Waterline (2022)

In Waterline, you and each other player are trying to build a single pipeline to connect openings in your player grid — but to maximize your score, you want to do more than just make a connection.

On a turn, the active player rolls the two six-sided dice, then each player uses the die results as they wish to draw pipe segments in their grid. You can use the die numbers separately for basic pipe or sum their values to use one of the special connectors. If doubles were rolled, well, too bad; you get a rock and need to place that somewhere in your grid. If a 7 comes up, you can choose any two basic pipe or one special pipe. Some spots on your player sheet are already filled in, so you can incorporate those pieces or avoid them as you wish. Rocks — you just want to avoid those.

After a certain number of dice rolls, the game ends, and if you have not completed your waterline, you score no points and lose. If you have, then you score based on how well you used existing pipes, how many rows and columns you filled with objects (including rocks and unused pipe), how many starred spaces you incorporated into your pipeline, the total number of pipes used, and whether you used more corner pieces than everyone else.