Teach the Game
A teachable overview of Níjar’s pottery cycle, workshop actions, rounds and scoring.
How you win
Run a pottery workshop and finish with the most victory points (VP). Make pottery, fire and optionally paint it, then sell it while its market value is high. Workshop cards, esparto, timing and the endgame scoring cards provide other ways to score. The game lasts three rounds. Official English rulebook, pp. 2, 7, 15–16.
The boards
The Main Board has nine Action Tiles arranged in a grid: each action space lets you pick one of the three actions in its row, and the space’s column gives a bonus. Below the grid are the Special Action Space, turn-order tracks and spaces for Bonus Tiles. The right side holds the pottery market, Demand Tiles and market markers; the score track wraps around the board.
Your Workshop Board and Extension hold your six card slots, pottery wheel, vases, production areas, kiln spaces, 
Cleaning Area, Technology Track and Clay Track. The Draft Area is a 3 × 5 display of cards split among three decks. Your Donkey’s position makes one card free and sets the cost of nearby cards. Setup diagram and component guide.
A round
Each of the three rounds follows three phases:
- Update the Market. Reset the market markers to the player-count start positions, apply the current Demand Tile modifiers, then roll the three Market Dice. Assign highest to demand 2, middle to demand 1 and lowest to demand 0; move the corresponding marker that many spaces up. From round two, the First Player may reroll all three dice once. In solo, the Competition cannot reroll.
- Take turns. In turn order, an open shop chooses one option: place Craftswomen, discard an Endgame Scoring Card for a wild action, sell up to two finished pieces, or close the shop once no Craftswomen remain. A closed shop takes a bonus instead of a normal action on each later turn.
- End the round. Retrieve all Craftswomen and return one to the box; optionally play one Endgame Scoring Card facedown; flip this round’s Demand Tiles; update turn order from the right-hand track and pass the First Player Token. Start rounds one, two and three with seven, six and five Craftswomen.
The round ends only when every shop is closed and everyone has taken the same number of turns. If the last player to close is last in turn order, the round ends immediately; otherwise continue until turns are equal. Rounds and turns.
The actions
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
 Acquire cards | Take cards from the market for your workshop |
 Play a card | Put a card into its slot on your Workshop Board |
 Extract Clay | Take up to three Clay; the second and third cost Perra Gorda tokens |
 Advance Technology | One step on the Technology track: your  Throw moves further |
| Throw | Move your Wooden Vases on the wheel, up to your Technology level, and take each space’s benefit |
 Shape | Make one piece for 1 Clay, or two for 2 Clay and 2 Cracks |
 Fire | Move dried pieces into empty Firing Kilns and glazed pieces into Glaze Kilns |
 Paint | Move fired pieces into Glazing Workshops and paint them, paying Glazes or Cracks |
| Clean | Move Cracks onto your Cleanup Cards |
 Collect Esparto | One reward from each of your Esparto Cards |
 First Player action | Once per round: a turn-order space, then any Main Board action |
How the game ends
After the third End of Round phase, sell every piece still in your kilns for endgame value, then score your played scoring cards, esparto set, First Player Token, remaining resources and any Cracks penalty. The highest score wins; a tie goes to the tied player furthest left on the Turn Order Track. See Game End and Scoring.
Ways to score
- Sell painted or unpainted pieces from a Firing Kiln or Glaze Kiln at the current market value.
- Gain immediate VP from card effects, wheel spaces, bonuses, technology and completed Cleanup Cards.
- At round end, play an Endgame Scoring Card facedown beneath your Workshop Board; only cards played this way score their printed endgame criterion.
- Collect distinct Esparto Cards for the set bonus. The Esparto Card printed on your Workshop Board counts as one.
- At the end, sell remaining kiln pieces, gain 2 VP for the First Player Token and 1 VP per five basic resources; lose 1 VP for each Crack left in your Cleaning Area.
What each resource is for
- Clay: pay to shape pottery; track it on the Main Board and never hold more than seven.
- Perra Gorda tokens: buy cards based on distance from your Donkey and pay for some actions or card costs.
- Glazes: pay to paint pottery and for some card costs.
- Cracks: some efficient actions and card effects add Cracks to your Cleaning Area. The area holds at most eight. Cleaning moves them onto Cleanup Cards; a filled Cleanup Card pays its reward and returns its Cracks to the supply.
- Wooden Vases: move along Potter’s Wheel Cards to trigger the printed spaces and complete a wheel.
- Craftswomen: take board actions and their matching column bonuses; spending all available workers is what lets you close your shop.
- Pottery: Plates, Jugs and Pots move through drying, Firing Kilns, optional glazing, then Glaze Kilns; only kiln pieces are ready to sell.
- Cards: improve your workshop, create actions and bonuses, support sales or score at game end.
Teaching tips
Teach the pottery pipeline first: extract Clay → shape → fire → optionally paint → fire again → sell. Then explain that Craftswomen choose one row action and earn the bonus beneath their column, with extra workers both scaling the bonus and bumping opponents. Finish with the shop-closing loop: closing trades normal actions for repeated bonuses while everyone else completes the round. For a first game, copy the multiplayer Action Tile layout from the rulebook diagram and keep the Solo side for solo play.
See Actions and Rounds, Solo and Tips & Strategy. Source: Perro Loko Games, Níjar rules.