Undergrove
Undergrove is a medium-weight 3X game in which you play a Douglas-fir tree that is building symbiotic relationships with fungi and using them to establish your seedlings. Players explore by adding new mushrooms to a shared forest area, expand by playing new seedlings and roots on those mushrooms, and exploit their relationships with the mushrooms to gain resources. Players then help their seedlings grow into trees by transferring resources through the fungi. At the end of the game, the player who has grown the best set of seedlings with the most valuable symbiotic relationships wins.
Number of players: 2 - 4
Game duration: 71 mn
Complexity: 3 / 5
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Play Undergrove and 846 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Overview
You are a tree trying to grow throughout the forest
Setup
In turn order, place a seedling on a corner of the central Earthlover tile with a root facing inwards
Turn
On your turn, perform one action between: Activate, Absorb, Reproduce, Partner, Photosynthesize
After which, if you absorb at least one carbon, move up a space on the carbon track (a single space regardless of how many you absorbed)
If you made progress on a goal, mark it with a goal counter
Draw back up to 3 Mushroom tiles
Note: Pieces are limited, once you run out of the associated piece you can no longer perform the associated action
Activate
To activate a Mushroom you must have a root on the tile and be able to pay the cost on the left side of the box, which usually involves at least 1 Carbon. It may also require you to flip a matching token to the symbol to the left of its name, if you already flipped that type to its used side you cannot use it again until it is flipped back to its ready side by other effects. It may show a P/N/K resource, or it may show a multicoloured box to let you choose which of PNK to pay with.
After payment is made, activate the mushroom's effect.
Some Mushrooms have ongoing abilities, if this is the case then as long as you have a root on their tile then you can make use of their effect in addition to your main action if applicable
Absorb
Pick a tile you wish to absorb Carbon from which you have a root on, if there is no Carbon there then you may first pay to move Carbon to that tile but ONLY if you plan to absorb that Carbon (i.e. you can't move Carbon and leave it there)
If you need to take the optional movement action, you must either flip one activation token or pay one PNK for each tile it needs to move orthogonally to reach it e.g. if the nearest Carbon is 3 tiles away, you need to pay a mix of activation tokens and PNK to the value of 3
Once the Carbon is on the tile, or if it were there already, pay 1 activation token AND 1 PNK to Absorb it
Place the carbon directly on your Seedling and move up 1 on the carbon track, taking any rewards
If this is the third Carbon that Seedling has absorbed, discard all Carbon on it and place a Tree on the space (however you can only make 4 trees in the game)
Reproduce
Pay a Carbon and 2 Ps, and optionally you may pay 1 PNK to also add 1 new Mushroom from your hand at the same time
Place a new Seedling on an unclaimed corner, this does not in any way have to be adjacent to previous Seedlings
Add 1 Root to the new Seedling reaching out into a Mushroom tile of your choice
If you optionally paid to play a new Mushroom tile, this can happen before the Seedling placement, and must be placed orthogonally adjacent to another Mushroom tile already out
Partner
Pay a Carbon and 2 Ks, and optionally you may pay 1 PNK to also add 1 new Mushroom from your hand at the same time (Mushroom placement rules are the same as above)
Place 2 new roots onto your existing Seedlings or Trees, these can be the same or different, but must point out into a Mushroom tile the plant hasn't already grown Root into (i.e. don't stack roots)
Photosynthesize
This action has no forced cost, but to take the optional action it costs 1 N per extra Carbon you wish to receive
Gain 2 Carbon
Flip all used Activation Tokens to their ready side
Discard as many Mushroom tiles from your hand as you wish, this may be 0
Goal Cards
Each game will randomly produce 3 goal cards that you can aim for
As you do actions which contribute towards the goal, move your marker along the quantity track to show how you are doing compared to everyone else
Some Goal Cards will score everyone based on the quantity of something whilst others will score based on how well each player achieves it
Game End
The game ends when a player has reached the end of the carbon track, finish the round, and take one more full round
Each player who reaches the end of the carbon track, in the order they reach it, can choose one final unique reward
Each Root MAY score based on the number of white Seed Cones shown on the associated Mushroom
A Seedling with 1 Carbon score one associated root of the player's choice
A Seedling with 2 Carbon score two associated roots of the player's choice
Trees score all Roots
Seedlings with 3 or 4 Carbon (due to lack of Trees) score 3 or 4 Roots respectively
If a player collected Bonus Tiles from the Carbon Track, score these
Every 2 Carbon AND PNK leftover scores a point (i.e. 1 Carbon & 1 K = 1 point OR KP = 1 point or 2 Carbon = 1 point)
The player with the most points wins!
If tied, the player with the most trees wins!
If still tied, the player with the most Absorbed Carbon wins!
