Oasis: New Life On A Distant World - How To Play
Transcript
Hi and welcome to Watch It Played. My name is Rodney Smith and in this video we're going to learn the one to five player game Oasis New Life on a Distant World designed by Leo Taylor, George Fletchuk, and Duvie Rudow and published by the OP who helped sponsor this video. On the planet Oasis, you'll act as a force of nature, shaping the wondrous and wild creatures who live there, both above and below ground. This wildlife will go through various life cycles. And if you can guide them just right, you'll cultivate a balanced planet and get the most points. So, join me at the table and let's learn how to play. To set up, find and shuffle the surface and subterrain decks, which have these backs, ensuring you've kept these five sets of starter cards separate. We'll use these a little later. Now, put this game board in the center of the play area, putting the surface deck into this slot and the subterrain cards here. Then draw seven cards from the surface deck, dealing three of them into a face up migration row, putting the leftovers as a faceown migration deck above them.
These are the rest tiles, and they're numbered from first to fifth. You'll now stack them onto this space of the board. So they're in order going from the one labeled first rest on top down to the highest valued one matching your number of players. So, if we had three players, we would stack them like this. Then you'd return any leftovers to the box. In this video, we'll assume we have two players. So, we stack the tiles like this and return these ones to the box. Nearby, create a supply of these three groups of differently colored imprint tokens along with the three trophy standes and these score tokens. Now, each person collects a biome player board and reference card along with a scorekeeping dial set to zero and the three starter cards with backs matching their player color as shown on their dial. I've chosen blue, so I would take these three cards. Each person also gains three surface cards drawn from the surface deck. You can examine your own cards, but keep them a secret from the other players. Now, the person who most recently saw a star receives this first player token, or you can just pick someone randomly. And that's the setup.
In Oasis, New Life on a Distant World, you and the other players will be adding life forms to the surface of the planet above and the subterranean depths below. How these creatures interact and benefit from one another will also benefit you with various ways to earn points. But this planet has a unique feature. Every year, its underwater reservoir overheats and floods the subterranean levels, washing out many of the creatures that live there. Each new year, you'll try to reestablish new life, and at the end of the final year, the player with the most points wins. The game is played over three years, or rounds. And each round is divided into a series of turns starting with the first player and then going clockwise around and around the table. On your turn, you'll take one of three possible actions which are listed here on your player aid. So, let's start by learning the play a card action. Each card in the game is either a subterrain card showing a purple background or a surface card which shows a bright sky background. If you want to play a subterrain card, take it from your hand and put it into any empty subterrain space of your biome board, which are the slots here. No more than one card can be in each slot. This slot has some icons, which we'll learn about later, but you can still place any subterrain card here, covering them up. Every subterrain card has a symbol in the area here known as its imprint. And these come in four different types known as flora, shelled,
scaled, or decay. We'll see how those icons are used shortly, but for now, just know that cards with the decay symbol cannot be placed side by side. If I added one here with a play a card action, then on a future action, I could not add one here or here. But this would be okay. Instead of a subterrain card, you might use the play a card action to place a surface card. Surface cards must be played into an empty slot along the surface area of your biome here, but these have an extra requirement. Each surface card has two symbols at the bottom known as its imprint requirements. To add a surface creature to your biome, there must be matching imprint icons in the two indicated subterrain spaces below it. So, if we wanted to add this surface creature to the slot here, we would first need a subterrain creature with the shelled imprint in this location and the scaled imprint in this one. So, let's assume with previous turns, we had placed these subterrain creatures here with the required imprint symbols. Now, we could add this surface creature to this slot.
And you can use these surface crack lines printed on your board to help you see which subterrain slots need to have the matching imprints. We saw earlier that subterrain creatures can have this decay imprint. This is special because it is considered wild, which means it can be treated as any type of subterrain imprint symbol. If we had these creatures in these slots, then this surface creature could be placed here as both of its required imprints are satisfied. Just remember, you can never place decay symbols side by side. Any creature with a decay imprint will have a reminder of its special rules in its bottom left hand corner. Also notice this slot in your subterrain area. It shows three imprint symbols. This means while the slot is empty, it satisfies any imprint requirement connected to it.
