(Printed: contact Alex for PDF) Central map board, two-sided: [one side for 3 players], [one side for 2 or 4 players] Four creature boards (blue, red, brown and black; alternatively use creature-shaped boards) Six shop tiles and six station tiles Deck of 16 Secret Goal cards 16ish special power cards Four shape tiles (circle, heart, triangle, square) (Your own components:) A player pawn or animal piece in each of blue, red, black and brown 13 Trophy tokens (stars, gold beads, etc) Opaque bag (Either printed or using your own tokens) 80 [body part tokens]: 20 each of Arm (yellow), Leg (green), Brain (purple), Belly (blue) 1 grey [Plasm body part token]
A printable PDF is available on request, containing all the above images at the correct size.
Introduction
You control a Creature as it moves around the map, collecting body part tokens and installing them into your body or spending them to get special powers. At the start you can move two steps, hold up to one token at a time, and use one space (a shop or station). Try to use the stations that let you install tokens to increase the amount you can do on your turn until you win!
Winning the Game
The aim of the game is to get four Trophies. You can get trophies in two ways: meet the conditions on a Secret Goal card, or install six of the same kind of token on your creature's body. Example: Bethany's creature has 6 Arm tokens installed, 6 Belly tokens installed, and a Secret Goal saying "Have 5 Belly installed and 2 Arms installed". So she has three trophies, and just needs one more to win! When someone gets to 4 (or more) Trophies, finish the round: players keep taking turns until the next time it would be the start player's turn. At that point the game is over and whoever has the most Trophies wins.
Setup
Put the map board in the centre of the table, with the side face up according to how many players you have. Put the Special Powers board next to it. Shuffle the shop tiles and station tiles and deal them out onto the indicated spaces: stations onto the symbol and shops onto the symbol.
Each player chooses a player colour and takes the player piece and creature board in that colour. Each player takes a random shape tile. (In a 3-player game, don't use the tile with a square. In a 2-player game, each player takes two shape tiles and turns one of them face down.) Each player puts their player piece on a shape near the centre of the board (not touching an edge). Shuffle the Secret Goal cards. Deal 1 Secret Goal card to each player and put the rest in a face-down deck. Shuffle the Special Power tiles. Deal seven of them onto the Special Powers board and put the rest in a face-down deck where it says "Special Powers".
Put all the Arm, Leg, Brain and Belly tokens in an opaque bag. For every shape on the map that doesn't have a player in its space, draw a random token from the bag and put it in the centre of that space (covering the shape). Fill all empty spaces on shops with a random token from the bag.
Choose a random start player (or ask the youngest player whether they'd like to play first or last).
For your first game, everyone gets one random token from the bag into their belly to start with. After your first game, shuffle the orange Start Tiles and deal out as many of them as you have players, plus one more. The player playing last chooses one of the start tiles; then the player to their right, round until the start player. Example: If you took the first start tile here, you would start with an Arm token installed and a Belly token in your belly. The second token would have you start with a Leg token installed and a Brain token in your belly. The third one lets you pick one of the Special Powers on the board that only cost one tile, not two tiles. You can't use that power in your first turn. The last start tile lets you start with an extra Secret Goal, and you draw a random token from the bag, reveal it and keep it in your belly.
On Your Turn
First, at the start of your turn, look for any empty spaces that match the shape tile you have. If there are any, refill them with a token from the bag. (A space with a player on it is not empty!) In a 2-player game, turn both of your shape tiles over, and look for spaces that match the shape tile that's now face up. Also, if there are any empty spaces on shops, refill those with tokens from the bag too. (You may find it helpful to have one player who owns the bag and just does this automatic refilling at the start of each player's turn.) If you have any Special Power cards turned sideways, straighten them.
Now you get to move around and collect tokens. In any order, on your turn, you can do these things:
Grab tokens from the square where you are and take them into your Arms. You can only do this if you have a free space in your Arms: that is, an empty yellow space on your creature board, next to an installed Arm token. (At the start of the game, each player has room for just one token in their Arms.) You can't just grab tokens that a shop is selling - you have to use the shop to get those!
Walk one step left, right, up or down. You can do this as many times as the number of Moves your Legs give you. Before, after or in between moving, you can
Use a shop or station where you are. You can do this as many times as the number of complete Heads you have. With 0, 1 or 2 installed Brains, you have 1 Head; with 4, 5 or 6, you have 2 Heads and can use two spaces per turn; with 7 Brains, you have 3 Heads and can use three spaces per turn. Later on the rules explain what each shop and station does.
Drop tokens from your Arms or Belly onto your current square. You would normally only do this to make room for other tokens you're about to get. If you drop tokens on a Shop space, put them at the top-left purple corner of the space so people don't mix them up with the tokens on sale.
Reveal a Secret Goal if you've achieved it. Put the card face-up in front of you and claim a Trophy token to put on it.
Use Special Powers if you've got any.
You can do these things in any order and as many times as you're able and allowed.
At the end of your turn, any tokens that are in your Arms get "swallowed" and move down into your Belly. Initially you can only hold two tokens in your Belly; for each extra Belly token you have installed, you can store one more token from round to round. If you don't have room for all the tokens in your Arms to come down to your Belly, you have to drop some (from either Arms or Belly) into your current square.
