Let’s Learn the Palm Island Game Rules!

Are you ready to embark on a thrilling adventure on a deserted island? In the Palm Island game, you’ll have the opportunity to build your own tropical paradise on a deck of cards. But be careful, because your choices will determine whether your island flourishes or fades away.

Setting Up the Game

Before diving into the game, let’s first set up the island. You’ll need a deck of 17 cards, each representing a different element of your island. Shuffle the cards thoroughly and place them face-down in front of you.

Playing the Game

Now it’s time to start building your island! To do this, you’ll use four cards at a time, forming two rows of two cards each. These cards represent different terrains and resources on your island.

At the beginning of each turn, I’ll draw the top card from the deck. Then, I’ll choose two cards from my hand to play, placing them face-down in front of me. These cards can be rotated as needed to fit your strategy.

Once the cards are played, I’ll reveal the top card from the deck. This card can be placed on top of any face-up card, but it must be rotated to match the orientation of the card it’s covering.

The goal is to strategically arrange the cards to form different combinations and maximize the resources on your island. Each card has a unique ability, and by utilizing these abilities wisely, you can create a thriving island.

Resource Management

In addition to arranging the cards, you’ll also need to manage your resources effectively. Each card has a cost associated with it, which can be paid by discarding other cards from your hand. You’ll need to carefully decide which cards to keep and which to discard, as you don’t want to run out of resources.

Some cards also have a regeneration ability, which allows you to return them to your hand after they’ve been discarded. This can be a valuable strategy for maintaining a steady flow of resources.

Winning the Game

The game ends when all the cards in the deck have been played. At this point, you’ll evaluate your island and calculate its final score. Different combinations of cards will earn you points, and the player with the highest score wins.

Remember, the key to success in Palm Island is strategy and resource management. By carefully choosing and arranging your cards, you can create a stunning paradise that will stand the test of time.

Welcome to Palm Island! I’m excited to have you here. Together, we can build an incredible village on this brand new island. I’ll provide the guidance, and you’ll bring your creativity and strategic thinking to make it thrive!

So, what’s our plan? Well, we have a few options. We can invest in resources to boost our production and make sure our villagers have everything they need. Or we can focus on establishing markets to trade goods and bring in even more resources. And if you’re feeling ambitious, we can expand our village and build magnificent temples to earn victory points!

The choice is yours, my friend. Palm Island is your canvas, and you are the artist. Let’s create something extraordinary together!

Components

• 2 Player Decks (17 cards each)
• 6 Feat Cards
• 5 Cooperative Cards
• 14 Competitive Cards
• 1 Reference Card
• Instructions

Object of the Game

With just a deck of 17 cards, your goal is to upgrade and transform each of those cards, gaining more resources, abilities, and victory points. The game will end after 8 rounds of play. You can either complete your objective or aim for a high score in order to win.

Basic Solo Setup

When you’re ready to start playing the game, you’ll need to choose between the red or blue core deck. You can identify these decks by looking at the color of the decorative stripe in the middle of each card. There are a total of 17 cards in each deck.

For now, set aside the cooperative, competitive, and feat cards. These cards will come into play later.

Active area: A card can be positioned in four different ways. When you look at a card, the top section you see is called the active area. It shows you the card’s current orientation.

Hey there! Let me break it down for you. Every card has a start marker, which is a white sun icon in one corner on one side. To make things simple, just flip and rotate every card so that all the icons are on the front and situated in the top left corner. Easy peasy!

Let’s get started! Put the round tracker aside for now. Give your deck a good shuffle, making sure all the cards are facing the right way.

Put the round tracker at the bottom of your deck. Before we begin the game, take a look at where each card is in your deck. But remember, during the game, you can only see the top 3 cards.

Quick Tip: If space is tight, you can keep the round tracker inside your deck while shuffling, and then move it to the back when you’re ready to start.

Starting the Game

Every turn, you have 2 options: take an action on one of the top 2 cards in your deck, or discard the top card.

If you choose to take an action, there are 3 possible actions you can perform (): store (), rotate (), and flip ().

If you want to use an action on your card, you’ll need to pay the cost. To do this, you rotate your stored resources counterclockwise, making sure to keep their order in the deck.

Store

Here’s how the “Store” action works: First of all, you need to pay the cost that’s shown on the right side of the action card. After that, you rotate the card 90 degrees clockwise and place it at the back of the deck. This way, you can only see the resources from the card’s active area.

Rotate

Now let me explain what happens during the “Rotate” action: You see, when you choose to rotate a card, you turn it 90 degrees clockwise. This allows you to access the resources from the card’s active area more easily. Just keep in mind that you can only rotate a card once per turn.

