Our step-by-step guide to the rules of how to play Enchanted Plumes board game. This is a hand management, pattern building and set collection card game that will take a mastery of all those things to race to a higher score than the other players in the short amount of turns you have to get there. The game is for 2-5 players at ages 8+. The rules for how to play Enchanted Plumes are simple, but there are many layers (or feathers) to work through before you can master it.
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HOW TO PLAY ENCHANTED PLUMES – WHAT IS IT?
In Enchanted Plumes, players strive to complete magical Peacocks by assembling plumes in sparkling rows from top to bottom, using multiple color feather cards while matching cards of the same color from row to row. the player with the most valuable plumes wins the game and is bestowed with the luck of the Peacock.
HOW TO PLAYENCHANTED PLUMES – STEP BY STEP
Time Needed: Approximately 30 – 50 minutes.
This is a step by step guide for how to play Enchanted Plumes a beautiful game that is both easy to play and deeply strategic. Additional notions and special rules can be found below the list. These will be referenced for your convenience.
1. SETUP | Prepare the Feather Deck
The first, and most important, step to how to play Enchanted Plumes setup is to prepare the feather deck. This is all the cards except the one Peahen card (peacock card with no number) and has to do with player count. Take all the cards and remove those as follows – 2 players: 7s, 8s, 9s | 3 players: 8s, 9s | 4 players: 9s | 5 players: none
2. SETUP | Deal Out Player Hands
After preparing the feather deck with all the cards based on player count, deal out NINE cards to each player. From that initial set of nine, each player chooses six of those cards to keep and returns the other three back to the feather deck.
3. SETUP | Make End Trigger Card Stack
The way the game ends is when the Peahan card (the one with no number) comes up. To make it so this is towards the end of the game, but you are not sure when, you will put it in a random position at the end. Take SEVEN cards from the feather deck, shuffle the Peahan card with them (so you don’t know what is where) and then put that random stack at the bottom of the feather deck.
4. SETUP | Form the Train Pile
Place the final feather deck in the center of the play area. Take the top five cards from the deck and fan them out next to the deck to form the TRAIN. This is basically a pile you can access for cards in addition to the deck throughout the game.
5. SETUP | Determine Start Player
The final step of how to play Enchanted Plumes before getting into gameplay is to determine the starting player. The game says the person who last saw a Peacock (the animal, not the streaming network) but feel free to use your randomizer of choice.
6. GAMEPLAY | Play One or Two Cards
From you hand, choose to play one or two cards. You can choose to either start a new “plume” or add to an existing one. Plumes are the reverse pyramids that will score you points at the end of the game. You need to fill in a top row (at least 3 cards) and when you are ready, move down to the row below it.
The rule for the row below the one above it is it needs to be a color that exists in the above row, and each row can only have one of a color. So if you have blue – green – silver in the top row, the row below it can have 2 cards, and it needs to be in that mix (so maybe blue – green or green – silver). The trick is the top row is negative points and all other rows are positive points.
Once you go down from a row of a plume, it is locked and you cannot go back up. A row is locked once you add a card to the row below it.
If you complete it (place a single card that follows the rules at the bottom), you get bonus points. It is helpful to have multiple going to give yourself options. See Building a Plume below for a full breakdown of rules.
7. GAMEPLAY | Replenish Your Hand
After you have played one or two cards, you now get to replenish your hand. No matter how many you played, you get two total and your hand cannot exceed 6 cards. You get to either (1) Take two from the feather deck, (2) Swap two with the “train” pile or do one of each. If you would hit that limit of 6 after 1 card, you do not get the second.
8. GAMEPLAY | Pass and Repeat
Play and draw are it for a turn, it is very quick and light. Once a player has done these two phases, play passes to the next player (clock-wise in the circle). They repeat these steps until the game ends.
9. GAME END | Draw the Peahan Card
Once the Peahan card is drawn from the deck, gameplay immediately ends and everyone moves to scoring. Regular Enchanted Plumes gameplay has now ended.
10. SCORING | Negative for Top & Positive for Below
At the end, all numbered cards in plumes (finished or unfinished) are scored. Every card in the top row of a “plume” is negative points against the player (so you want these to be low numbers) and every card in a row that is not in the top row of a “plume” is positive (so you want these to be high numbers). For every completed “plume” (you have placed the single card at the bottom of a locked row) you get 6 bonus points added to your overall score.
11. WINNING | High Score Wins
After all the scoring takes place, whoever ends with the highest point total is the winner.
HOW TO PLAYENCHANTED PLUMES – KEY INFORMATION
RULES FOR HOW TO BUILD A PLUME
Assemble plumes by playing Feather cards in rows from top to bottom, matching cards of identical colors from row to row. Cards placed in the top row of a plume are scored as negative points, while cards placed in lower rows are scored as positive points. Once a lower row of cards is started in a plume, Feather cards can no longer be added to higher rows in that plume. You may begin a new plume at any time before replenishing your hand. Plumes containing only one card are always scored as negative (see Scoring).
- Number of Cards in a Row: The top row of each plume may contain as many cards as you want. The following rows in a plume must contain one less card than the row immediately above it. For example, if a plume has a top row of four cards, the next row must have exactly three cards, the row below that exactly two cards, and so on.
- Colors in a Row: The top row of a plume may include any number of feather colors. Those colors determine which feather colors may be placed in the row below it; that is, a row may include only colors from the row above it. For example, if the top row of a plume includes feathers that are red, blue, orange, and yellow, then only red, blue, orange, or yellow cards may be placed in the following row. Colors may be duplicated within a row.
- Locking a Row: Once another row is started, the row above it is locked. Feather cards cannot be added to a locked row, and a lower row cannot be started without meeting the minimum card requirement of the current one.
RULES FOR ENCHANTED PLUME SCORING
- All plumes score points, even if they are not completed Peacocks.
- Flip all cards in the bottom rows of completed Peacocks face up. Cards in the top row of a plume are worth negative points. All remaining cards in the plume are worth positive points. To calculate the total score of a plume, add up the values of cards in the top row, then subtract that value from the sum of all the cards below it.
- Peacock Bonus Points: Completed Peacocks (those whose plumes go all the way down to a single card in the bottom row) score 1 bonus point for each card used to build them. Incomplete Peacocks do not score bonus points.
- Your score is equal to the total point value of your plumes plus any Peacock bonus points. The player with the highest score at the end of the game wins! If scores are tied, the tied player who completed the most Peacocks wins. If players are still tied, the victory is shared.
GAME CONTENTS
- 100x Feather Cards
- 1x Peahen Card
- 1x Rule Book
HOW TO PLAYENCHANTED PLUMES – IN CLOSING
We hope you can now say you know how to play Enchanted Plumes. Like the Peacock, it is beautiful and elegant on the surface, but when you get down to it, can be vicious (the internet says they can be “aggressive, fiercely territorial birds”). Simple and quick, yet enough tough choices to force an onslaught of decisions that could destroy you or rise to the top. Choose between starting new plumes or building on old ones to get the right edge in points, all while managing your hand with lightning precision. This is a great one for any type of group and now that you know the rules for playing, go out there and try it out for yourself!
