Gamehelpyokai

Objective

To work together as a team and gather the Yokai (four each of four suits: Foxes, River Children, Long-neck Women and Demons) by families.

The Yokai cards are shuffled and placed in a 4x4 grid. A stack of hint cards (7 for two players, 9 for three, 10 for four) is placed nearby.

You must do 3 actions in this order:

Look at 2 cards, one by one. They don't have to be adjacent.
Choose an uncovered Yokai card and move it. After the move, the 16 cards must still form a connected whole.
Draw and reveal a hint card, or place a revealed hint card on a Yokai. A Yokai with a hint card is locked and cannot be looked at or moved.

The game is ended when:

Instead of doing any actions, a player declares the Yokai are gathered by families, or;
All the hint cards are used.

Once the game is over, flip over all Yokai. If the Yokai are grouped by families, the players win. Otherwise they lose.

Victories are scored by hint card usage:

If you win a game at a given level of difficulty, you can try the same level for a higher score or move on to the next level.

Level 1: Basic rules.
Level 2: Add a random affinity card which is only visible to the first player. The shown families must be adjacent at the end of the game.
Level 3: Stack hint cards when revealing them. You may only place the last revealed hint.
Level 4: Don't reveal hints. Instead take the top card and put it down beside the deck facedown.
Level 5: Add a random objective card, visible to all. The cards must be in the indicated shape at the end of the game.

In a two-player game, there are 2 random single-colour cards, 3 two-colour cards and 2 three-colour cards.

In a three-player game, there are 2 random single-colour cards, 4 two-colour cards and 3 three-colour cards.

In a four-player game, there are 3 random single-colour cards, 4 two-colour cards and 3 three-colour cards.