Advanced

Game Overview

• Goal: score the most Joypoints.
• Score tracking: pen & paper, or the Happiness scorekeeper app.
• Two difficulty modes, Easy and Hard, change how Silver works and whether scores can go negative.

Difficulty Modes

Setup

• Deck: fixed 60 cards: 15 each of the 1, 2 and 3-Joypoint Joycards, 5 four-Joypoint Joycards and 10 Bummer cards.
• Know your friends: the youngest player builds the deck. Some cards touch sensitive topics (loss, accidents, fire, drinking, gambling, water), so the builder chooses with the table in mind.
• Starting hand: deal 5 cards to each player.
• Board: 7×7 grid. First card goes in the center.
• Each player begins with 1 Echo token (charged).

What's On a Card

• 4 Triangles on each edge (Top, Right, Bottom, Left).
• 5 Triangle Colors: Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Silver. How Silver works depends on the difficulty mode (see above).
• Symbols: each color also has a symbol (fire, water, leaf or sun), so players can match by symbol as well as by color.
• Word: the concept shown on the card. It is the subject of your story.
• Joypoints: 1 to 4 on Joycards. Bummer cards score nothing.

Placement

• Cards must be placed adjacent (orthogonal) to existing cards.
• All adjacent triangles must match colors (Silver follows your difficulty mode).
• Bummer cards cannot start new islands.
• New islands are only allowed when no legal adjacent play exists for any card in your hand.

Turn Flow

1. PLAY: select a card and place it (60-second play window in the online portal).
2. SHARE: tell a brief story about the card's word (30-second window online). The table listens to the whole story; nobody cuts in.
3. ECHO WINDOW: for 5 seconds after the story, any other player may spend an Echo token. Bummer plays skip this window.
4. DRAW: automatically draw one card from the deck.

Echo Tokens

When a Joycard is played and its story ends, the 5-second Echo Window opens. Any other player may spend their Echo token to echo the storyteller's word, adding their own brief story or insight.

Bummer plays do not open an Echo Window.

Euphoria (Plus Pattern)

When you play a card that completes a plus shape (a center card surrounded on all 4 sides, all triangles matching):

• Score: (Total Joypoints of all 5 cards) × 2.
• All 5 cards move to your Euphoria Pile.
• Echo tokens: if any of your tokens are discharged, recharge them. If all your tokens are already charged, gain 1 token (maximum of 3).

Islands (Reconnection Bonus)

If a Bummer play splits the playing area into separate islands (groups of connected cards), play continues normally. When a later card placement reconnects two islands:

• +5 Joypoints per reconnection.
• One placement that joins multiple separated islands scores per island bridged.

Bummering

A Bummer card is played on your turn, after the story before yours has ended, and needs all adjacent triangles to match. Share a bummer story, then every card it touches is bummed out: the Bummer card and the bummed-out cards all go to your Bummer Pile. The Bummer card itself scores nothing.

Bummed-out Joypoints = total Joypoints of the cards bummed out.

A 0-bummer play is only legal if no other play exists for any card in your hand, including cross-card checks against existing islands.

Game End & Final Hand Scoring

The game ends when the deck is empty and every player has drawn down to 3 cards. The final hand is then scored:

Echo token reckoning: −1 Joypoint per still-charged token at game end; +3 Joypoints bonus if you have zero charged tokens.

Scoring Summary

Tiebreakers (in order)

1. Most Joypoints wins.
2. If tied: most cards in Euphoria Pile.
3. If still tied: most cards in Bummer Pile.
4. If still tied: most Bummer cards in final hand.
5. If still tied: shared victory.