Objective

Move cleverly to grab the most desirable shells from the beach. Win by having the most valuable shell collection at the end of the game. Earn coins for having the most of each shell shape and colour, complete fossil pairs, and sand dollars.

Setup

1. Randomly place the 64 seashells, fossils, sand dollars, and bottles onto the beach, 1 item per space.
2. Shuffle the Shape and Colour decks face-down separately. Draw one card from each deck, and find the one shell that matches that shape and colour. Move that shell to the Sun tile, and place the Bucket in its empty beach space.
3. Decide whether you want to use Simple or Advanced scoring, and place the Scoring cards on the table with that side up.
4. Each player takes a player mat, then draws one Shape card and one Colour card, and keeps them as Secret cards.

Gameplay Overview

The game goes in turns. After each turn, play proceeds clockwise to the next player, continuing around until it is impossible to take any more turns.

On your turn:

Choose one item on the beach in the same row or column as the Bucket, any distance away. Move the Bucket to that space, and collect the item to your mat.

• Place a collected shell into the matching space on your “towel”.
• Place any other collected item (Fossil parts, Sand Dollars, and Bottles) into your “basket”.

Then it’s the next player’s turn.

Messages in a Bottle

If you have a Message in a Bottle, you may spend it (by discarding it from the game) at the end of your turn to immediately take a second turn. You may not spend one on the same turn that you got it.

Your Secret Cards

Your secret cards don’t do anything during the game, but during final scoring they count as one extra unit of that shape/colour in your collection. So for example if you have the Scallop card and three Scallop pieces, you actually have four Scallops in your collection!

Game End

The game ends immediately if your turn begins and there are no items in the Bucket’s row and column (meaning there is no legal spot to move it).

Players' secret cards are revealed, and scoring begins.

Score the different categories in this order:

1. Shell shapes and colours Score each shell shape and colour one at a time, working top to bottom on the player mat for the shapes, and left to right for the colours. So start scoring shapes by announcing “Scallops”, and then each other shape downward. Then start scoring colours by announcing “Yellow”, and then each colour in order rightward. As each shape/colour is announced, everyone calls out how many they have in their collection (including their secret cards). Players earn coins depending on which scoring type you are using.
   • Simple scoring: The player (or all tied players) with the most of that shape or colour (including their secret cards) earns 3 coins.
   • Advanced scoring: If one player has the most, that player earns 3 coins and the player (or all tied players) with second-most earn 1 coin. If more than one player is tied for most, they all earn 2 coins and there is no reward for second place.
2. Complete Fossil Pairs For each complete pair of Fossil parts (one head and one tail) you have, earn 3 coins. Unmatched Fossil parts do not score.
3. Sand Dollars Earn 1 coin for each Sand Dollar in your collection.

The player with the most coins wins!

Ties are broken in favour of the tied player who has the most shapes/colours matching the shell on the Sun tile.

If that is still tied, the tied players share their victory.