Basic game, the gray piece, the Cathedral, is placed on the board and belongs to everyone. Your goal is to get as many of your pieces on the board as you can. Left over pieces are scored one point for each square they would take up on the board. More points is worse, like golf. So being left with bigger pieces is bad. If you enclose an area, no kitty/catty-corner connectors, it's yours. The other player can't put pieces in that area. If you enclose an opponent's piece - only one, no more - then that piece is popped back into your opponent's hand and they have to replace it or end up with the points at the end. Because the cathedral belongs to everyone, you can use it to protect your piece from being surrounded (and yes, you can surround the cathedral if it's the only piece surrounded). This isn't the end of an official game, it's just me getting all the pieces back onto the board. but that is my official guest chair. It's never bothered me in person. But a photo of it makes me question its aesthetics.
I like this picture better, although I never put my nose down this close to the board to play. A general rule, which may be a house rule, is that if your piece touches the board, that's where it goes. No waiting to let go of it, like in chess. It touches. All done.
The scores so far. As you can see, there's an advantage to playing a bunch of coworkers who don't know the game. Except in the case of Anup who outmaneuvered me and soundly ruined my initial winning streak. Vineet has taken his loss personally and downloaded a Cathedral-like game for his iPhone, Tiling King, so he can beat me next time, or at least slip below his current score at last place. The oldest scores are at the top, so Troy has gone from 5 to 8 to 12. He's a board gamer, so I think it bothers him. And if he maintains his almost Fibonacci sequence, his next score of between 20 and 22 will push him past Vineet, eliminating the need for an iPhone app.
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