Mountains out of Molehills

First, place the brown double-sided underground board into the box, ensuring the correct side (4x4 for 2 players, 6x6 for 3-4 players) is face up. Insert the four support pieces into the corners of the box. Then, place the yellow double-sided aboveground board on top, matching the grid size and orientation of the underground board. Shuffle the movement cards into a face-down deck, placing the rock token and die nearby. Each player chooses a mole figure and all molehill pieces of their color. Distribute King of the Hill tokens (1 to player count) randomly to determine turn order. Players place their moles on unoccupied outside corners of the underground board, deciding their initial facing direction. Finally, each player places one of their molehill pieces on the aboveground space directly above their mole. Give the score pad to the player who most recently dug a hole, or choose randomly.

The objective of Mountains out of Molehills is to earn the most points by creating and controlling mountains. Players dig tunnels underground, which pushes dirt (molehill pieces) above ground, forming mountains. Controlling these mountains and strategically toppling them to your advantage are key to victory. The game is played over six rounds, with points scored at the end of each round.

Each round is divided into three parts: card drafting, planning and movement, and scoring. In card drafting, five movement cards per player are dealt face-up from the deck. Starting with the first player and continuing in turn order (determined by King of the Hill tokens), each player picks one face-up movement card and adds it to their hand, keeping it secret from opponents. This continues until each player has four cards. Any leftover face-up cards are moved to a shared discard pile. In the planning and movement phase, all players simultaneously and secretly arrange their four movement cards into a face-down stack, deciding the order they will resolve them. The top card is resolved first, down to the bottom card. Once all stacks are ready, players reveal and resolve their top-most movement card in turn order (starting with the player holding the number 1 King of the Hill token). Movement cards allow players to move their mole forward, turn left/right, make a U-turn, or place a rock token. When a mole moves into a new space, a molehill piece of that player's color is added to the bottom of the mountain directly above that space. If the space already has a piece, the new piece goes underneath. If a player runs out of their own molehill pieces, they can remove pieces of their color from the tops of any mountains to complete their movement. If a mountain exceeds the maximum height for the current round, it topples, with pieces falling onto adjacent spaces, potentially causing chain reactions. The player who caused the topple decides the direction it falls. After all top cards are resolved, players continue resolving their next card in turn order until all four cards have been played.

After all movement cards have been resolved for the round, players proceed to scoring. Each player checks which mountains they control. A player controls a mountain if their molehill piece is on the very bottom of that stack. For each mountain they control, they count every piece within that mountain as one point. These points are added to the player's score for the current round on the score sheet. After recording scores, all King of the Hill tokens are returned to the center of the play area. Players then determine who has the most of their own molehill pieces on the very tops of all mountains. That player gets to pick any one of the King of the Hill tokens for the next round. The player with the next most pieces on top picks from the remaining tokens, and so on. Ties are broken by the previous turn order.

The game concludes after the scoring phase of the sixth round. Players sum up their scores from all six rounds to get a final total. The player with the highest total score wins the game. In case of a tie for the highest score, the tied players compare who controls the most five-piece mountains. If still tied, they compare four-piece mountains, then three-piece, and so on, until the tie is broken. If a tie still cannot be broken, the tied players share the victory as the top tunnellers.