Holi: Festival of Colors

To set up, first assemble the 3-tier courtyard tower by snapping the 12 long shapes with angled edges into the edges of the three clear boards. Ensure the numbered and lettered sides align vertically. Place one sweet token on either side of the corner spaces on the middle level, and two sweet tokens on either side of the corner spaces on the lowest level. Each player takes their chosen color components, including 25 color tokens, 13 color cards, a player marker, and a helper card. Place your player marker on any available corner space on the lowest level. Shuffle your color cards to form a deck, and draw one card to start your hand. The player with the most colorful clothing receives the first player token.

The objective of Holi: Festival of Colors is to score the most points. Players earn points by strategically placing their color tokens on the multi-tiered board, with higher levels yielding more points. Additional points are gained by landing color tokens on opponents (direct hits) and by collecting sweets. The game encourages playful mischief and friendly rivalry as players navigate the tower and spread their colors.

On your turn, you can perform one to three actions: throw, move, and climb. Throwing color is mandatory, while moving and climbing are optional. You can perform these actions in any order, but each can only be done once per turn. To throw color, play a color card from your hand. The pattern on the card, relative to your player marker's position, dictates where you place your color tokens. You can rotate the card to find the best placement. If you land a color token on an opponent on the same level, it's a direct hit, earning you one point immediately and giving you their token to hold until the end of the game. After your actions, draw cards from your deck until you have three color cards in hand. Play then passes clockwise to the next player.

At the end of the game, points are tallied. Players score points for their color tokens on the board: one point per token on the first level, two points on the second, and three points on the third. Additionally, for each opponent's color token you collected from direct hits, you score two points. For each player who collected fewer sweets than you, you earn five bonus points. The player with the highest total score wins. In case of a tie, the player with the most opponent color tokens collected wins. If still tied, the player with the most sweets wins. If there's still a tie, the player closest to the first player marker in clockwise order wins.

The game concludes when all players are no longer able to perform the mandatory throw action. This can happen if a player runs out of color cards in their hand or if they have exhausted all 25 of their color tokens. Once this condition is met for all players, the game immediately proceeds to the scoring phase to determine the winner.