To perform the specified action, you must pay the cost indicated on the right side of the card. After paying the cost, rotate the card 180 degrees and place it at the back of the deck, without flipping it from front to back.

You can use the card stored in this way at a later time to pay for another action. If there is already a card or cards stored, make sure to place the newly stored resource in a way that it sticks out further, ensuring that all available resources are visible.

Flip

To flip the card, pay the cost listed on the right side of the action. After paying the cost, flip the card from front to back without rotating it, and place it at the back of the deck.

When you’re playing the game, you have a couple of options for your next move. You can choose any of the actions listed on the top two cards of your deck.

If you decide to use the second card, don’t worry – the first card will still be available for you to use. Once you take an action or discard a card, it’s time for your next turn.

If you don’t want to take an action on a card, you can choose to discard the top card of your deck. Just put it at the back of the deck instead.

But here’s the thing – if you can’t interact with either of the top two cards, you have to discard the first card. You’re never allowed to discard the second card of the deck, though.

Pay

If an action is labeled as “free,” you can do it without using any resources. But if you need to pay for an action, you have to use one or more resource cards. Just rotate them 90 degrees counterclockwise.

Hey there! Let me tell you something important. When you pay for something using a card, it’s crucial to remember not to change its position in the deck. Instead, you should rotate it without moving it from its spot. And here’s another handy tip: if a card has more resources than you need to pay for a specific cost, you’ll lose any extra resources. So, be mindful of that!

Example 1: This cost needs 3 things (1 Log, 1 Fish, and 1 Stone).

Example 2: See that symbol? It means “or”. You need 1 resource (1 Log, or 1 Fish, or 1 Stone) to cover the cost.

When you’re deciding whether to pay for an action, you can look at the back of either of the top 2 cards in your deck to help you decide if you want to upgrade or not. Just remember to put all the cards back exactly how you found them.

Limit on Resources

You can only have 4 resource cards sticking out of the side at the same time. And each of those 4 cards can hold as many resources as you want.

If you want to store a resource when you already have 4 stored, you need to make room first. Just rotate one of the already-stored cards counterclockwise (without changing its position) to free up space for the new resource card.

Getting a Stored Resource

If you ever find a stored resource card on top of your deck, you have to get rid of it right away. Just rotate it 90 degrees counterclockwise and put it at the back of the deck.

When the top card of your deck is the round tracker card, that means the round number shown on the card is over. When this happens, you need to flip or rotate the card to the next higher number and place it at the back of the deck.

When you move from round 4 to round 5, put the round tracker back to its 1/5 side and use the smaller numbers on each side.

Remember, you can’t activate the round tracker when it’s the second card in the deck.

At the end of each round, you get to keep any stored resources you have. When you’ve completed 8 rounds, the game is over and it’s time to calculate your score.

And finally, let’s talk about stored resource dividers.

When you play the game, the dividers can help you organize it better. They serve as guides that separate the different sets of cards, making it simpler for you to find what you need. With them, you won’t have to search through the entire deck to find a specific card. Instead, you can quickly navigate to the section you want by looking for the divider.

The dividers are square-shaped cards that are designed specifically for this purpose. They are different from the regular playing cards and stand out in the deck. Their unique shape and appearance help you easily identify them among the other cards. When you see a square card in the deck, you’ll know that it’s a divider and not a normal playing card.

Hey there! Let me tell you about an interesting feature you can use when playing games. You can add dividers to pause a game and keep track of your progress. These dividers are like little signs that point to the card underneath them, letting you know that it’s a stored resource.

Hey there! So, when you want to take a break, here’s what you do. Take one card each from these piles and put them in front of your stored resources. Then, give all those stored cards a little twist, turning them counterclockwise by 90 degrees. Cool, right?

Now, when you’re ready to jump back in, just get the deck out. Look for those stored resource dividers and give the resource beneath a nice clockwise twist by 90 degrees. After that, put the divider back in the box. Boom!

The Game’s Over

When you finish playing all 8 rounds, you need to calculate your total victory points. Look for the star () symbol on each card in your deck’s active area and add up the points.

Hey there! So, when you’re playing a competitive game against one or more opponents, the winner is determined by who has the highest score. If there’s a tie, don’t worry! You just need to add up the upgrades you’ve made. The player with the most upgrades wins. And if there’s still a tie after that, it all comes down to who has the most stored resources. So, make sure you keep track of those upgrades and resources – they could be the key to your victory!