Point Salad

Based on the number of players, remove a specified number of each of the six vegetable cards from the game without looking at their point card backs. Place these removed cards back into the box. Shuffle the remaining cards thoroughly. Divide the shuffled deck into three approximately equal piles, placing them face-up with their point card sides showing. From each of these three piles, draw the top two cards and place them face-up in a column below their respective pile, displaying their vegetable sides. This forms the 'vegetable market' with three columns of two vegetable cards each. Randomly determine the first player.

The objective of Point Salad is to collect vegetable cards that best satisfy the scoring conditions on your point cards. Players aim to strategically acquire vegetables to maximize their score by the end of the game. The player with the highest total score at the end of the game is declared the winner.

On your turn, you have two options: either take one face-up point card from the top of any of the three piles, or take any two face-up vegetable cards from the market. If you take a point card, you add it to your hand, keeping its scoring condition visible. If you take two vegetable cards, you add them to your collection, keeping them visible in front of you. After taking cards, if you took vegetable cards from a column, immediately replenish that column by flipping the top card from its corresponding point pile face-up to reveal a new vegetable card. Your turn then ends.

At the end of the game, each player calculates their total score. Points are awarded based on the scoring conditions printed on the point cards you have collected. Each point card will specify which types and quantities of vegetable cards contribute to its score. A key rule is that a single vegetable card can be used to fulfill the conditions of multiple point cards simultaneously, allowing for strategic combinations and high scores. For example, a carrot card could count towards a point card that rewards for carrots and another that rewards for a set of different vegetables.

The game concludes when all cards from the three point piles and the vegetable market have been taken. Once all cards are in players' hands or collections, each player calculates their final score based on their collected point cards and vegetable cards. The player with the highest total score wins the game. In case of a tie, the tied player whose turn was later in the final round of the game wins.