Board Game Aridnyk

A Ukrainian game about Carpathian shepherds

This board game is based on the stories of Ukrainian painting by Lyudmila Samus, who created stylish thematic illustrations for cards, tiles and figures. During the game, you will explore the meadows, mountains, forests and reservoirs of the Ukrainian Carpathians, gathering a flock of sheep that has scattered across the land. On the tiles you will meet spirits with whom you can always agree on the exchange of goods, and on the cards you will find a description of folklore customs, Hutsul myths and household traditions. 

The game perfectly combines the mechanics of placing tiles, planning routes, completing tasks to assemble patterns and using various card effects. The use of sheep (victory points) as a resource that you can spend is also interesting. The design by Lyudmila Samus turned out to be quite atmospheric, and the whole family should like it - from the youngest to the oldest!

Objective of the game

The game lasts three seasons, which are limited by stacks of terrain tiles with different turns. The goal of the participants is to gather as large a flock of sheep as possible between the Carpathian slopes by the end of the game.

You can get sheep in several ways:

• Thanks to the effects when placing tiles;
• For completing tasks on the idea cards;
• For visiting tiles with white symbols with your figure;
• By the effect of the need card (may have instant effects with a draw condition).

The shepherd who will have the largest flock at the end of the game, and wins.

Game progress

At the beginning of the game, you have a field of 9 starting tiles, in the middle of which a single spirit, Aridnik, will appear. Each player will have two random tiles and two random idea cards in their hand, and will place their figure on one of the forest tiles on the field. All players take turns.

On your turn, you must:

1. Place a tile from your hand (required). There are four types of terrain in the game: mountains, forests, meadows, and reservoirs. There are only two rules for placement: you must not interrupt the outlines of water bodies, and the placed tile must touch at least one side of the already placed one.
   If the tile depicts a spirit, immediately take the figure of this spirit and place it on the tile added to the field. 
   Also, immediately after placing the tile, you will receive a bonus corresponding to the black symbols on the tile. 
2. Take a tile from the horizon row (required). There are always three tiles left in the horizon row, so immediately add a new tile from the stack to the row.
3. Play a utility card (optional). Utility cards have powerful one-time effects. Important: During your turn, you can play at most one such card. You may also encounter reaction cards that you can play on your opponent`s turn when certain conditions are met.
4. Play a plan card. If a pattern from any of the plan cards in your hand is collected on the field, you can play it on your turn and immediately gain its bonus (most often these will be sheep tokens). The number of plan cards that you can play during a turn is not limited.

In various components of the game you will come across symbols of effects that you gain under different conditions. Black symbols give you a bonus after playing a card or placing a tile, and white bonuses - after you place your figure on the corresponding tile.

You may encounter the following symbols:

• Spirit symbol - move the spirit a certain number of steps.
• Human symbol - move your figure a certain number of steps. If you move to a tile where a spirit figure is currently located, you can exchange with it. Each spirit has its own unique effects. However, you can only exchange with each spirit once per turn.
• Card symbol - choose a card from the bank or a plan and then add a card from the deck to the corresponding row.
• Sheep symbol - get the corresponding number of sheep. 
• Crossed out sheep symbol - discard the corresponding number of sheep.