Project L is an abstract engine building, worker placement, relaxing game. The goal is to achieve the most points by placing your workers, who are geometric shapes, onto your personal score tiles to gain extra workers and score points. The game lasts several turns until a specific deck runs out.
Setup
Take all the white backed puzzles, shuffle them, and place them facedown to form the white puzzle deck. Create a black puzzle deck, which varies depending on the players, shuffle the black backed pieces together and place near the white puzzle deck. Flip over the top 4 puzzles from each deck and lay them out in a line starting from the deck it originated from, this will form the puzzles available for players to complete. Place the rest of the pieces nearby to form a reserve of pieces pile. Distribute to each player 1 level-1 piece and 1 level-2 piece. Randomly distribute the player mats, the player’s mat with “First Player” written in the center starts the game.
Gameplay
Every player in Project L gets 3 actions on their turn, when they are done the player to their left goes next. Each action can be used more than once, with the exception of the master action which can only be used once per turn.
Take a puzzle from the black or white puzzle row and then place it onto your player mat, then replace the puzzle you took from the appropriate deck. A player may not have more than 4 puzzles on their player mat.
Take 1 level-1 piece from the reserve and place it into your supply pile.
Upgrade a piece from your supply by placing your piece into the reserve pile and taking from the reserve 1 piece that is 1 level above the one you placed into the reserve. If there are no pieces that you can upgrade to then you move to the next highest level. A player may also exchange their current piece with another of the same level or lower.
Place a piece on one of your puzzles from your supply. A piece played on a puzzle cannot be removed until the puzzle is complete. A piece may be rotated and flipped but cannot overlap the border of the puzzle or another piece.
Master action can only be used once per turn and allows a player to place 1 piece of any level onto each of their puzzles. This action is the most efficient action to use and will be used often!
Completing a puzzle means that you have completely filled in the puzzles recessed area. After you finish your puzzle, place the placed pieces back into your supply. Place the puzzle faceup in your victory point pile, generally located near the player or their mat. Now you take from the reserve pile the reward piece as indicated on the top gith of the completed puzzle.
Game End
In a game of Project L, once the black puzzle row has 4 puzzles and none remaining in the deck, then the game ends after that player finishes their actions. Equal turns are granted, so if player 2 in a 4-player game creates the game end conditions than players 3 and 4 will get their 3 actions.
After the final round is complete than each player may perform final touches on any puzzle that was not completed. Place pieces onto your puzzle and for each piece you placed you deduct 1 point from your final score, it may be beneficial to not complete a puzzle in this step if you would get negative points. Final touch puzzle completions do not provide the reward piece.
Each player in Project L now counts their points in their victory pile and deducts final touching points, and whoever has the most points win. In the case of a tie whoever completed the most puzzles win, if still a tie than whoever has the most pieces in their supply wins.