The goal of Refuge is to create a path by both drawing tiles from your bag and adding useful tiles to your bag to draw later.

Players conduct five (5) walks during the game. Each walk consists of a variable number of turns. On each turn, players draw tiles from their bag to add to their path until they choose to go home, ending their walk, or encounter a storm. At the end of the fifth walk, the player with the most victory points is the winner.

Each turn consists of the following actions:

1. (All players, simultaneously.) Draw two tiles from your bag. You may opt to return to the refuge instead of drawing tiles. If no tiles remain in your bag, you must return to the refuge. These tiles are secret to each player.

2. Choose one of the two drawn tiles to play. NOTE: Tiles with an exclamation point (!) symbol on them must be chosen, except in the case that both tiles carry the symbol. If that occurs, the player chooses as normal. ALSO NOTE: If a storm is drawn, it is immediately added to the weather track, and the other tile must be chosen. If both are storms, both are added to the weather track and no tile is chosen.

3. Apply the effect of the played tile if there is one. Effects include a boot indicating a number of steps gained, a heart indicating number of victory points gained, a tile symbol indicating that you must play a second tile (Either your drawn second tile or a new tile drawn from your bag.), or a broken tile symbol indicating that you may discard your second tile permanently from the game. Any effects with a slash ( / ) allow you to choose which effect to apply. Effects with an addition symbol ( + ) award both listed effects. Effects with a multiplication symbol ( x ) award the goods indicated multiplied by how many matching tiles are in your path or on the weather track.

4. Flip the tile and add it to your path, from left to right. In the case that you've drawn a storm, add it to your weather track. If you drew two storms, add both to your weather track.

5. Optionally, buy a tile, paying the cost in steps, adding it to your bag.

6. Turn over the top tile of the weather deck, adding it to the weather track. NOTE: If there are no tiles remaining in the weather deck, a storm is added from the reserves. If the number of storm tiles has reached or exceeded 6 for two players, 7 for three player, or 9 for four players, a storm warning is triggered.

7. Any un-played tiles drawn in step 1 are returned to the bag.

If a player returns to the refuge, any remaining players continue playing until the walk is ended for all players. When returning to the refuge, tiles are scored according to the number of animals on them.

If a player returns to the refuge, they may permanently discard one of their played tiles from the game.

All other tiles are returned to their bag after returning to the refuge.

If a player is caught by a storm warning without returning to the refuge, they receive no points for animals on their tiles, and they must pay one step for each forest tile in their path. (Forest tiles have an image of the forest on the back.) If the player has insufficient steps, they lose 1 victory point for each step they are short, to a minimum of 0. They then return all tiles to their bag.