The table at the end of a game of Wizard's Museum Construction Kit

Here, we see the table at the end of a game between Lori, Jesse, and John. You'll notice that their museums have grown close together, but never touched. It's a common, but risky, strategy to extend your own museum into your neighbour's way.

Let's take a look at Lori as she scores her museum at the end of the game.

First, Lori finds all her single artifacts. Even though Lori has 4 lyres in her museum, two of them aren't adjacent to any other lyres, and so count as a lonely collection of one. Since she has five singletons, Lori's down to -5 points. As she goes, she keeps track of which categories of artifact are in her museum.

Next, Lori finds her pairs. These aren't worth any points, but at least they don't count against her. She's still at -5 points.

Lori has three groups of three artifacts, each worth one point.

Here, Lori picks out her groups of three. She'll earn one point per group of three, bringing her up to a score of -2.

Lori has one collection of four, which is worth three points.

Here, Lori picks out her groups of four. Since this is a three-player game, she'll earn three points per group of four, bringing her score to 1. A quiet smile comes over her face -- a positive score, at last.

Lori has one collection of five artifacts, which is worth six points.

Next, Lori picks out her group of five. This is pretty good, 6 more points, bringing her up to 7 points. Her smile turns up a notch, too. Do you know why?

Lori has no fountains at all, and so gains ten more points.

That's right; Lori went through the entire game without any fountains in her museum. This gets her 10 more points, bringing her score to 17. Jesse pulls a 16, and John a 12. It looks like it's John's turn to fetch the snacks as Jesse sets up the next game...