The Reef

About this board game

The Reef is a two-player board game with an approximately 60-minute play time, in which players build a reef, collect worms, buy cards, and breed fish to win.

After arranging the cards to form the reef, players roll dice to collect worms. They spend these worms to buy cards, with each card’s cost determined by its position in the reef. Players can also buy more boats, increasing the number of columns on which they can fish.

The central goal is to collect five reef cards and use them to breed offspring. Four offspring cards are dealt face up, each showing a combination of the game’s five colors. To collect an offspring, players need the matching parent fish in the required colors, with the appropriate male and female combination.

• Worms: Roll dice to collect the resources used to buy cards.
• Boats: Buy boats to increase the columns available for fishing.
• Reef cards: Collect five cards on which parents are bred.
• Pearl cards: Use pearls as joker worms.
• Sharks: Eliminate cards by eating them.

Used cards go to a discard pile. When the discard pile is shuffled and returned to the reef, previously used cards can flow back into play. A rule for flowing cards past your boats adds another consideration when arranging and buying from the reef.

Examples of offspring include blue-and-green, pink-and-yellow, and purple-and-purple fish. The first player to get five offspring wins. As part of the Kosmos two-player series, The Reef combines dice-driven resource collection, card purchasing, reef positioning, and fish breeding in a focused head-to-head race.