Capulana — Rules Manual

Capulana is a negotiation and pattern-building game for 2 to 5 players that celebrates the traditional fabric of Mozambique. Players compete for colored strips, trade among themselves, and stitch rows to create the most valuable capulana.
A capulana is a traditional Mozambican fabric used to make clothing, wrap the head, carry babies, and as a tablecloth, curtain, etc.
The pieces are acquired through a slightly different auction: the auction “money” is also Capulana strips! And furthermore, the amounts bid by players are exchanged between them.
COMPONENTS
5 initial fabric cards
10 player marker cards
10 objective cards
56 fabric cards
5 player aid cards
Objetivo do Jogo
At the end of 4 rounds, weave the best Capulana, with the largest sets of strips of the same color or the same pattern.
Each player’s Capulana only scores from a set, that is, from a sequence of at least 3 matching strips (by color or by pattern), where each strip is worth 1 point.
SETUP(see Figure I)
A. Initial fabric: Separate the initial fabric cards (containing the word “Capulana” written on the left side of the card) and, randomly, deal one to each player. These cards will be the first fabric piece for each player and begin face up in front of them;
B. Player marker: Give each player a pair of player marker cards of the same color as their initial card;
C. Purple-stripe and black-stripe cards: Separate the cards that have a purple value stripe from the cards with a black value stripe. Shuffle the black value-stripe cards and deal 7 cards to each player. Then shuffle that remaining stack together with the stack of purple cards;
D. Face-up cards: Reveal in the center of the table, within everyone’s reach, a number of cards equal to the number of players (e.g., for 4 players, leave 4 cards face up side by side);
E. Objective cards: Shuffle the Objective cards and also place 3 within everyone’s reach. These objectives will be worth extra points at the end of the game;
HOW TO PLAY
A game takes place over 4 rounds, and each round follows 4 main steps: Announcement, Offer, Auction, and Weaving.
1 - Announcement
At the start of each round, reveal on the table a number of fabric cards equal to the number of players. These cards will be available to compete for in two auction turns.
2 - Offer
Each player will make 2 offers in the auction and may offer 1 to 3 fabric cards from their hand (face down) together with their marker, placing them in front of one of the fabric cards available on the table.
Important: if you have only 1 card in hand, you may place an empty bid (offer 0). In this case, place only your marker as the bid in front of the card.
First offer: starting with the starting player and going clockwise, each player makes their first offer (see Figure II).
Important: A player cannot place more than two bids. Each announced card may have at most two offers from different players.
3 - Auction
Starting with the leftmost card and proceeding one at a time, reveal the bids placed for that card.
The player who made the highest bid keeps the announced card and also takes the fabric cards offered
Figure I: Setup
Figure II: First offer
Figure III: Second offer
by the losing player. The losing player, in turn, takes the cards offered by the winner. In this way, the player who lost may end up with better, more valuable fabrics than what they originally offered (see Figure IV).
Figure IV: Auction
The pink player offered $20 for the center fabric, and the yellow player offered $10 (2 cards of $5). Therefore, the pink player won the auction. They take the announced card from the dispute and the two $5 cards offered by the yellow player. The yellow player, in turn, takes the card offered by the pink player (the $20 card).
Second offer: starting with the last player and going counterclockwise, each one makes a new bid in the auction, on a different card from their first offer (see Figure III).

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RULEBOOK
CREDITS
Game Design: Estevan Isaak
Game Develop: Thiago Castro, André Ruz
Art & Illustration: Dandi
Graphic Design: Dandi
Layout: Marcel Lambertini
Editing: Igor Raposo, André Ruz, Thiago Castro, Vinícius Figueiredo
Playtests: Thiago Castro, Vinícius Figueiredo, André Ruz, Joka Jr.
Thanks: To the Embassy of the Republic of Mozambique, who appreciated our game and allowed us to use the Capulana theme in order to promote the culture not only of Mozambique, but of the entire African continent, and expand the creativity of those who are playing.
Do you have any questions?
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4 - Weaving
Simultaneously, each player may play between zero and two cards into their Capulana.
Each player may have only 1 Capulana, and fabric cards may only be placed at the end of the row of cards, to the right of the cards already in front of the player.
Each card may be positioned on top, under (partially covering or being partially covered by the last card placed), or just touching laterally. However, no card may be completely covered, nor completely cover another already placed card. In all situations, at least one strip of each fabric card must remain visible.
Fabric cards may also be rotated 180 degrees, i.e., they can be placed upside down, so that the numeric value may point up or down.
The Capulana may not end your turn with any raw fabric strip (without a pattern) visible. Each player must place the fabrics in the best possible way (see Figure V).

Strip 7 means it is a yellow strip with any pattern.
Strip 8 means it is any color, but with the triangle pattern.

Counting by colors:
Strips 2 to 8 are counted as yellow; therefore, in total we have 7 yellow strips: +7 points.
Strips 8 to 11 are counted as green (strip 8 is a wild for all colors), therefore +4 points.

Counting by patterns:
Strips 4 to 7 are counted as diamonds (strip 7 is a wild for all patterns), therefore +4 points.
Strips 7 to 10 are counted as triangles (strip 7 is a wild for all patterns), therefore +4 points.

Total: 19 points

In case of a tie, the winner is the player who offered a greater number of cards in that bid.
If the tie persists, the winner is the player closest to the starting player.
If only one player placed an empty bid, they take the other player’s card, and the winner keeps only the card they offered.
If both placed empty bids, the winner is the player closest clockwise to the starting player.
At the end of this step, all the cards that were announced and the cards offered by the players must be in the hands of their new owners.

End of the Game
At the end of the 4 rounds, the game ends. For final scoring, sum the points from each player’s capulana and add the points from the objective cards each player completed.

Scoring the Capulana Fabrics
Start counting from left to right, first colors, then patterns.
Points are counted from sets of at least 3 matching strips, whether by color or by pattern.
The player finished the game with a capulana made up of 11 fabric strips, where 7 and 8 are wild-strip cards (see Figure VI).

Figure V: Weaving
(continuation of Figure V)
Figure VI: Final Scoring
At the end of this step, only when all players have finished Weaving, return to the Announcement step.

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