In Rainforest, your aim is to create a jungle environment that offers a rich variety of vegetation, which will allow you to reintroduce and protect the region’s iconic species: monkeys, frogs, butterflies and parrots. Don’t forget to secure the long-term survival of your totem animal, and you’ll be able to earn some precious extra points. Can you make your jungle a cradle of diversity?

Gameplay

On your turn you must perform the following actions in this order:

1) Take a Jungle tile from the top of one of the piles, then take all the species tokens of a single color or single type from that same zone

2) Place the Species tokens you have just taken onto your Jungle tiles in your clearing, then lock in any completed tiles by placing them in your jungle.

When a player locks in their 9th Jungle tile, the players finish that round and then the game ends. The player with the most points wins.

Choosing the tiles and Species tokens in one zone

Choose one of the 5 zones on the board and follow these two steps in this order:

• Take the top Jungle tile from the pile in that zone. You may choose to either place it in one of the spaces in your clearing (there is a limit of 3 tiles in your clearing) or discard it
• Take all the Species tokens of a single color or single type within that zone

If you take the last Species token from a zone, you can immediately exchange one of the Species tokens you have taken this turn or one from your reserve with any Species token on the main board.

Placing Species tokens

You use the Species tokens you just took (plus those in your reserve, if you have any) to complete the Jungle tiles in your clearing.

You can start filling a Jungle tile without having to complete it entirely. Any Species token that has been placed on a Jungle tile remains there for the rest of the game.The Jungle tiles do not all have the same restrictions. Some of them will accept any species, whereas others will require a particular color or type of species.

If you have completed a Jungle tile, you must move it from your clearing into your Jungle.

Locked-in tiles are placed down one after the other, from left to right, respecting the placement order shown on your player board, forming a square of 9 tiles.

You can lock in more than one Jungle tile in the same turn. If you do, you can arrange them in the order you wish. You won’t be able to adjust this placement later on.

Once you have placed the locked-in tiles in your jungle, check whether you have fulfilled any of the conditions that allow you to take one of the available Bonus tokens (Protected Area and Diversity).

Protected Area token

If you build a zone of 3 tiles of the same color connected orthogonally, and the two Protected Area tokens of that color are still available for this game, you can decide either to take the 3-tile token immediately or instead leave it and aim for the 4-tile token. You won’t be able to change your mind later on.

Similarly, if you take the 3-tile Protected Area token, you will no longer have the option to take the 4-tile Protected Area token. This means that a player can only have one Protected Area token of each color.

Place the Protected Area token on a tile of your choice within the connected area concerned.

Note : A dual-colored tile can only hold one Protected Area token.

Diversity token

If your jungle contains all 5 colors, you receive the Diversity token and place it on the tile featuring the 5th color.

Note : A tile can hold both a Protected Area and a Diversity token.

Turn end

If you have more Species tokens than you can hold in your reserve (limit of 2), you must discard the excess. How you manage your reserve is up to you; you can discard the tokens you reserved in previous rounds in order to keep the tokens you took this turn, if you so wish.

At the end of each player’s turn, if one of the zones on the main board has run out of Species tokens, the empty spaces in all zones are refilled with tokens taken at random from the bag.

End of game and scoring

When a player locks in their 9th Jungle tile, it triggers the end of the game. Players continue to play until it comes back to the player with the Binoculars token, so that everyone has played the same number of turns.

Each player then counts up their points (tiles that are still in your clearing do not score).

• Each Jungle tile locked into the player’s jungle earns them the points indicated on that tile.
• Each Species token corresponding to the player’s totem animal (on the yellow leaf on your board) that has been placed on a locked-in tile earns 1 additional point for that tile.
• The Protected Area tokens allow the player to double or triple their points for the tile on which they are placed (including the totem animal points).

The Diversity token gives a player 2 points for each tile placed after it in the placement order.

The player who has gained the most points wins the game. If there is a tie, the players share the victory