The mountain is calling! Equipped with pick axes and the secret knowledge of the mine elves, the dwarfs rush below ground in order to dig up precious crystals. Everybody gets his own mine gallery in which he tries to dig out the crystals that are said to lie there, according to the elves.
If a dwarf manages to find the predicted crystals in all the sections of his gallery, he shouts aloud "OUT OF MINE!" This is the signal for all dwarfs to drop their pick axes and return to daylight.
Now a scoring takes place. But only at the end of the week, after the seventh round of digging, will it turn out which dwarf was the most successful one.
Components
- 40 treasure cards
- 10 double-sided gallery boards
- 69 crystal tiles
- Instructions
Object of the Game
Fill the subterranean spaces on your gallery board with as many suitable crystal tiles as possible. But to do so, you may only use the crystal tiles as they are indicated on your treasure card.
The fewer gallery spaces that remain empty at the end of a round, the more points you score. The player who has gathered the most points after one work week (7 game rounds) wins the game.
Setup
Sort all crysTal Tiles by color and put them in the middle of the table, easily accessible to all players.
The green, red and white crystal tiles come in several different shapes.
The elements depicted on some of the crystal tiles are ignored in the basic game - they are only important in the variant for advanced players.
Each player randomly gets a gallery board. Decide what side of the board you want to play on. Lay out six further gallery boards as a draw pile. If there are any gallery boards left after that, put them back into the box; they will not be used.
Each gallery board consists of 20 gallery spaces that are arranged differently on each board.
Shuffle the Treasure cards and put them face down on the table in a pile. The cards indicate which crystal tiles and how many you may use in this round to fill your gallery board.
Game Play
On a game turn:
- Drawing Treasure Cards
- Placing Crystal Tiles
- Tallying And Noting Down Points
- Drawing New Gallery Boards By Lot
1. Drawing Treasure Cards
Each player draws a face-down treasure card from the pile.
2. Placing Crystal Tiles
The dwarf king gives the command: "INTO THE MINE!" All players simultaneously reveal their treasure card and begin to fill their own gallery board as quickly as possible.
To this end, take the crystal tiles from the middle of the table that are indicated on your treasure card. Try to cover all gallery spaces on your board, if possible. No crystal tile may protrude over the edge of the gallery into the rock.
Important: You may pick the crystal tiles only with one hand and also use only one hand to place them on your gallery board.
If you decide not to place a certain crystal tile on your board, you put it back in the respective supply and then draw another one. Crystal tiles that are already lying on your gallery board may be moved with both hands.
3. Tallying and Noting Down Points
As soon as the first player has covered all gallery spaces on his board, he calls out "OUT OF MINE!"
From now on, you may no longer place any crystal tiles on your gallery board! Now all players check whether they have placed the tiles on their gallery board correctly, and remove wrongly placed tiles, if there are any.
A crystal tile is incorrectly placed if it protrudes over the edge of the gallery or has a color that is not listed on the treasure card, or if the number of the crystal tiles you used does not match the number on the treasure card.
Each player receives 10 PIUS POiNtS. For each empty space on your gallery board, you have to deduct one point.
The player who has called "OUT OF MINE!" additionally earns 2 bonus points if he has covered his gallery board correctly. But if he has not done everything right, he gets 2 minus points.
If you have more than 10 empty gallery spaces, you get zero points.
The dwarf king notes down the points of all players.
Example: Tim has called "OUT OF MINE!" too early. He has placed one more green crystal tile than allowed, and one blue crystal tile protrudes over the edge of his gallery. Both wrongly placed crystal tiles are removed.
Consequently, Tim does not get the 2-point bonus for finishing the round. Instead, he receives 10 plus points, but has 4 points deducted for the empty spaces on his gallery board after the removal of the wrongly placed crystal tiles, and 2 points deducted for his premature "OUT OF MINE!" call.
That means that 4 points are written down for Tim in that round.
4. Drawing New Gamery Boards By Iot
After the scoring, the player who has called "OUT OF MINE!" puts his gallery board back into the box; he takes a new one from the pile and shuffles it with the other players' gallery boards.
After that, each player gets one gallery board again, decides on which side he wants to play, and lays it down in front of him on the table. If you get the same board as in the previous round, you turn it to the other side and continue playing on that side.
Now put all crystal tiles back on their respective piles. The new round begins with each of you drawing a treasure card from the pile and the dwarf king giving the starting signal.
End of the Game
At the end of each round, the player who has called "OUT OF MINE!" puts his gallery board back into the box and brings a new one from the draw pile into play. Consequently, the game ends after the seventh round when there is no new gallery board left.
Now the dwarf king adds up all points that the players have earned in the seven rounds.
The player with the most points wins the game.
Variant for Advanced Players
A. Elf Support
The elves watch the vivid hustle and bustle of the dwarfs from the edge of the galleries. If you manage to have color-matching crystals next to the corresponding elves at the end of a round, you get one bonus point for each of them.
Example: At the end of the round, a blue crystal tile is lying on Carl's gallery board next to the blue elf. He gets one bonus point for this. Carl gets another bonus point for the white crystal tile next to the white elf.
The crystal tile next to the green elf, however, is white; therefore, he gets no bonus for this. So Carl's total in this round is: 10 - 4 (empty gallery spaces) + 1 (bonus for the blue elf) + 1 (bonus for the white elf) = 8 points.
If there had been a yellow elf on his gallery board, Carl wouldn't have gotten a bonus for this because his current treasure card doesn't indicate a yellow crystal.
B. Good Finds - Bad Finds
Information on the treasure cards about the variant for advanced players:
On their expeditions into the earth, the dwarfs sometimes also come across other mineral resources, such as gold or silver.
But occasionally, they also encounter disagreeable creatures such as woodworms that eat the support beams of the galleries, or greedy rats that want to pilfer the provisions away from the hard-working dwarfs.
For an even greater challenge you can incorporate these special elements into play that are depicted on the treasure cards and some of the crystal tiles. In this variant, you try to place the desirable elements (
) visible on your gallery board as often as possible and to avoid the undesirable elements (
).
At the scoring at the end of each round, you get one or two plus points for each desirable element that is lying on your gallery board and one or two minus points for each undesirable element.
Her gallery board is not covered completely. Four spaces are still empty. That means she gets 10 - 4 = 6 points.
Additionally, her treasure card indicates that she receives one minus point for each woodworm and two plus points per gold nugget that is lying in her gallery.
She has one woodworm and two gold nuggets lying there; that means one point from her remaining six points is deducted for the woodworm but two plus points are added for each gold nugget. With this, her result in this round is 10 - 4 - 1 + 2 + 2 = 9 points.
You can play the complete variant for advanced players or, for a start, just include the elves or the finds into play.
It applies in the variant for advanced players as well that a player who has more than 10 empty gallery spaces on the board at the end of a round gets zero points (and no bonus points).
Continue Reading