by the rules

The board game is finished… barring some weird detail I might have missed.

(For example, the Trading In option is something we—my kids and me—have not playtested yet, so it might be removed. At one point in the developing the way the game played, different types of cards had different point values, and this is a remnant of that idea.)

Here what’s in the rule booklet:

You are Phil Connors, weatherman. You are trapped in Punxsutawney, PA and every day is Groundhog Day. To escape from the time loop and the small town, you have to become a better person. You do this by collecting particular cards, representing your experiences and your growth.

Contents:

1 Rule Booklet
1 Board
1 Spinner
98 Cards

18 PIANO LESSON (brown)
18 EXPERIENCE (purple)
14 SEDUCTION (red)
14 SUICIDE (blue)
14 INSURANCE (yellow)
10 REPORT (green)
10 SAVIOR (orange)

Setup:

Setup for this game is simple. Unfold the board. Since every turn begins at the same location—the Cherry Street Inn marked with a blue/red diamond at the bottom left corner of the board—there is only one marker shared by all players. Stack the cards in seven separate stacks, one per category. And begin. The player who has seen Groundhog Day the most time goes first (unless any player is from Punxsutawney, PA or Woodstock, IL (the primary filming location) or happens to be a weatherman or a groundhog).

On your turn:

Spin to see how many moves you get on your turn. Then, starting at the blue/red diamond at the bottom left of the board, make the corresponding number of moves. Moves may consist of:

• Moving the marker to the next diamond space in any direction.
• Taking a card corresponding to either color of a large diamond space when you land there.
• Trade in cards (see below).

For example, if you spin a 5, you can:

• Take a red or blue card at the Cherry Street Inn, move two spaces to the Piano Teacher’s House, take a brown card, and trade in cards (see below).
• Move four spaces to Ned’s Corner, take a yellow or orange card.

You may only take one card per diamond space per landing.

The white space at the Pennsylvanian Hotel is a wild space where you can take the card type of your choice. This cannot be done on your winning turn.

You can hold up to 12 cards at a time. So, for each card you pick up, you must discard, or play (more on that below) another card.

Play continues clockwise, with each player’s turn starting at the Cherry Street Inn space.

Playable cards:

Among the collectable cards, there are two playable cards in each stack, DRAW DISCARD and STEAL A CARD.

STEAL A CARD allows you to take a card from another player’s hand.

DRAW DISCARD allows you to pick any card from the discard pile to add to your hand.

Remember, you still can only have up to 12 cards total.

Trading in:

You may, for one of your moves, trade in cards you don’t need for cards that you do need.

Cards are tradable as follows:

3 REPORT cards or 3 SAVIOR card can be traded for any other 1 card.

2 INSURANCE cards, 2 SEDUCTION cards or 2 SUICIDE cards can be traded for 1 EXPERIENCE or 1 PIANO LESSON card.

To win:

You must collect the right combination of cards to win, and you must get them to the Pennsylvanian Hotel. The winning combination of cards is as follows:

• 3 EXPERIENCE cards.
• 3 PIANO LESSON cards.
• 2 INSURANCE cards.
• 2 SEDUCTION cards.
• 2 SUICIDE cards.
• 1 SAVIOR card.
• 1 REPORT card.

Today’s reason to repeat a day forever: to never color anything by hand ever again.