Description
The furniture store opens its doors and everyone rushes for the nicest pieces. In Rooms & Roomies you spend four days buying furniture, fitting it into your truck like a puzzle and using it to furnish a shared home. But your own taste isn't all that matters: in the store's café, new roommates are waiting to move in with you, and each of them has their own wishes. After the fourth day, you find out whose home is the happiest.
How to play Rooms & Roomies
Each day starts with shopping. You move your shopping cart only forward towards the exit and take one action at each step: in the showroom you take a piece of furniture, at the sale one or two, and in the café one roommate per day. Every piece has to fit into your cargo space, so every purchase is also a small puzzle. When you reach the exit, you add new rooms to your home, order furniture or collect vouchers.
Then everyone unloads their truck and furnishes their rooms at the same time. Furniture can only go on its own type of floor, on parquet or on bathroom tiles, wardrobes and shelves must stand against a wall, and nothing may be placed in front of a door. At the end, you score your roommates' wishes, furniture pairs in the same room, completed rooms and the basic needs: a toilet, a shower or bathtub, a stove and a bed for every roommate. The player with the most points wins.
Why you'll like it
- A double puzzle: you first pack the furniture into your truck, then into your rooms, where every piece has its place.
- Every roommate has their own wishes, one wants shelves in a room with an armchair or sofa, another wants plants in front of the windows, so every home is different.
- If you fill your truck to the very last space, you can enlarge or upgrade it and bring home more the next day.
- Vouchers get you out of a tight spot: with them you move a piece you have already placed or order a new one.
Who is Rooms & Roomies for
You can play it solo or with two to five players, it is suitable from age 10, and a game takes 30 to 75 minutes. Its complexity is medium-light, and players like it best with four or five. For your first games, the rules recommend using only the 20 basic roommate cards and adding the remaining ten once you know the game. For solo play there is a success table and five challenges. This is the English edition; the text is mainly on the roommate cards.
What you might not like
Everyone furnishes their own home, so players mostly cross paths in the store, when someone takes a piece of furniture or a roommate you had in mind. It may not be the best fit for those who prefer games with more direct conflict.
What's in the box
- 1 double-sided furniture store board
- 117 furniture tiles in 6 shapes
- 40 room cards (5 starting, 20 large and 15 small)
- 5 This Is You cards and 30 roommate cards
- 5 trucks to assemble and 15 junk tiles
- 28 roommate tokens and 33 door tiles
- 20 vouchers, 3 day markers and 4 closed markers
- 5 shopping carts, a measuring stick and a bag
- 6 player aids (one for the solo game)
- 5 storage boxes, a box with lid and a score pad
