Introduction
Hullo, and welcome to Foxtail!
In this game, we’re here to help your soft fox friend grow the best, and cutest tail possible, one card at a time.
Your copy of Foxtail has three types of cards— tail tips, tail bits, and foxes.
- There are four foxes. Each player starts with a fox card, so up to four people can play.
- There are four tail tips. Your tail will end with a tail tip.
- The rest of the cards are tail bits, which will make up most of your tail. Each turn, you’ll draw a tail bit from the deck, and add it to your fox’s tail.
Each corner of a tail bit has a little picture called a “charm”. Your goal in this game is to match these charms together, to make the longest and prettiest tail of all.
Setup
- Each player gets a Fox card to start the game. Place it in front of you on the table.
- Count out eight tail bits cards for each player and shuffle them up. This is the deck.
- Count out another two cards and a tail tip for each player. Put all these cards together, and shuffle them, and put that stack on the bottom of the deck.
Now you’re ready to play!
Growing Your Tail
Each turn, you’ll take one card from the deck and add it to your tail. It doesn’t really matter who draws a card first, so everybody can take their turn at the same time. Don’t rush ahead, though! Make sure everybody has drawn their card for this turn, before you take another.
Everyone keeps adding cards to their tail until they draw a tail tip. Once you draw a tail tip, place it on the end of your beautiful tail to make it complete. The game is finished when everyone has completed their tail.
As you grow your tail, your goal is to make pretty patterns from the charms on each corner of the tail bits. You do this by making sets.
Making Charm Sets
Each corner of a tail bit card has a different type of charm (for example— snails, butterflies or feathers). When you add a card to your tail, you tilt the card a little bit, so one corner is hidden and two of the same charm wind up next to each other.
Depending on which corners you want to make a set with, you can place the card on top of the last card in your tail, or tuck it underneath. However, you have to place each tail bit right-way-up, so it connects properly to the rest of your tail!
Each charm also shows a certain number of symbols— one, two or three. If these numbers are close to each other, the charms can make either a match, or a chain.
- If the charms have the same number, they’re a match. You can match as many charms as you like, as long as they all have the same number.
- If the charms have numbers that count UP or DOWN by one, they’re a chain. A chain can be any length you like, as long as you can keep counting up or down without skipping a number.
That means you can make a chain that looks like 1 – 2 -3, or a chain that looks like 3 – 2 – 1, or a chain that looks like 1 – 2 – 3 – 2 – 3. You can’t make a chain that looks like 1 – 3 or 3 – 1!
Brushing Your Tail
Once you add a card to your tail, you have to leave it where it is. But don’t worry— there’s something special you can do if you want to fix it up.
If you think your tail isn’t pretty enough, you can spend a turn brushing your tail, instead of drawing a card. When you brush your tail, you can adjust each card in your tail however you like.
Starting with the first card, you can change the way each of your tail bits is tilted. You can also change whether the card is on top, or underneath. You can adjust each tail bit once, in order, but you can’t change the order of the cards.
This lets you change which corner of each card is hidden, so you can make totally different charm sets. Hopefully, your tail is cuter and softer thanwhen you began!
You can brush your tail whenever you like, BUT, on your next turn after brushing, you have to draw another card. You can’t just brush and brush and brush a tail— you need to give it time to grow!
Scoring
Once everybody’s tail is complete, the game is over. Now it’s time to see how you scored!
Charm Sets
First, you get points for each charm set you made.
- Matches: You score one point for each charm that’s next to a matching charm. For example, if you have three corners in a row that have two butterflies on them, you get three points.
- Chains: You score one point for each charm that’s part of your chain. For example, if you’ve placed a corner with one snail, then a corner with two snails, then a corner with three snails, you get three points!
Variety
For each type of charm you make a set with, you get one bonus point. There are four different types of charms on your tail bits, so you can get four extra points if you make at least one set for each!
Biggest Sets
Now, check to see which is your longest chain set, and which is your biggest matching set. Two bonus points go to:
- The player who made the longest chain set
AND
- The player who made the biggest matching set
If two or more players tie for the biggest set, they both get the bonus points. If you made the longest chain AND the biggest match, you get all four points!
First to Finish
Did you finish your tail before everybody else? Whoever placed their tail tip first, gets two bonus points.
If two or more players placed their tail tips on the same turn, they all get the bonus points.
Prettiest Tail
Finally, each player awards one point to another player, whom they think grew the prettiest tail. You can’t choose your own, so be kind and tell
somebody else how much you like their tail!
Winning
The player with the most points has the most points! That’s one way to choose a winner. But if you enjoyed playing and you like your beautiful
fluffy tail, you might decide that you won too. That’s okay— we won’t tell!
Credits
Rules Development & Documentation: Talen Lee
Card Design & Illustration: Fox & Talen Lee
Document Design & Editing: Fox Lee
Special Thanks: Aeryn, Xavier, Soft Fennec Friend