Bookshelf | How to Play
Transcript
Hi everyone, I'm Tom and today I'm going to be showing you how to play Bookshelf. Where we'll work together to stack a bookshelf as high as we can, balancing books so the shelves don't fall, and of course not forgetting the cat. To set the game up, we need to remove the cards from the tin, and set aside the starter card, which has got this symbol on it, and it's double-sided. Shuffle the rest of the cards to make a deck, and then choose either the easy with a number three on it, or the hard side of the starter card with a number two on the hard side. We'll go with easy, right? Just for an example. Put that card face up in the middle of the table. The top left of the card tells you how many red books to take from the tin. So, on the easy side, it's going to be three, and you place them upright on the X's. Finally, take the cat from the tin and place it anywhere on the starter card.
Bookshelf is a cooperative game. The aim of the game is to reach a height of eight cards. If you reach the height of eight cards and your bookshelf doesn't fall, you all win. A turn of the game has three steps. First of all, you need to draw two cards from the deck and choose one of them. Turn them face up so all the players can see the cards that you drew, and decide on one card that's going to be added to the bookshelf. The other will be placed on the bottom of the deck. I think let's say we're going to go for this pink two card. So, the one I don't choose goes on the bottom of the draw pile. Find the books that match your chosen card. So, we go back into the tin and I'm looking for two pink books here. You notice as well that each book has a different illustration on the front that matches the picture as well. So, you don't just have to rely on the colors. And finally, place your chosen card on top of your bookshelf, so it's going to be resting on the books underneath.
You need to align it with the previous card, but you can flip it 180° if you want to. I'm just going to keep it the way it comes and place it there. In step two, we place the books that we set aside in step one. Working together with another player, you will simultaneously place the books that you set aside on top of the bookshelf. Every X that's on the card must be covered by a book. If there are books left over after you've covered the X's, they can go anywhere on that shelf. Don't let go of the books until you're sure that they're balanced because as soon as you let go, you can't touch them again. If you're playing alone like I am in this example, you don't have to place the books simultaneously. So, I'd probably want the other book to be on this side, but you've got to bear in mind where the books are underneath so they're stable. So, maybe I'll place it there. You should pick players so that everyone's going to have an equal opportunity to place some books. So, you could choose to always pick the player opposite you or to the left or right of you or just pick randomly each time. The last step is to place the cat.
Remove the cat from its current shelf and move it up one shelf being careful not to unbalance the bookshelf in the process. The cat can overhang. So, remember you're going to have to grab it again on the next turn. Then repeat steps one to three until your bookshelf is eight cards tall or it topples over. As soon as you add your eighth card, the starter one does count as a card, you win. If your bookshelf topples like mine has here before you reach eight, try again and see if you can do better next time. If you would like to have an easier challenge, you can play up to six cards instead. If you'd like a harder challenge, try and play up to 10 cards. And that's everything you need to know to play bookshelf. I hope you enjoyed that and it's given you a good idea of how to play the game. I hope you enjoy playing and can balance better than I did here.
Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you for the next game. Bye, everyone.