How to Play

Fromage

1-4 players 30-45 min 7.7 Board Game Geek Rating

Players simultaneously deploy workers to produce cheese and collect resources from their board section in this early 1900s French creamery simulation. After each placement round, the board rotates to age cheese and reveal new opportunities. Victory comes through selling aged cheeses to various buyers and optimizing creamery operations for maximum prestige points.

Published 2024

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Select board inserts

Find the 4 Inserts matching your player count, use side I for first games or any combination of I/II sides for experienced players

Assemble the board

Fit the 4 Board quadrants together in any configuration and slot the Inserts into matching quadrants

Place the Resource Tile

Position it in the center of the Board in a random orientation

Orient player positions

Each player sits facing one quadrant; 2-player games sit facing opposite quadrants, 4-player games sit in a square formation

Add Customer Tokens

Place a random Customer Token on each space on the Villes Board quadrant

Prepare Order Cards

Shuffle Order Cards and place roughly half with Resource Tokens in each Resource Tray on opposite ends of the table

Distribute player components

Each player takes 15 wood Cheese Tokens and 3 Workers of their chosen color

Attach Worker Bases

Take a Soft, Hard, and Bleu Worker Base and attach your Workers to them

Select Player Boards

Each player takes a random Player Board

Gather starting resources

Look at the Resource Tile; take 2 Resources matching the quadrant to your left and 1 Resource matching the quadrant opposite you

Place Structures

Position Structure tokens in the space to the left of your Structure abilities

Place Livestock

Put Livestock tokens in the pasture area

Place Fruit

Put Fruit tokens in your basket

Place Orders

Put Order cards face-up to the left of your Player Board

Draft Structure Tiles (Advanced Mode)

Each player takes 4 random tiles, keeps 1 and passes the rest left; repeat until 4 tiles are chosen, then place any number over printed Player Board tiles

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Retrieve Workers

At the start of each turn, check if any Workers are facing you and take those Workers to make them available

Take simultaneous actions

All players act simultaneously in the quadrant currently facing them

Perform one Gather Resources action

Place an available Worker on an empty space (1, 2, or 3) in the Resource Tile quadrant facing you and immediately take that many Resources

Perform one Make Cheese action

Place a Cheese Token on an empty cheese space in your current quadrant, then place your Worker of matching Cheese Type on top

Use Fruit for special cheeses

Move Fruit from your basket to the Fruited Cheese or Jam spent area when making those cheeses

Milk Livestock

At any time, move the required number of Livestock to a Milking Parlour to immediately place a Bonus Cheese matching the parlour's Type and Age without using a Worker

Build Structures

At any time, move Structure Tokens to fill scaffolding spaces and unlock that Structure's ability for ongoing use

Complete Orders

When placing a Cheese Token matching an Order Card's requirements, immediately move that Order to the right of your Player Board

Rotate the board

When everyone finishes their actions, rotate the board 90 degrees clockwise to begin the next turn