Example turn: Zoe has two Legs installed, giving her three moves, and starts her turn on a station. She moves one step left, and grabs a Leg token from the space where she is, holding it in her Arms. She makes her second move up, onto the Adaptation Station. She uses her one Head for this turn to install the Leg from her Arms into her body. Now she has an extra Leg installed so she's got two moves left. She moves up, grabs a Brain, and decides not to use her fourth move. At the end of her turn, the Brain in her Arms moves down into her Belly.
Shops and Stations
When you use a Head to use a shop, you have to pay the token that shop wants, from your Arms or Belly (you can't pay a token that's installed on your body). Then you get the tokens that the shop was selling, straight into any open space in your Belly or Arms. Fill your Belly up first.
Each shop has a bonus if you have a particular number of installed Brains. If you have enough Brains to get this shop's bonus, pull a random token out of the bag. You get that as well. If you don't have room in your Arms and Belly for all the tokens you get, drop some of them where you are (at the top-left purple corner of the shop).
When you use a Head to use a station, you get a choice of one of two effects. The effects you might get are:
Install (blue border): Install one token from your Arms or Belly into your body. You immediately get the benefits of this! For example, if you install a Leg this way, you can take the extra move right away. Also, if you fill up all the sockets of one token type on your body, you immediately get a Trophy! Put it on your player board next to that token type. (If you later lose a token for any reason, you still keep the Trophy.)
Big Install (green border): Pay one token to install three more tokens from your Arms or Belly into your body. You can only do this if you have at least four tokens among your Arms and Belly! Choose one of the tokens goes to the discard pile; the other three get installed into your body, ready for use.
Get a new Goal (sky-blue border): If you have less than three Secret Goal cards, draw a new one from the deck. If you already meet the conditions on the Goal, great - you can reveal it straight away and get a Trophy!
Pay a Goal for a token (orange border): Discard one Secret Goal card to get the token of your choice into your Arms or Belly. Take the token from the discard pile, if it's got the one you want; or from the bag.
Special Power (pink border): Get a Special Power from the Special Power board. The four Special Powers on the left you can get by paying the token cost printed at the top of that power. The three Special Powers on the right you'll have to also pay one extra token, but that can be any type of token. Then you take the Special Power and have it for the rest of the game. You can use it straight away this turn if you want. If it has a "Turn sideways" arrow, you can do that on each of your turns from now on. After you've bought a Special Power, move the others along following the arrows and deal out a new one from the deck so there are always 7 Special Powers visible on the board.
Special Powers
Here's how each of the Special Power cards work.
Haggling (cost 1 Brain): When using a shop, you can pay any token, rather than the precise token the shop wants. When buying future Special Powers you can pay any type of token.
Brainstorming (cost 1 Brain): Once per turn, you can turn Brainstorming sideways to draw an extra Secret Goal card, then discard one of your Secret Goals (which could be the one you just drew).
Flexibility (cost 2 Brains): Immediately take and install the Plasm token on any row of your body. If this fills a row, take the Star for that row. Once per turn, you can turn the Flexibility card sideways to move the Plasm token to a different row of your body. If this fills a row that you haven't filled before, take the Star for that row.
Knees (cost 1 Leg): Once per turn, you can turn the Knees card sideways to move yourself one step diagonally.
Tunnelling (cost 1 Leg): If you're in one of the four spaces in the corner of the map, you count as being adjacent to all the other corner spaces. You can move to them for 1 move, or reach them with Tentacles.
Biped (cost 1 Leg): If you only have 0 or 1 Leg installed, so your Legs give you just 2 moves, you get 2 extra moves. This power stops working if you install 2 or more Leg tokens.
Wings (cost 2 Legs): Once per turn, you can turn the Wings card sideways to move to any space on the board.
Foraging (cost 1 Belly): At the start of your turn, you can choose one shape space that's either empty or is where you are, and refill it from the bag. That's as well as the normal refilling of shops and of spaces that match your shape.
Digestion (cost 1 Belly): Once per turn, you can turn the Digestion card sideways and discard one token from your Belly (not Arms). Then take any one token from the discard pile or bag into your Belly.
Gut Flora (cost 2 Bellies): At the start of your turn, for each tile you have in your Belly, you can gain one new tile from the bag into your Belly. But no more than you have space for in your Belly - you don't get to put any extra in your Arms or the space where you are. Example: if you start your turn with 5 Belly spaces, 3 of which are full, you gain 2 extra random tokens into your Belly.
Horns (cost 1 Arm): Once per turn, you can turn Horns sideways and choose another player on the same space as you or adjacent to you. Choose one token in that player's Belly. They drop that token.
Territoriality (cost 1 Arm): Other players can't collect tokens from the space where you are.
Tentacles (cost 2 Arms): Once per turn, you can turn Tentacles sideways and grab up to 3 tokens from spaces adjacent to the space where you are (that is, up, down, left or right from you). You still can't grab tokens that a shop is selling.
Double-Jointed (cost 1 Arm and 1 Leg): Once per turn, you can turn Double-Jointed sideways to install an Arm or a Leg from arms or belly into your body.
Gut Feeling (cost 1 Brain and 1 Belly): Once per turn, you can turn Gut Feeling sideways to gain your choice of a Brain or Belly token into your arms or belly.
Plumage (cost 1 Brain, 1 Arm, 1 Leg and 1 Belly): Gain 1 extra Trophy right now.
All your Special Powers get straightened up when you start a new turn.