Sea, Salt and Paper

We have had lots of fun playing this beautiful looking game. Here, we explain how to play sea, salt and paper in a step-by-step guide, which will have you up and running in no time.

Setup

• Shuffle the cards.
• Make a pile in the middle, face down.
• turn the top 2 cards over face up to start 2 discard piles.

The Game.

You take it in turns to take cards either

• from the face down pile
  • take 2 top cards
  • put one in your hand
  • put the other back on one of the discard piles.
• Take 1 card from the top of either of the discard piles.
• That ends your turn and passes to the next player.
• Play continues in this way until you have duo cards that you can play to start scoring points or carry out actions in accordance to the figures on the duo card:
  • 2 Crabs = choose a discard pile, look through and take 1 card.
  • 2 boats = Take another turn.
  • 2 fish = Add the top card from the face down pile to your hand.
  • Swimmer and shark cards = Steal a card from an opponent.
  • If, when carrying out an action of the duo you can make another duo, you can play that duo this turn. It is OK to daisy-chain cards pulled and duos made.
• Each of these card duos will be worth 1 point when you come to score whether they have been played or not.
• Other points:
  • If you have a Mermaid card, you score 1 point for each of the cards you have the most colour of. You can use another mermaid card, but it cannot be used to score points on the same colour.
    • Mermaid cards also count as scoring cards. Their colour is white.
  • You can also collect cards with the same figure on. For example, if you had 4 shells in your hand, there is a chart down the side of the card that tells you how many points you have scored. 4 shells = 6points.
  • Point multiplier cards
    • Lighthouse = Gives one extra point for boat cards.
    • School of fish = one extra point for each fish card.
    • Penguin colony = two extra points per penguin card.
    • Captain = 3 extra points every sailor card.

End the round

Once a player has 7 points (made up from duos played and cards in hand), that player can trigger the end of the round in 1 of 2 ways:

• Stop
  • All players reveal their hands and count up the points.
• Last chance
  • The other players take one more turn then reveal their hand. All players are protected from cards that allow a card to be taken from an opponents hand.
  • If the player who called “last chance” scores more or equal to than the other players, they receive a bonus point for each of the coloured cards they hold the most of. The other players will only score the colour bonus and nothing else.
  • If they score less than any of the opponents, the person who called “last chance” will only score the colour bonus and nothing else. All other players count up as normal.

Next round or end of game

Once the round has finished, if a player has the correct number of points to win, the game finishes, otherwise continue to the next round.

2 players = 40 points

3 players = 35 points

4 players = 30points

You can also win the game outright by collecting all 4 mermaids in a round.

Final Thoughts

If you found this how to play sea,salt and paper tutorial helpful, why not have a look at the other “How to play” posts,and see if there is another game in there that could be your next Family Favourite!

If you haven’t got your copy of Sea, Salt and Paper yet, you can get yours from the button below. Happy gaming!

Until next time,

The Board Game Wagon