Instruction Manual for MARBLEOUS models including: 684587 1 4 Players Game, 684587, 1 4 Players Game, Players Game, Game
Marbleous - COMING FALL 2025 – Thames & Kosmos
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DocumentDocumentA game for 14 players, ages 8 and up GAME OVERVIEW Each player has a marble tray. In clockwise order, each player takes turns drawing a marble card. These cards allow you to roll specific marbles into your tray. When three or more marbles of the same color touch, you can pop them out of the tray and score points. Create a chain reaction by popping multiple sets of marbles on your turn, and get bonus tokens when you pop large sets! When the marble cards run out, the game ends. The player with the most points wins. 4 Overview cards GAME MATERIALS 3 Point card stacks (18 blue cards, 24 orange cards) 8 9 Example setup for 4 players: A, B, C, and D. 1 Marble supply A (consisting of 1 circle with 8 foam stickers) 9 Marble card stack (44 in total) 86 1 D 4 7 4 Marble trays (1 per player) Marble card pool 9 8 C 2 52 Marbles (11x each of blue, yellow, red, and purple; 8x white) 5 8 9 Bonus token supply (28 total, 7 each in blue, B yellow, red, and purple) Also included: 2 plastic storage bags (one for the marbles and one for the bonus tokens) 1 Gameboard (consisting of 3 pieces) GAME SETUP 4 Advanced 12 Star tokens 4 Solo cards star cards If this is your first game, carefully punch out all tokens and gameboard pieces from the punch boards. Take the big circle and apply two stickers stacked on top of one another to each of the four areas shown on the back of the circle. This is your marble supply. Distribute one overview card to each player. Return the advanced star cards and solo cards as well as the star tokens to the box. They are not required for the base game. 1 Build the gameboard from the three gameboard pieces and place it in the center of the table. 2 Place the marble supply to the right of the gameboard and fill it with the 52 marbles. 3 Shuffle the blue point cards, then the orange point cards, and place them face down in separate stacks. These are your point card stacks. 4 Draw 12 cards from the blue point card stack and place them randomly face up on the 12 spaces of the gameboard. This is the display. 5 Turn all bonus tokens face down and shuffle them. Place them to the right of the gameboard. This is your bonus token supply. 6 Shuffle the 44 marble cards and place them face down. Depending on how many people are playing, return marble cards to the box as follows: 2 or 4 players: return 14 marble cards to the box face down 3 players: return 15 marble cards to the box face down Place the remaining marble cards face down to the left of the gameboard. This is your marble card stack. 7 Draw three marble cards and place them face up below the marble card stack. This is your marble card pool. 8 Each player takes one marble tray and one white marble, then rolls the white marble into the center column of their marble tray. 9 Finally, each player takes two bonus tokens from the bonus token supply and places them face up next to their marble tray. Your setup should now look similar to the image above. HOW TO PLAY -- BASE GAME Whoever has their birthday next starts the game. Players take turns in clockwise order. The game ends when you cannot refresh the marble card pool anymore. At any time during the game, you are allowed to count the remaining marble cards. On your turn, follow these four steps in order: 1 Take a marble card from the pool. 2 Roll marbles into your marble tray. 3 Optional: Spend 1 bonus token. 4 Pop and score. Step 1 : Take a marble card from the pool. You must select one card from the face-up marble card pool. Note: On some marble cards, there are white marbles. These are wild marbles which count as all of the main colors (blue, yellow, red, or purple) at the same time! They will always pop as part of a set if they are adjacent to two or more connected marbles of the same color. Step 2 : Roll marbles into your marble tray. Take the marbles that are shown on your chosen marble card from the marble supply. Rotate the card into one of the four possible orientations (90° angles), then roll the marbles into your tray as shown on the card. Marbles must always be rolled into the tray from the top. Depending on the orientation of the card -- vertical or horizontal -- the marbles will either roll into a single column or multiple columns. You are free to choose which column(s), but they must keep the same configuration and spacing as shown on the card. Please note: Your marble tray has a layout of five columns. Each can hold up to five marbles. If there is no room for any more marbles in a column, the marble that was supposed to roll into that column is lost and returned back to the marble supply! Rare case: If at any time during the game, you are supposed to take a marble of a color that has run out from the marble supply, take a white marble instead. If there are no more white marbles in the marble supply, take any other available marble from the marble supply. Step 3 : Optional: Spend 1 bonus token. If you have any bonus tokens, you may now spend exactly one of these to gain exactly one marble of the token's color from the marble supply. Immediately roll this marble into any column of your marble tray. Then discard the spent bonus token into a face-up bonus token discard pile next to the bonus token supply. If the bonus token supply runs out while playing, flip over and shuffle the bonus token discard pile to form a new bonus token supply. Bonus token discard pile Step 4 : Pop and score. If, at this point, there is a set or sets of three or more (horizontally and/or vertically) adjacent marbles of the Example This is a set. This is not a set. same color in your marble tray, you must pop them out of the marble tray and score them following the steps below: · Remove the set of marbles from your marble tray and place it beside your marble tray. · Take the point card from the display that corresponds to the number (row) and color (column) of the set that you just popped. · Keep your collected point cards face down in front of you and only reveal them to the others at the end of the game! · After taking the point card -- depending on the row you took it from -- you may be able to take additional bonus tokens from the bonus token pile: Row #3 (you popped 3 marbles) = no bonus token | Row #4 = take 1 bonus token | Row #5 = take 2 bonus tokens. · In any column where cards were collected, slide the remaining point cards down, then refill the empty