Description

Capsule Hole (???????) has a hint of a trick-taking element to it, but for the most part players are trying to score points by having the most influence in a capsule when it's closed.

The game consists of forty tiles numbered 1-40, with the tiles being grouped in four buckets on their backs: 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, and 31-40. Players draft tiles at the start of the game while seeing only their backs; tiles in the first group have a "capsule opening" on only one edge, while tiles in the second group have a straight or curved tube from one edge to another, and tiles in the fourth group generally have three or four open edges. You can look at the faces of your tiles are you draft them.

The start player in a round plays one tile of their choice, optionally placing one of their wooden cubes on it. Each other player in turn must place one of their tiles in the same group (if possible) face down in front of them, again optionally placing one of their wooden cubes on it. Players then reveal their tiles, then add them to the shared playing area, starting with whoever has the highest-numbered tile. If you placed a cube on your tile, you then place this cube somewhere on your tile in one of the capsules.

When a capsule is closed, akin to a road being closed in Carcassonne, whichever players have the most cubes in it score points equal to the number of energy symbols in that capsule. After all the tiles have been played, whoever has the highest score wins — except that if exactly one player has scored 0 points, then they win instead!