For example, this surface card could go here because we have a subterrain creature satisfying this requirement. And the symbol here satisfies this requirement. Later, we could add this creature here because again, its requirement on this side is satisfied here. And this symbol satisfies its other side. It's okay that both of these creatures needed different symbols in this area. This slot satisfies any of them. Just be aware if you place a creature in this slot, the symbols there will get covered up. And now the slot only provides the imprint showing on the creature you put there. Now rather than use the play a card action to add a creature from your hand, you can instead play one from the migration row. During setup, we created this migration row.
And these three cards are available for any player to use. So with the play a card action, we could, for example, take this one and put it here. Just know you cannot add these to your hand. You move your chosen creature directly to a valid space on your biome board. And after a card is played from the migration row, immediately reveal a new one from this migration deck to replace it. If this deck ever runs out, then cards taken from this row are no longer replaced. So, we now know how to play a card, either from your hand or from the migration row. Then, after you check the card's immediate action, all cards have an immediate action. For surface creatures, you'll find it in the area here, and for subterranean cards, it's located here. The symbols in these areas are not related to the immediate action and can be ignored for now. We'll see how they work a little later. As soon as you add a card to a slot, you may choose to resolve its immediate action. I say may because it may not be possible to resolve it, but even if it is, you can choose not to resolve it if you don't want to. That said, if you intend to resolve it, you must do that at the time the card is placed. For example, this effect tells us to draw two cards.
Anytime an effect lets you draw cards, they must come from either of these two decks in any combination, but not from the migration deck. You draw each card one at a time, deciding which deck to take from each time. So, now that I have taken one from the surface deck, I could take my second card from the surface or from the subterrain deck. For this immediate action, we're told to draw one card, then discard one. Discarding always comes from the cards in your hand. So after drawing one, I then discard any one I'm holding, which could include the one I just drew. Always discard face up to the right of the cards related draw pile. So surface creatures go here, and subterrain creatures go here. With this immediate action, discard any number of cards in your hand, and then after redraw that number of new cards plus one more.
Sometimes an action will instruct you to gain imprint tokens. In this case, any one of your choice. These are the tokens we put in the supply during setup. When you gain one, take it from here and put it into the topmost empty matching space of your biome board. So, if I gained a second of these later, it would go here. Just be aware, you can only have at most four of each type of imprint token. If you would ever gain a fifth, just ignore that effect. Also, tokens in the supply are limited. If you'd be owed one and all of its related color has already been taken, then you would gain nothing. As we'll see, imprint tokens on your board can earn you points at the end of the game, but can also earn you points during the game. A number within this symbol represents points. So, this immediate action says that you gain one point for each scaled imprint you have.
This means you count each example of that imprint at the top of every card in your biome and on any matching tokens, but do not include the imprint requirements on surface creatures or the imprints printed on your board here. Also, be sure you don't count any of the decay symbols you might have on your biome board. So, if our biome looked like this, and we were earning one point for each scale imprint, we'd gain 1 2 3 four points. Anytime you gain points during the game, add them to the total you have on your scorekeeping dial like this. We aren't going to go through all the different types of immediate action effects as how they work is explained on the cards themselves, and they will make more sense once we know more of the rules. That said, we do need to examine another area of a card when it's played.
Each will have a score type shown in this area when it's a surface creature and in the area here if it's a subterrain creature. These will always have a symbol on the left representing when the score type resolves and on the right it shows what you'll gain when it does. In both of these examples, they provide you with points. If the icon on the left looks like this, it means the score type resolves when the card is played. Now, there are other types of symbols you might find on the left, but they're resolved at different times, and we'll learn about those later. When you play a card to your biome after resolving its immediate action, if you can or wish to, then resolve its score type effect if it shows this when played symbol. In this case, we now add two points to our dial. We've now learned everything about the play a card action, which is also summarized on your player aid. But now, let's learn a different action you could instead take on your turn. Discarding one card to cycle out one card. To do this, put any one card in your hand into its related discard pile. Then you cycle out any one card from your biome. Cycling it out just means you also discard it. But cycling out has two other benefits. One, you're making room in your biome for a card to go into the space you just emptied. For example, if we cycle this out now, with a future action, we could play a card here. The other benefit is that some cards have a cycle out score type. We
learned about score types earlier and this was the score type that resolves when a card is played. But the symbol on the left here represents a score type that resolves when the card is cycled out. If we cycled this out, we'd gain three points. Some cycle out score types will instead show an imprint token. And in that case, you take that related token from the supply and add it to your biome board, as we learned about earlier. You can cycle out a card with a different score type, but when you do, its score type effect does not resolve when it's removed. Also, if a card leaves the subterrain row, it does not affect the surface card that originally needed it. So, this surface creature stays here. We can even add a subterrain creature here later that does not match the connected surface creatures imprint requirement. So again, to discard to cycle out means you first have to discard a card from your hand, which then allows you to pick a card in your biome to cycle out, which will resolve any cycle out score type it has, and then you place it in the related discard pile. Just know the card you initially discard from your hand to allow you to cycle out another card does not have any of its effects resolved. Sometimes an immediate action lets you cycle out a card. If so, do not discard a creature from your hand first. Skip right to cycling out a creature from your biome and resolve its cycle out effect, if
any. All right, with that we've covered the concepts related to cycling out, as well as how you can use cycling out as an action on your turn. But instead, you might choose to rest. Once you rest, you'll take no more actions during the current round. So only rest if there is not another action you want to perform. That said, if you cannot perform another action, then you have to rest on your turn. When you rest, first take the top rest tile from this stack and put it in front of yourself. The first player to rest during a round also collects this first player marker, which means they'll take the first turn when the next round begins. Either way, it's now time for the player who rested to score any cards in their biome with the rest score type.
