Umbra Via

Zigzag through the greenery and create paths with beautiful flowers!

In the Umbra Via game, the players lay paths that they try to control. Whenever they have a majority on a dead end, they may discard flowers from their supply. The first player to discard 13 flowers wins the Umbra Via game!

How do you play Umbra Via?

1) Uncover 4 paths

There is one central game board of 4x4 squares in the middle of the table. At the start of each round, four tiles with paths are placed face up next to the game board. The paths can have different shapes (a straight line, a curve or a T.).

2) Draw cubes and bid with them on the paths

The players 3 draw cubes from their pocket with which they (secretly behind their screen) will bid on one or more tiles. Some cubes have value 1, others have value 2. When everyone has bid, the cubes are placed on the paths. Then the players take cubes from the bag a second time and repeat the secret bidding phase.

3) Place the paths one by one on the game board

The tile with the least bid is placed first on the central game board. The player who bid the most on this tile gets to choose where. Attention, the orientation of the tile must not be changed!

4) Score by area control on a closed path

As soon as a path is closed on two sides, you start to see which color is most present on this contiguous path. For example, if the blue player has a majority with 6 cubes, he may discard as many flowers (6 in this case) from his general supply. If the purple player has the second most with 4 cubes, he may discard half as many cubes from his general supply (in this case 2).

The first player to get rid of all his 13 flowers wins the Umbra Via game!