Your roof is on fire, and you are trying to save all your precious belongings by carrying them out to the yard. But since you are a bit obsessive-compulsive you can only take them out in a very precise order. The Roof is on Fire is a game of hand management, set collection and a continuously expanding patchwork of tiles.

At a glance:

2-5 players

30 minutes

Complexity: low

Components used:

All 36 tiles

All 54 cards

 

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Setup:

Shuffle the tiles and split them into 4 equal stacks. Place the stacks in a square in the middle of the table with the tiles facing up. This is the House. Make sure there is plenty of space around for the Yard.

Shuffle the cards and place the deck face down some space away from the tiles. Turn up 4 cards.

That’s all, possibly one of the quickest setups of the Green Box.

 

Play:

Players play their turn in clockwise order. On your turn you have the following actions.

First: Always draw two cards, either face up or face down. If you draw face up, the combined value of the cards can not exceed 7.

Now you may play two or more cards from your hand matching a sequence of tiles on the table. One of the cards you play must match a symbol currently on a tile in the House. The other cards must match symbols on tiles extending in a straight line (not diagonal) from the first tile, either inside the House or in the Yard. The line can extend in two directions, i.e. matching symbols in the Yard on two sides of the House.

 

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Game in progress.

After playing a correct sequence, discard two of the cards played, and put the rest aside to count as points. Place them face down, and do not look at them until the game has ended. Then take one tile from the House that was included in your sequence, and place it into the Yard. The Yard extends in straight lines outward from the House in all four directions. All spaces in the first rows from the House must be filled with tiles before you can start placing on the second row.

After placing the tile in the Yard, you have the option to play an additional sequence of cards that includes the tile that you just played, and any number of tiles in a straight line back to the House (and possibly through it to the other side). If you do this, you also get to draw one additional card, face up or down, after having played and discarded cards. If your second sequence also includes one tile from the House, you must also place this tile into the Yard, and you get the chance to play yet another sequence on the same terms.

Before ending your turn, check that you have no more than 8 cards in your hand and discard if you have to.

New cards are turned face up as soon as one card is drawn from the table. When the deck is empty, shuffle the discarded cards to form a new deck. If there are less than 4 cards in the new deck, the game ends after the current players turn.

Winner:

Add up the values of all the cards you have put aside during the game. Then add 5 points for each set of 3 identical symbols, or 10 points for a set of 4.

The winner is the one with the most points.