Everdell Journeys - How to Play
Transcript
Your traveling pack is ready, your path is marked on your map, and the sun rises with the promise of discovery. It's time to venture onward, but first, you'll need a little guidance to learn how to play Everdell Journeys, the one to six player game from Tycoon Games, who helped sponsor this video. In this game, you're a traveler embarking on a journey through the vibrant realms of Everdell, drafting cards, planning each step you take, and telling tales of your adventure back at the Inn. At its heart, Everdell Journeys is an accessible drafting game, but with some twists and turns along the way. Learning to play won't take long at all, but first, let's get the game set up. Start by placing the Inn board in the center of the table, and add the round marker here on round one.
Shuffle the deck of song cards and place it face down in the center of the Inn. Randomly select one of each color of Cheers window, blue, green, and red, and place them face up on their corresponding spaces, returning all unused Cheers windows to the box. Next, shuffle all the journey cards into a face down deck and place it beside the Inn. Put all the journal tokens into the draw bag and keep it near the board, too. Each player now selects a traveler and gets some items ready for their journey. Place your traveler critter figure in your player space along with five campfire tokens with their lit side face up. Take the matching color compass point marker and place it on the zero point space on the Inn board, and the matching tankard goes on the counter at the Inn, here at the bottom of the board.
Finally, each player draws three journal tokens, choosing two to keep and returning the other back to the bag. If playing with closed drafting, players can choose which journal token to discard after journey cards are dealt. In Everdell Journeys, you can play with either closed drafting where players are dealt cards at the beginning of each round and selecting cards is done simultaneously and in private, or open drafting where cards are dealt face up by the in board. Card drafting is public and the players will take turns selecting and playing their cards. The game recommends closed drafting for a lighter, faster experience and at higher player counts, which is how I'll be teaching it today. But, if you're interested in playing with the open draft, reference the rulebook for the adjustments you'll need to make and an overview of how it plays differently.
Everdell Journeys is played over just three rounds and players will draft and add five cards to their plan each round. So, by the end of the game, each player should have a total of 15 cards. At the start of each round, every player is dealt a hand of eight journey cards. Each turn, all players will perform the following three actions simultaneously. Plan, pass, and journey. During the plan step, choose one card from your hand and place it face down to the right of your traveler into your plan. If there are already cards to the right of your traveler, place the new card at the end of the row. It's recommended that you place cards in your plan in three rows of five cards each. This will help you easily keep track of how many cards you've played so far in the round.
Once all players have added a card to their plan, pass your remaining cards face down to the player on your left. Then, all players will reveal the card that they just played. After everyone's card is revealed, it's time to move on to the journey step where each player will choose to either travel or rest. In order to travel, you must be able to pay the travel cost representing the number of days in your traveler's journey. The travel cost is determined by the number shown on the brown banner in the top left of the next journey card that you're trying to move on to, and the terrain type of that card. This cost is paid by flipping a number of campfire tokens from their lit side to their extinguished side. Journey cards can feature one of three different terrain types: foothills, peaks, and ridges.
If your traveler moves on to a card of a different terrain type, it's going to cost one additional campfire token, and this includes the very first card of your journey. For example, if this was your first card, it would cost two total campfires. Or later, if you were traveling from this card to this card, it would cost four campfires. Three for the printed cost, plus one additional because you're moving from ridges to foothills. Whenever your traveler moves on to a new card, the top part of that card will activate immediately. But before I explain that, let's take a look at a few cards so that you're familiar with some of the things that you might find on them. In the upper left, you'll find the terrain type and the travel cost as I've mentioned. But directly below on the brown banner, you might also find patches, way stones, or some combination of both.
While some of these elements have specific meaning, which I'll talk more about shortly, all of these icons are often involved in scoring points and other effects when activating a card's ability, which is found here across the top. Most cards award points based on elements your traveler has already visited. The card the traveler is on, and all cards they've already traveled past, count toward the card's scoring. Song cards, which might be acquired in a later phase, can also contribute to a scoring ability. For example, when traveling onto this card, part of its ability scores one point for every companion patch your traveler has visited, including the one on the card itself. So, one, two, three, plus one more from this song card acquired in a previous round for a total of four points.
In addition to scoring points, there are a number of other effects that a card's ability might trigger. It might allow you to refresh some of your spent campfires, move your tanker a number of spaces around the cheers track at the inn, or draw a journal token from the bag. There are a variety of abilities, which are all pretty self-explanatory, but be sure to check the rulebook for any details that you might need. It's important to note that while traveling, you may activate more than one card as long as you can pay for each card's travel cost, and you may freely rearrange any of the cards that your traveler has not yet visited. So, in this case, you could spend your last three lit campfires to travel to the boring scholar, which earns you one point and refreshes the campfire.
