How To Teach: Reef Encounter

Reef Encounter is themed after a coral reef ecosystem. The goal is to grow corals and consume a greater amount of the most valuable types of coral with your parrotfish

Overview of Game Play

There are a number of coral reef boards equal to number of players, though no one 'owns' any one board.
The primary actions are:

laying polyp tiles to create or grow a coral
picking up tiles (consumed by parrotfish) tiles to score points
selecting a pile of new tiles from the open sea board to refresh your hand

Details of Game Play

Players take turns in a clockwise direction.
While not an action point game, one a player's turn, a player has a number of actions (as indicated on your Action Card) to choose from. There are a couple of restrictions regard when or how many times you can do each action. I will cover those restrictions later.

Note: I will cover the actions in a different order than you have on your Action Card - I think it's better for learning.
I also break them up into primary action and auxiliary actions.

Primary Actions
- Laying Tiles (Actions 2 & 3) - First thing you'll be able to do in the game.
  - Play 1-4 tiles of the same color from behind your screen on to a coral reef board to make or add to a coral
    - a coral is one or more orthogonally connected polyp tiles
  - Optionally, play as many tiles from in front of your screen as you like (I'll discuss how they get in front of your screen later)
  - Must be accompanied by playing a matching larva cube
  - Can be done twice per turn - once for each action (2 & 3) on your Action Card - can even be same color
  - you may be able to attack another coral, consume it's polyp tiles and place in front of your screen (this will be covered later)
  - (Now everyone has a little chuckle about the layout of the Action Card)
- Consume Coral Reef (Action 1)
  - if performed, must be first action of your turn
  - 4 of the tiles must go back in bag
  - remaining tiles go in player's parrotfish
  - Will not be able to do this right away (prob. after 2nd or 3rd turn or even later)
- Replenish you hand (Action 10)
  - pick a pile of polyp tiles + a larva cube from the open-sea board
  - do this action every turn
  - this action must always be done last

Auxiliary Actions
- Playing Shrimp (Action 4)
  - place a shrimp in a place that will best protect it's coral
  - shrimp protects tiles on it's coral in a plus-sign configuration
    - the tile it's sitting on
    - the four tiles orthogonal to the one it is sitting on
  - once per turn
  - only one shrimp per coral allowed
- Moving Shrimp (Action 5)
  - no limit to number of times this is done
  - during turn, shrimp can be on a square with no polyp tile on it
  - by end of turn, however, shrimp must be on a polyp tile or behind player screen
- Trade polyp tile for cube (Action 6)
  - a consumed polyp tile (from in front of player screen) can be traded for a larva cube of the same color (from supply)
  - can be done as many times as player chooses, and can afford
- Trade cube for tile (Action 8)
  - can trade a larva cube from behind player's screen with a polyp tile of the same color (from the bag)
- Exchange a cube for an alga cylinder (Action 7)
  - play the alga cylinder to flip all coral tile(s) with the matching anemone
  - place alga cylindar on circle on open-sea board
  - if player has already eaten their first coral, may optionally lock one of the coral tiles by placing the alga cylinder on the coral tile
    - lock only once per turn
    - may play as many as player can afford
  - must immediately play the alga cylinder (can't keep for later)
  - one reason to flip coral tiles is for scoring
    - each polyp tile scores 1 pt for the tile + 1 pt for each coral tile flipped to make that polyp tile dominant
  - another reason to flip coral tiles is to allow you to attack other corals

Attacking other corals - When placing polyp tiles (Action 2 & 3) a player may be able to attack another coral
- the dominant coral is indicated on coral tile on the open-sea board
  - the coral occupying 2 quadrants on the coral tile is dominant over the one with only one quadrant
- the attacking coral must be made up of at least 2 polyp tiles to consume a polyp tile of another color
- consumed polyp tiles are placed in front of the the screen of attacking player

End Of Game
- Conditions
  - when all coral tiles are locked
  - when a player has eaten all 4 shrimps with parrotfish
- Final Round
  - each player can consume one more coral
  - no other actions are allowed
  - 5 tiles (instead of usual 4)go in bag on last round

Exceptions, Corner Cases and other Loose Ends

note the squares on the coral reef boards that are seeded with polyp tiles at start of game. Beginning of the game is the only time these are seeded.

empty squares on the coral reef boards that have a starfish are populated with a polyp tile when a player plays a polyp tile on an orthogonally adjacent square. This space is populated with a matching tile to the adjacent one and must happen whether or not the player wants it to

Only two shrimp of any one color are allowed on a single coral reef board at any time.

corals of the same color but occupied by different colored shrimp, cannot touch (orthogonally)

resupply of polyp tiles/ on open sea board

a coral may join up with another coral of the same color if the other coral is unprotected

a player is allowed to attack another coral that s/he owns

a player is allowed to play polyp tiles to multiple corals and other players' corals

Things worth emphasizing or repeating

figure out ways to consume polyp tiles. consumed polyp tiles give you more options and flexibility.
locking coral tiles that scores you more points is a very important part of the game
you must eat your first coral before you can start locking coral tiles

Suggestions for Teaching

Brain Dump Area

I would add that there are really 4 main objectives to the game: Building up your corals and eating them, protecting the corals, attacking corals, and setting the coral strength. For the first time player, it is hard to know what the point is. If you can give them something the grab a hold of, these 4 main objectives, and explain how the rules allow them to do so, I think the game would make more sense.

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