My First Christmas Tree

**(This ruleset is still a Work In Progress. Feel free to leave comments)**

## Theme

For the first time ever, you have been allowed to decorate the Christmas Tree! You are determined to make it the most joyful christmas tree ever and you are gonna do it with your own flair! However, you must share decoration-duties with your opponent (your loved one, your brother/sister or roommate) who has his own style in mind! You two will be competing to see who does the best job decorating the tree and who will do it the fastest!

## Components

* Take the following components
* 1-3 on each color (6 cards) - to form the **Decoration Deck**

* 4-6 on each color - to form the **Player** and **Neutral Decoration Boxes**

* 23 tiles (3 of each symbol + 5 random) - to create the **Tree** (consisting of **Star**, **Rows** and **Base**)

* 20 cubes of 2 colors + 12 cubes of 2 other colors - to constitute player **Decorations** and **Finishing Touches**

## Setup

**Decorations and Finishing Touches:** Give each player 2 colors worth of cubes (20 of the base color for **Decorations** + 12 of the "**Finishing Touch**" color).

(Note: This ruleset will use the colors Red+Green for player 1 and Blue+Yellow for player 2. However, when you play feel free to mix and match)

Give one player Red and Green + the Green X card to mark it has his "Finishing Touch color". Give the other player Blue and the Yellow + Yellow X card.

Finishing Touches are used to mark the first player to complete a row or when you run out of your colored cubes.

**The Christmas Tree:** Shuffle 3 tiles of each symbol + 2 random tiles (20 total) and make 5 rows with tiles face up: 1st row = 2 tiles,2nd row = 3 tiles, etc. until the 5th row with 6 tiles. Then place, facedown, 1 tile on top of the 1st row (this is the star at the top) and 2 tiles below the 5th row (this is the tree base). Center them.

**Decoration Boxes:** Give each player a set of cards from 4 to 6 in one color, place it as a faceup stack ordered from lowest to highest (lowest on top) - These are the Player Decoration Boxes. Place the remaining cards in stacks, split by ther value (4, 5 and 6) - These are the neutral Decoration Boxes.

**Decoration Deck and Pool:** Shuffle the deck of cards. Flip 4 face up to form a pool.

Give the first player 1 card and the second player 2 cardsf from the top of the deck.

## How to play

Players will complete their turns back and forth until the end game condition is met. When the condition is met, you finish the round and proceed to scoring.

A player turn consists of 5 phases:

* Collect decoration - Draw Cards

* Prepare decoration - Play cards

* Place decoration - Place cubes [OPTIONAL]

* Get more Decoration - Complete "Decoration Box" [OPTIONAL]

* End Turn

Every turn the player will be able to commit in a special way to a task, giving him a bonus on that specific task. Only one *Comit Ability*may be used per turn.

### Collect decoration

The active player may take a card from the Decoration Pool and add it to his/her hand. Immediatelly draw and place a new card from the deck in the Decoration Pool (reshuffle if necessary)

**Commit Ability:** Before taking a card, discard all 4 cards in the Decoration Pool and refill it.

*Eg. There's a Green Gear, a Red Gear, a blue Arrow, and Red Hammer. Player A really wants a drop, so he discards all 4 cards from the Decoration Pool and refills it with cards from the deck. Then he may select a card to take into his hand.*

**Commit Ability:** Take an extra card from the Pool.

*Eg: There's a Green Gear, a Red Gear, a blue Arrow, and Red Hammer. Player A Takes a Red Gear, and then immediatelly refills it. If he hasn't used a Commit Ability yet, he may draw an additional card in the same way.*

### Prepare decoration

If the player has no Decoration currently being prepared, he will start a new one. A player can only have one Decoration being prepared at a time.

A Decoration being prepared consists of a row of cards placed on the table near the player.

To start or continue a decoration, place a card faceup on the table. If you already had a card on the table, place the new card to the left or right of the existing card.

The new card must be a valid card (see "Place Decoration" for more information). If the new card is invalid, then you must discard every card you had prepared before and the new card becomes the new decoration.

Note: You may never have more cards in your preparation row than your current maximum decoration size. The default maximum decoration size is 4 and can be increased (see "Get more Decoration").
**Commit Ability:** Play an extra card to the preparation row.