Now, you could rearrange these cards so you can continue traveling to another card using your newly refreshed campfire, scoring another two points and moving your tanker one space on the cheers track. During this journey phase, if you cannot or do not want to travel, you must rest instead. To rest, lay your traveler on its side and refresh up to three of your campfire tokens, and also gain one journal from the bag. So, you're either traveling or resting, but not both. Once all players have done one or the other, take the cards that were passed to you and continue playing until all players have added five new cards to their plan this round. Once this has happened, all players discard their remaining three cards to a face-up discard pile beside the innboard.
At the end of each of the three rounds, you'll have another row of five cards in your plan. And now it's time to see who has the most exciting story to tell back at the inn. To do so, look at the cheers window tiles above and to the left of the round marker. Score cheers based on these tiles. In round one, you'll score just the first one. Round two will score two, and round three will score all three windows. Cheers windows gives you one, two, or three cheers for each matching aspect in your journey. But remember, this is only for the card that your traveler is currently on and all cards it's already visited and any song cards you have. For example, during the second inn scoring phase, this player would earn a total of 10 cheers.
Six from the three peaks that they've seen on their journey and four more from the four companions they've passed. The cards still ahead of them on their journey don't count. Whenever moving your tankard around the cheers track, including this phase, you'll take a song card every time your tankard makes a complete circle landing back on the starting space. And there's a reminder of this on that space around the bottom of the cheers track. Simply draw the top card of the song deck and place it face up above your journey and continue advancing for any additional cheers you'd earned. Your song cards help you track your total cheers and each one is worth 10 cheers. The next part of the inn scoring phase has you comparing your total cheers to the player on your left to see who's most famous.
If you have the same amount or more than the player on your left, you score five points. And if you have less, you score no points, but you get to refresh a campfire token. For example, let's say you have two song cards and you're on the fifth space of the cheers track for a total of 25 cheers and the player on your left has only 23. You just scored five points. But imagine if you had one fewer song card, so only 15 points. Then you'd get to refresh a campfire token instead. After comparing cheers, slide the round marker to the right and all players now refresh one campfire. You can now start the next round, dealing eight journey cards to each player. At the end of the end scoring phase of round three, the game is finished. But before we talk about end game scoring, there's a few more things you need to know about song cards, journals, and some unique aspects on some of the cards.
Song cards not only represent 10 cheers, but often grant you an ongoing symbol. And they're also worth a certain number of points. Note though that any song cards you gain during the end scoring phase do not award additional cheers at that same time. Your active journal represents your hopes and dreams for your journey. The left page of the journal shows elements that you're looking for your traveler to visit along their journey. The right page shows the points it's worth at the end of the game if the journal token is completed. You may only have three active journals at a time. If you already have three when you draw a new one, you must choose to discard one of them in order to keep the new journal. Or you can discard the new one. Place discarded journals in a face-up discard pile next to the board. Do not return them to the bag.
Whenever you achieve a journal, flip it face down into a stack beside your active journals. These are now inactive and will be worth their listed points at the end of the game. And remember, you do not gain a new journal when you finish one. Only gain a new one when you rest or when you move on to a card that gives you one. We discussed earlier how way stones and patches are often involved in scoring points. But, there are a few that are worth explaining a bit more. As you might guess, this is a wild patch and it counts as any patch, which can really come in handy. This is a caravan waystone. You'll notice that caravan cards have no terrain type on them. You do not have to pay an extra campfire to move onto a caravan card.
When you move forward from a caravan card, though, look at the terrain type on the card before it to determine if you're passing into a new region. For example, moving from this caravan card counts as moving from a peaks terrain. So, moving onto this foothills card would include the bonus cost of one for a total of four campfires. And then, there's the legend waystone. Legend cards include some end game scoring opportunities. These cards require your journey to have an equal or greater amount of a certain element than the player to your left. If you do, the card is worth 10 points. But again, remember only the cards you have visited count toward your journey. As I mentioned, the game is finished at the end of the end scoring phase of the third round.
And now, it's time to move your point tracker for some end game points, including the following. All the points from the song cards that you've gained throughout the game. The points listed on all of your completed journals. And finally, points from any legend cards you visited and for which you fulfilled the requirement. For example, as long as you have more companion patches than the player on your left, this card would score you 10 points. And of course, the player with the most points is the winner. In the case of a tie, first compare the most cheers, including song cards, then the most completed journals, and then the most lit campfires. And if still tied, the players share the victory.
And now you know how to play Everdell Journeys. The game offers solo and co-op mode as well. So, be sure to check the rulebook for details on those and anything else that you want to better understand. I hope you've enjoyed this journey in learning how to play the game. And until next time, make sure everyone has fun at the table, and I'll see you then.