Reef

To set up Reef, place the main game board in the center of the playing area. Sort all the coral pieces by color into separate piles, making sure each color is easily accessible to all players. Shuffle the coral cards to form a draw pile and place it face down. Deal four cards face up next to the draw pile to form the display. Place the point tokens in a general supply. Each player takes a player board and three coral pieces of each color, placing them in their personal supply. Finally, each player draws two coral cards to form their starting hand.

The main objective of Reef is to accumulate the most points by the end of the game. Players achieve this by strategically collecting and playing coral cards to build patterns of coral pieces on their personal player boards. These patterns, when matched with the scoring conditions on played cards, yield points. Careful planning and adaptation to the evolving board state are crucial for maximizing your score.

A turn in Reef consists of two main actions: either taking a card or playing a card. If you take a card, you can choose one of the four face-up cards from the display, or draw the top card from the draw pile. If you take a face-up card, you also collect any point tokens on it, and a new point token is placed on the leftmost remaining card. If you play a card, you first gain the coral pieces indicated on the top of the card, then place the coral pieces indicated on the bottom of the card onto your player board, and finally, you check for scoring opportunities based on the pattern on the played card.

Scoring occurs immediately after a player places coral pieces on their board by playing a card. The played card will have a pattern at the bottom, indicating specific colors and heights of coral pieces that need to be present on the player's board. Only the top-most coral pieces in each stack are considered for pattern matching. If the pattern is successfully matched, the player scores points equal to the number indicated on the card. It's possible to score the same pattern multiple times if different sets of coral pieces on the board fulfill the pattern requirements.

The game concludes when one of two conditions is met: either one of the four colors of coral pieces runs out from the general supply, or the draw pile for coral cards is depleted. Once either of these conditions occurs, the current round of play is completed, ensuring all players have an equal number of turns. After this, players can optionally play any remaining cards in their hand to score additional points. The player who has accumulated the highest total number of points from scored cards and collected tokens is declared the winner.