Tulip profit

Gift of Tulips is a 1-6 player set collection game in which you are a visitor in the annual Dutch Tulip Festival, trying to acquire the most valuable tulip bouquet. It will launch on Kickstarter on March 2. (Update: Gift of Tulips launched on Kickstarter but doesn't have a solo mode after all).

Image source: BGG

To start the game, you first shuffle the Tulip deck to form the main draw deck. You also place four Festival cards on the table, and draw two tulip cards to place under the first two Festival cards. Festival cards determine the value of the tulips. Each player then draws two tulip cards, keeps one for their bouquet, and puts the other face down in a Secret Festival Pile, to be used at the end of the game.

Image source: BGG

On your turn, you draw one card from the Tulip deck, perform one action, draw a second card, and perform a different action. The actions you can choose from are: Keep a Tulip, Gift a Tulip, or Place a Tulip in the Festival (market or secret pile). When you keep a tulip, you add it to your tableau and score it according to its current value. If you choose to Gift a Tulip, you give it to another player and score its value. Otherwise, you place the card in the Festival market to modify the values, or add it to the Secret Pile.

When the Tulip deck runs out, the game ends. You shuffle the Secret Pile and draw 5 cards, adding then to the Festival market. This will change the tulip values. Everyone tallies up their score, and the highest one wins. Solo rules haven't been revealed yet.

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PS. During the 17th century Tulip mania, tulip bulb prices peaked and then collapsed, causing the first market bubble in history.

Jan Brueghel's painting A Satire of Tulip Mania (c.1640) shows monkeys profiting from the tulips (the central figure is holding up a tulip and a money bag) and mourning their losses (the one on the right is pissing on the tulips that lost their value).