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White, white, nothing but white. You scan the snowy expanse of the Arctic, hoping to catch a glimpse of the inhabitants that live there. The more animals of a type that you see together, the better — yet you also want to diversify your sightings, while moving your totem animal toward the pack ice as far as possible.
In Arctic, you move across the landscape and spot animals, creating a pile of animal cards in front of you. The card on top of your personal pile is your "visible" animal card. Each animal card contains four pieces of information:
- A placement value
- The main animal depicted on the card
- A companion animal
- A draw value
At the start of your turn, place as many cards from your hand into your personal pile as the placement value of your visible animal card. (On your first turn, place one animal from your starting hand of three cards.) For each card you can't place, draw a card facedown from the deck and place it in a personal penalty pile. Next, using your new visible animal card, move the token of the main animal forward one space on the landscape and the companion animal backward one space or vice versa. Finally, draw as many animal cards from the "river" of six animal cards as the draw value of your visible animal card. (If you now have more than seven cards in hand, discard into your penalty pile until you have seven.)
Each time you place an animal on your pile, take the matching animal power card from the center of play or whoever currently has it. You can use the listed power each turn for as long as you hold this card, such as moving an animal token an additional space, drawing from your penalty pile, or refilling the river after each card you draw.
When the deck runs out, you finish the round, then place cards one more time, then score points. For each type of animal, you score points based on the largest set of consecutive cards of this type you have in your pile. You score a bonus based on the number of sets you've completed. Reveal the animal token you received at the start of the game, and score based on how far it advanced across the landscape. Lose 1 point for each card in your penalty pile. Whoever has the highest score wins.
