Ocean life is vast and yet mostly undiscovered, still, in this age of exploration, technology, and knowledge. This game celebrates the miraculous, often strange life that we do know of in the ocean, specifically the
The setting of the Noctiluca, which I find essential in learning to play and getting the spirit of the game, is the shore of a Cerulean Pool, where the creatures awake on warm quiet nights and give off their shimmering lights. Players dive to collect specific arrangements of these glowing orbs in jars, which are known to cure a variety of mysterious maladies to supply local healers with the valuable remedies.
Set up the board by randomly placing four dice on each of the inner space on the board and five dice in the outer spaces. The center section of the board remains empty.
The twelve total pawns are distributed evenly between players. Each player is also dealt one Favorite Card, which will give special end game points and two jar cards. The remaining jar cards are placed evenly in four face up draw piles.
On a player’s turn, he does the following:
- Place a single pawn on any empty shore space.
- Announce a number from 1-6.
- Take all the dice showing the announced number (ignoring color) in one of the two straight paths connected to the shore space.
The dice are placed according to color (ignoring numbers) on the jar cards. Any dice that can’t be placed are passed to the next player in turn order. Any dice that the next player can’t placed get passed again, and so on until all the unused dice are placed.
Once a jar is full, the dice go back into the game box and the player takes the top scoring token in the scored jar’s color.
Players continue taking turns until all the pawns are placed. The dice are again randomly placed on the board for a complete second round, after which point tokens are scored and the player with the most points wins!
Noctiluca is a great asset to a study of ocean life, probability, medicinal herbs, and more. Analytical thinking is required, strengthening reasoning for math success. This beautiful and colorful dice game is family-friendly, easy to learn, and a great gameschooling resource!
Thanks to Z-Man Games for sharing with us!
