Kerala is a tile-placement game set at an elephant festival in the Indian province of Kerala. Players build colorful festival platforms by placing tiles and moving elephant figures. The goal is to have continuous color areas on your platform while collecting elephant symbols for points. Having split color areas or missing colors costs points.
Components
100 Game tiles (20 in each of 5 colors)
5 Start tiles (1 in each of 5 colors)
10 Elephant figures (2 in each of 5 colors)
1 Fabric bag
1 Scoring pad
Setup
Each player gets 2 elephant figures and a start tile of the same color, placed elephant-symbol-up.
Each player places both elephants on their start tile.
Remove tiles based on player count (tiles removed must NOT match any player’s color):
2 players: Remove 20 random tiles
3 players: Remove 10 random tiles
4 players: Remove 4 random tiles
5 players: No tiles removed
Place all remaining tiles in the fabric bag.
Turn Structure
The game is played over several rounds. The youngest player starts and receives the bag.
Each round:
The active player draws tiles from the bag equal to the number of players and lays them face-up in the center.
Starting with the active player and going clockwise, each player MUST select one tile and place it.
The bag passes to the next player clockwise.
Actions
Placing a Tile
Place the selected tile orthogonally adjacent to a tile occupied by one of your elephants.
A tile may also be placed ON TOP of another tile (covering it).
After placing the tile, move one of your two elephants onto it from an adjacent tile.
Tile Placement Rules
The tile must be adjacent to a tile with one of your elephants.
You must move an elephant onto the newly placed tile.
If you cannot legally place the tile (no valid adjacent position), you must still take it but place it aside (it scores negatively).
Scoring / Victory Conditions
The game ends when the bag is empty (no more tiles to draw).
Scoring (per player)
Positive points:
Count each elephant symbol visible on your festival platform. Each symbol = 1 point.
Some tiles have multiple elephant symbols.
Negative points:
For each color that appears in MORE than one separate area on your platform: -2 points per color (exception: your own player color may have up to 2 areas without penalty).
For each of the 5 colors completely MISSING from your platform: -2 points.
The player with the most points wins.
Special Rules & Edge Cases
Your own player color is special: you may have up to 2 separate areas of your color without penalty.
Covered tiles no longer count for scoring (neither their color nor their elephant symbols).
Placing a tile on top of another is a strategic tool to eliminate unwanted colors or duplicate areas.
If you must take a tile but cannot place it legally, it counts as a penalty.
Tiles drawn from the bag are visible to all players before selection, creating competition for desirable tiles.