Sapiens
The time has come for the tribe to leave its shelter and head for new lands. As the chief of your clan, it's up to you to guide your prehistoric people through the valley.
Sapiens is a short and easy-to-learn tile-placement game. Each player has a personal game board that represents the valley on which they will play tiles.
By connecting tiles with identical images ('scenes'), they gather food points alongside with special scene bonuses and to get shelter points for reaching caves in the mountains.
You have two separate scores: food and shelter. Only their lower one matters when determining who wins. That confronts players with interesting needs and dilemmas.
Number of players: 2 - 4
Game duration: 29 mn
Complexity: 2 / 5
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Play Sapiens and 959 other games online.
No download necessary - play directly from your web browser.
With your friends and thousands of players from the whole world.
Free.
Rules summary
Object of the Game
Meet your tribe’s needs in two distinct domains: Food and Shelter. To do this, connect tiles to make your way into the valley. As you connect, you will gather food and locate new caves. At the end of the game, players compete on the weaker of their two domains. Whoever has the most points in their weaker domain will be the winner.
On Your Turn
Place a domino on your board, adjacent to an existing domino or overlapping a cave. Colours must match the adjacent domino when playing adjacent, or must match the cave it is overlapping.
A "picking scene" domino half (with trees) can only be placed on a tree square.
When you play a domino adjacent to another, the matching half (or halves) of the newly placed domino gives you a bonus: gain food equal to the number printed on the board in that square, and trigger that half's "scene bonus".
When you cover a cave, take its mountain token. You may play one mountain token per turn to trigger the corresponding scene bonus.
At the end of your turn, refill your hand.
Scene Bonuses
- Bones - Feast: Play one additional tile, but do not gain FP or Scene Bonuses linked to it. May be used to join to a cave and score SP.
- Tree - Picking: Can only play on forest tiles. Add +1 FP in addition to other FPs. (Token: Play Picking tile on Plain.)
- Rock - Ritual: Take a Mountain token from your board. If none available, take back one already used.
- Fist - Fight: Place a fight token on a tile, either in own or opponent pool. When tile is played owner of fight token wins 1 FP and player which places token loses 1 FP.
- Water - Water: Swap a tile in your pool with any tile in another player's pool or the Common Pool.
- House - Camp: +3 SP.
- Mammoth - Hunt: Take a Steak token from the pool then convert any or all Steak tokens into FP. 1 3 5 7 10 FPs for 1 2 3 4 5+ Steaks respectively. (Token: Just take a steak, not able to then convert.)
- Flame - Fire: Take a Bear token from your pool and lay it on another player's Personal Board. Must be on a free square, adjacent to any tile already in play. Score as many SP as tiles connected to bear token. OR Remove a Bear token from your board.
Abandoning a Tribe
On your turn, if you cannot put a tile into play, your Tribe has reached a dead end. You can do nothing else for them; you must abandon this Tribe and start a new one. Choose a Cave with no Tribe tile on it and remove the Mountain token on it (if any) from the game. Put the tile of your choice from your Personal Pool here, and score the lower amount of Shelter Points indicated.
This new Tribe becomes your active Tribe, the only one to which you are allowed to connect new tiles. An active Tribe can never be connected to an abandoned Tribe.
To indicate that a Tribe has been abandoned, flip all of the tiles of the abandoned Tribe face down
End of the Game
The game end triggers when the Common Pool and the Stack are both empty. End the current table turn, so that all players have played the same number of turns.
Players now count up their points. Remove your token on the Scoretrack that reached the higher total, either Food Points or Shelter Points. The player with the highest remaining score is the winner. In case of a tie, tied players share victory.
