Sunflower Valley: A Tile-Laying Game (2019)

Sunflower Valley: The Card Game, a.k.a. Sunflower Valley: A Tile-Laying Game, is a fast-paced drafting and tableau-building game in which 2-6 players settle their own mountain valleys.

Each player has a starting town card, a Valley Express train token that starts on this card, and a deck of twenty cards the same color as their starting town. Reveal three of the nine goal cards at random.

The game lasts three rounds, and each round plays out the same way: Draw a hand of seven cards from your deck. All players choose and reveal one card from their hand, then place this card orthogonally adjacent to another card in their valley. Pass the remaining cards in your hand to the player on your left. Repeat this process until you have placed six cards. Place the final card in hand on the bottom of your deck. If you connect railroad track to your starting town, then connect a town card to that track, move your Valley Express train token to the new town; keep moving this token for each new town added to your network this way.

After three rounds, you'll have 19 cards in your tableau, and you score points for these played cards:

• Each lake is worth 1 point.
• Sheep and sunflower fields are worth no points on their own, but they help you score other cards.
• Farmers and towns score if they have the indicated number of sheep, field, lake, or mountain cards next to them; farmers count as fields themselves.
• Mountains score based on the number of fields next to them.

In addition to these points, score 3 points for each new town visited by your Valley Express train token. Score the goal cards as indicated; some award points only to the player who does the best of something, such as having the most sheep or the longest network of track and trains, whereas others award points — possibly several times — for everyone who does something. Whoever ends up with the most points wins.