spots from the top with fresh face-up blue point cards. When the stack of blue point cards runs out, draw from the stack of orange point cards instead. · Then return the popped marbles to the marble supply. Repeat these steps for each set of three or more adjacent marbles in your tray. This includes any newly-formed sets that appear after you've popped another set. Keep in mind that white marbles are all colors at the same time. They must always be popped when adjacent to two or more marbles of the same color; i.e. if a white marble is next to two (or more) yellow marbles, they all pop. You cannot save the white marble for later. Please note: If you have multiple sets of marbles to pop at the same time, you may choose the order in which to pop them! END OF TURN After you have popped all possible sets, check if you have managed to completely empty your marble tray. If so, you get a white marble for free, which you must place in the center column of your marble tray. Finally, draw a new marble card to replenish the marble card pool. Play continues with the player to your left. Example A B C D E F G H I J K L A It is Jane's turn. B She selects the marble card with 1 blue and 2 purple marbles and C decides to roll them as shown into her marble tray. D Then she decides to spend a yellow bonus token to add a yellow marble to her marble tray. Because white can count for either blue or yellow, she has two possible sets of marbles in her tray. E She decides to pop the yellow set first, F takes the corresponding point card from the display (row #3, yellow column = 3 points), G slides down the other cards in the yellow column, and H refills the now empty space with a face-up blue card. I Now Jane pops the set of 4 blue marbles, J takes the corresponding point card from the display (row #4, column blue = 3 points), and also takes 1 bonus token from the bonus token pile. K She then slides down the top card in the blue column, and L fills the now empty space. Finally, she draws a new marble card to replenish the marble card pool for the next player. This ends her turn. END OF GAME & SCORING The game ends immediately when you cannot refresh the marble card pool to three cards at the end of your turn. Now, players tally their points: Add up all of the points on your point cards. In addition, add together the number of marbles remaining in your marble tray and the number of your unused bonus tokens, then divide that number by 3 (rounded down). You score that many additional points. The player with the highest score is the winner. In case of a tie, the tied player with the most marbles left in their marble tray is the winner. If it is still a tie, the tied player with the most bonus tokens wins. If it is still a tie, the tied players share the victory. The rules of the base game apply with the following changes: ADVANCED MODE At game setup, place the 12 star tokens in a pile next to the gameboard. Deal one advanced star card face up to each player. Whenever you pop two or more sets in the same turn, you collect a star token that you place on your star card. As an additional bonus, from your second pop onwards in the same turn, you are also allowed to ignore the color of your popped sets when scoring, allowing you to take point cards of a different color but the same number as the popped set. However, you are not allowed to collect more than one card from the same color column per turn. At the end of the game, the star tokens you have collected are worth additional points as shown in the table on your advanced star card. 4 Advanced star cards 12 Star tokens SOLO MODE The rules of the base game apply with the following changes: During game setup, do not remove any marble cards. Take the four solo cards, shuffle them and place them in a line face up in front of you. When you take a marble card, instead of drawing one new marble card and adding it to the pool, discard the remaining two marble cards and then draw three new marble cards from the marble card stack to refresh the marble card pool. At the end of your turn, flip a random bonus token and discard the bottom point card (row #3) of that color in the display. Refill the display as usual and discard the bonus token. In order to win a game in solo mode, you need to complete both of the objectives below: x4 x4 x4 x4 4 Solo cards · Objective #1: Pop a set of at least four marbles of each color shown on the solo cards. The sequence in which you need to complete the pops is the same as the cards from left to right. If the cards are in the same order as they are shown above, you would have to pop four purple marbles first, then -- either in the same turn or a later turn -- four red, then yellow, then blue. Whenever you complete the leftmost solo card, discard it. Please note: You can pop sets of four marbles out of order and score points for these as normal, but you will not discard the solo card in this case. · Objective #2: You must reach a certain number of points. Depending on the level you want to play (easy/medium/hard), you need to reach 60/65/70 points. If you play with the star tokens, you need 85/90/95 points. The Authors: Kåre and Mads have been active in the board game and board game designing communities in Denmark for decades. Finding the fun in playing games while fostering a growing community is very close to their hearts. In more recent years, they have focused more intensely on designing board games together, and if you asked them, they would both say that their individual skill sets are like two puzzle pieces that fit perfectly together: Kåre is the mathematical problem solving engineer, while Mads is the persistent and detail-oriented idea generator. The authors and the publisher would like to thank everyone who was involved in playtesting, reading the rules, and developing the game. Authors: Mads Fløe & Kåre Torndahl Kjær Editing: Michael Sieber-Baskal Design: Fiore GmbH English editing: Ava Tessitore and Hannah Mintz © 2025 Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co. KG, Pfizerstrasse 5 7, 70184 Stuttgart, DE © 2024 Thames & Kosmos, LLC, Providence, RI, USA Thames & Kosmos® is a registered trademark of Thames & Kosmos, LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in China / Imprimé en Chine Distributed in North America by Thames & Kosmos, LLC. Providence, RI 02903 Phone: 800-587-2872; Web: thamesandkosmos.com Distributed in United Kingdom by Thames & Kosmos UK LP. Cranbrook, Kent TN17 3HE Phone: 01580 713000; Web: www.thamesandkosmos.co.uk 684587-02-071024Adobe InDesign 20.0 (Macintosh) Adobe PDF Library 17.0