Overview

"Fromage" is "Cheese" in French. In this game you are a small-town French cheesemaker in the early 20th century making, aging and selling your artisanal cheese. Your journey is a symphony of passion and dedication as your strive to create the most prestigious creamery with the most sought-after cheeses in all of France.

Fromage is a simultaneous worker-placement game where you make cheese and gather resources by placing workers onto the board quadrant that is facing you. Once all players have finished their actions, the board rotates, aging the cheese, and presenting everyone with a new quadrant. At the end of the game, you score points for your cheese and for effectively managing your creamery. The player with the most points wins.

Game Board

The game board has 4 quadrants. Each quadrant includes a "Gather Resources" part (upper) and a "Make Cheese" part (lower), corresponding to the two actions you can take in a turn.

Each player has their own player board. The player board includes 4 rows of resources:

- Structures, which are stored to the left of your Structure Abilities .

- Livestock, which are placed in your pasture.

- Fruit, which goes in your basket.

- Orders, which are placed on the side of your board

Gameplay

All players retrieve workers at the start of each turn. Then all players simultaneously take actions in the quadrant that is facing them currently (the bottom one in BGA). Use your available workers to perform ONE Gather Resources and/or ONE Make Cheese action in either order. After everyone finishes their actions, rotate the board clockwise to the next quadrant at the end of the turn.

Retrieve Workers

Retrieve any of your workers that are now pointed at you.

Gather Resources

Place a worker in this section of your quadrant to gain 1, 2, or 3 of the depicted resource. The type of worker used does not affect this action. The more of a resource you take, the longer the worker remains on the board.

Make Cheese

Place a worker in this section of your quadrant to make cheese. The type of worker you use must match the type of cheese. When placing the worker, you also place one of your cheese tokens. (Reminder: When a player runs out of cheese tokens, this triggers the end of the game!)

If the space has a fruit or jam symbol, you must have a fruit in your fruit basket to make this cheese. You then move one fruit from your basket to the fruited cheese or jam space on your board, as matches the cheese you're making. At the end of the game, fruit you've used to make cheese will score (your fruited cheese pile multiplied by your jam pile).

Your worker will return to you at the end of 1, 2, or 3 turns based on if it was placed on a bronze, silver, or gold spot. Your cheese token will remain on the board for the rest of the game, blocking all players from using that space again.

Venues: Festival

Venues: Fromagerie

Venues: Bistro

Venues: Villes

End of the Game

End of the game is triggered when a player places their final Cheese Token. When all players finish the current turn, the game ends. Players will then score from a variety of sources:

The four different venues each score differently:

Festival: Score points by making orthogonally adjacent cheeses (diagonal cheeses are not adjacent). The Free Sample spaces count as having all players’ Cheese Tokens there.

Fromagerie: At game-end, count the number of different shelves with your Cheese Tokens and consult the scoring rubric on the board. For each of your Cheese Tokens on a shelf with a point bonus, add the indicated number of points.

Bistro: Score points for each plate with your Cheese Token. Make pairings by placing 2 of your Cheese Tokens on the same table. At game-end, consult the scoring rubric on the board. The number of pairings you made determines how many points each plate is worth.

Villes: Cheese spaces influence the regions they touch. At game-end, if you have the most influence in a region, take the Customer Token. The value of a token varies by player count, as indicated on the board. If tied for most influence, flip the token to the tied side and tied players score the indicated number of points.

Your used fruit will score the number of fruited cheese multiplied by the number of jams you've made.

Your completed order cards will score based on the chart on the bottom right of your board.

Some structure tiles will give you additional points.

And finally, every 2 unused resources on your player board scores 1 point.

The player with the most points wins. If tied, the player that made more cheese wins. If still tied, victory is shared.