieces that is on the board. Then select a square that is directly adjacent to (i.e. horizontal, vertical or diagonal to) the square with this connector.
Turn the selected card over and reveal it. The course of the turn is decided on the basis of the revealed card. Dirt - The player places a connector on this card and must extend it, if he still has sticks. Fertilizer - The player gets an additional piece of wood. This field is then treated like Dirt. Water - This card is treated like Dirt on the turn it is revealed and occupied. After that, each following turn, that player that connected the water to his root, receives an additional piece of wood as previously described. Artifact - Put the corresponding artifact card into your hand. This card is then treated as Dirt. Stone - Your turn ends immediately. Keep all remaining sticks in your hand. Do not place your stick on that card.
The player is free to expand the root of any of his connecting pieces at the beginning of his turn. However, if he then lays new connecting pieces (for example, by revealing a Dirt card), he must expand the next peg from that one until the end of the round. On his next turn, he is again free to select and expand any connecting piece.
Players are not allowed to cross sticks, neither their own nor those of other players. Double occupation of the same square is also not allowed. However, players are allowed to build a bridge. Bridges cost 3 sticks to build. To build a bridge, choose an unoccupied square that can be reached by your current connector, but which would require crossing a piece of wood. Place a connecting piece on the free square. Then connect the current square and the new square with two sticks and a connector. If there is no free space behind the root to be built over, this is not allowed.
A turn ends when the player has no more sticks, can no longer build from the current connecting piece, the turn is ended by other elements (e.g. stones or artifacts) or the player voluntarily ends his turn.
If a player voluntarily ends his turn, any unconsumed sticks at the end of the turn are not added to the next one.
The game ends immediately when the fifth artifact is revealed. The card from this one goes to the player who revealed it, despite the end of the game. The winner of the game is now decided by points, which are determined as follows.
Per active water card 1 point Per artifact 1 point Player has the most branches 1 point The longest continuous root 3 points.
Use of the artifacts.
Each artifact exists exactly 1 time in the game and can also only be possessed by one player. The ability of the artifact can be found in the artifact text.