*Eg. Let's say your row already included a Drop and an Arrow. The following are legal plays:*

* *add a Gear to end of the row (making it Drop Arrow Gear) as this exists horizontally on the second row of the Tree.*

* *Add a Gear to the beginning of the row (making it Gear Drop Arrow) as this exists diagonally from (row 1/tile 1), (row 2/tile 3) and (row 3/tile 3). It also exists diagonally from (row 3/tile 2), (row 4/tile 3) and (row 5/tile 4)*

* *Add a the Three-Dots to the end of the row (making it Drop Arrow Three-dots) as this exists diagonally starting from row 2 (tile 3), row 3 (tile 3) and row 4 (tile 4)*

### Place decorations

You MAY complete the preparation and decorate the tree, if your current preparation row is equal to or above the minimum decoration size (the minimum is always 3 cards).

You MUST complete the preparation and decorate the tree, if you have achieved your maximum decoration size.

To decorate the tree follow the following steps:

1 - From left to right or from right to left check the symbols on the cards you played.

2 - Check the board, diagonally or horizontally, for a series of symbol in the exact same order as the cards you played.

3 - Count the number of cards of the same color for the color most represented in the row.

4 - Place as many cubes of your color as the number you got from step 3. You may place one cube on any tile you checked on Step 2.

**Reminder:** Whenever you need to place a cube of your color, but you don't have any more available, use a Finishing Touch cube instead.

*Eg. Let's say your row includes a [Red Gear] [Blue Drop]  [Red Arrow] and [Red Three-dots]. **Step 1 + Step 2:**You can find this diagonally from (row 1/tile 1), (row 2/tile 3), (row 3/tile 3) and (row 4/tile 4). **Step 3:** Red has the most card in your row, since 3 red cards exists you can place 3 cubes. **Step 4:** You can place your cubes on the Gear, Drop, Arrow or Three-dots.*

### Get more Decoration

This step happens everytime you do "Place decorations". If you prepared a complex decoration you might be able to get a box with bigger decorations.

To see if you are able to open a new box, follow these steps:

1 - Select a color and count the number of cards in your preparation row.

2A - If the total from step 1 equals your current maximum take it and place it beneath your X. Your maximum is now the next visible card (5, 6 or unlimited)

2B - If the total from step 1 does not equal your current maximum, but there is still a card with the same value in the neutral Decoration Boxes: Take one card from that stack and add it beneath your X.

**Commit Ability:** Select an extra color in Step 1. Sum up the 2 values and use it for Step 2.

*Eg. Let's say, again that your row includes a [Red Gear] [Blue Drop]  [Red Arrow] and [Red Three-dots]. **Step 1:** Select Red has this is the color with the most card in your row, the total is 3. Since the first decoration box is number 4 this is not enough. HOWEVER, if you use your **Commit Ability** you can select a second color to add up: so you select blue and now you have a total of 4 (3 red + 1 blue). You can now claim a card with number 4, your own if you have taken none yet (Step 2A) or one from the central Neutral ones (Step 2B).*

### End of Turn:

To complete your turn follow these steps:

* If you performed "Place decoration"/"Get more Decoration" discard all cards in your preparation row.

* Check to see if you are the first player have a cube on every tile of a row. If you are, place a **Finishing Touch** **in the middle of that row** (if on a row with an even number of tiles, place it on top of your middle cube) to signal that you were the first to **complete it**.

* Check to see if you are the first player to have a cube on each of the 5 rows. If you are, place a cube of your color on the top of the tree (single orange tile). *(You got the right to decorate the tree top with a star.)*

* Check to see if you completed 2 non-adjacent tree rows (green). If you do, place a cube of your color on the left most tile without a cube on the bottom of the tree. *(You got the right to decorate part of the tree base)*. **Note:** For a player to complete the second tree base, he must have completed 4 rows.

## End of Game

Whenever all rows have been completed (i.e. has a Finishing Touch in the midle of the row), regardless of who completed them, the end of game is triggered. Play the round until the end and proceed to Scoring.

Scoring:

Each player gains points according to the following:

* 6 points for a cube or Finishing Touch on the Star tile

* 4 points for a cube or Finishing Touch the left most Base tile

* 3 points for a cube or Finishing Touch the right most Base tile

* X points for a Finishing Touch on tree level (i.e. you were the first one to complete it). X = number of tiles on tree level.

* Y points for completed tree level without a Finishing Touch (i.e. you were not the first player to complete it). Y =  number of tiles on tree level, divided by 2 (rounded down). Or, Y = X/2 (rounded down)

* Z points for each completed "Decoration Box". Z = the number on the card.

* -1 point for each Decoration cube not placed