Hickory Dickory

Place the clock board in the center of the play area, attaching the clock hands so the small hand points to 7 and the long hand to 12. Set up the two sideboards in their designated spots. Place the chain board beneath the clock, ensuring the pine cone weight on the rightmost chain shows the value 9. Set the die, two cat paw tokens, and 50-point tokens nearby. Based on the player count, place the appropriate blocker(s) in the minute hand slot (no blocker for 4 players). Flip action space tokens to their numbered, sun, or moon sides, placing numbered tokens on matching clock spaces (1, 6, 11, 12). Randomly place sun-backed tokens face-up on sun-marked spaces and moon-backed tokens face-up on moon-marked spaces. Place the 10 wild tokens on Itzy's web, then draw four random tiles from the bag to place on the indicated spaces of Itzy's web. Shuffle quest cards into a face-down deck, dealing two face-up. Each player collects their four mouse cards, five mouse figures, score marker in their chosen color, and one random hunt board. Place the scaler mouse on the left pine cone of the chain board, and the scamp mouse on its corresponding card. Place score markers on the starting space of the score track. Deal one acorn-marked favor card face-down to each player, shuffling any remaining into a face-down deck beneath Itzy's web. The player with the most punctual personality (or chosen randomly) places the priority marker on their color.

The objective of Hickory Dickory is to collect the most berries by the end of the game. Players achieve this by strategically moving their team of mice around the clock to collect item tiles, complete quests, make deliveries to Lord Cuckoo, and climb the clock chains. Successfully navigating the clock and managing your resources will be key to victory.

A round consists of a series of 'ticks' of the clock. To perform a tick, advance the minute hand clockwise to the next numbered location. Then, resolve any mice on the minute hand, starting from the front. Each player with a mouse on the hand decides whether their mouse will stay on the hand or jump off. If a mouse jumps off, it moves to the outer ring of the current number, collects any tile there, and may perform the action on the token. Mice behind it shift forward. After all mice on the minute hand are resolved, resolve any mice on the inner ring space at the current number in priority order (determined by the priority marker). These mice either move to the outer ring (and are resolved as if they jumped off the minute hand) or jump onto the minute hand (placing themselves behind any existing mice). Mice cannot stay on the inner ring. Once all mice on the inner ring are resolved, the minute hand ticks again to the next number, and the process repeats.

Points are primarily earned through deliveries and the hunt board. When making a delivery, players score points for all delivered item tiles: 1 point per tile, plus additional points for the largest group of matching symbols and the largest group of matching colors. Wild tiles can count as any symbol or color. After scoring tile points, check for completed quests, earning points for each quest satisfied by the delivered tiles. At the end of the game, players score points for completed rows and columns on their hunt board (5 points per completed row/column). Additionally, any remaining tiles on mouse cards and favor cards showing bonus tiles are scored as one large group, following the same scoring rules as deliveries (but without completing quests or adding tiles to the hunt board).

The game ends immediately when the hour hand reaches the 12 position. If the minute hand reaches 12 and the hour hand is already at 12, the game also ends. At this point, players proceed to final scoring. The player with the most points wins the game and gains Lord Cuckoo's favor. In case of a tie, the tied player with the most filled spaces on their hunt board wins. If there is still a tie, the tied players share the victory.