These will show this symbol on the left and score you the points shown to the right. If I had just rested and this was in my biome, that means I'd earn two points, which I'd add to my score dial. A player who rested now draws five cards. And again, you can take these in any combination from the surface and subterrain decks, choosing which one to draw from with each one that you take. After you've drawn five cards, if you're holding more than eight, you must discard any you like until you're down to eight. And you only check this eight card limit after drawing cards from a rest action. It's okay to have more than eight during a round. Now, as I mentioned, after resting, you will not take any more actions during the current round, but each time it would come to your turn. If at least one other player has not rested yet, you add one point to your dial and then the next player still in the round would go. Eventually, all of the players will have taken the rest action. And that means it's time to resolve the year end shown here. First, give out the trophies one at a time. And we'll start with this one, showing the shelled imprint symbol. Each player now counts up how many shelled imprints they have on the cards in their biome and on the tokens they've collected. Keep in mind when checking your surface creatures, always ignore the requirement imprint symbols at the bottom. Only count the imprints shown on the top of a
card. Also, ignore any decay imprints. And the three imprints on this space if they're exposed. The player with the most shelled imprints now collects the shelled trophy and immediately earns five points. If there's a tie for the most shelled imprints, the player with the fewest points on their dial wins the trophy and the five points. But if there's still a tie, then the tied player who rested first that round wins. You then go through each of the other trophies, handing them out the same way by comparing each person's total number of related imprint symbols as shown at their tops. With the trophies assigned and scored, it's now time for the flood, where the annual waters will rise from within the planet and wash away all life forms in each player's subterrain area.
Well, mostly all of them. Normally, you send every card in your subterrain road to the discard pile, but players first check the rest tile they collected. If it has a retain value shown here, you may pick up to that many subterrain creatures to keep in your biome, removing the rest. This is optional. You can retain fewer or none of them. For each creature removed during the flood, check its score type for this flood symbol. When a card with this symbol is removed during a flood, you gain the indicated imprint token from the supply and add it to your biome. As we learned about previously, just keep in mind cycle out score types are ignored when a card is removed during the flood. Remember, these are only resolved when the card is affected by a cycle out effect specifically. With that though, we've seen all the symbols you'll find in the game, and you can refer to the back of the rule book for a handy guide to the various icons and effects you might encounter when playing. You'll also find these summarized on the back of your player aid. With the fled resolved, players now prepare for the next round. First, return all of the trophies and rest tiles to the game board as they were during the initial setup. Then discard anything remaining in the migration area and draw seven new surface cards to form a new migration deck, revealing the top three cards for a new migration row. The player who has the starting token now takes the first
turn of the new round, also known as the second year. The end of the second year is resolved like the first, but at the end of the third year, after resolving the flood, you move directly to final scoring. Here, each player checks the rest tile they collected during the third round and adds the points showing in this area to their dial. You only score these points at the end of the third year, not at the end of any of the previous years. Then you score one point for each imprint token you collected. After check for the lowest row where you filled in each space with a token and earn the points showing to the right. This is my lowest completed row, so I'd earn six points. Next, earn five points for every column you completed. I completed these two, so I'd earn five points from each. When collecting points, if you ever go above 99 points, bank 100 of them by taking one of these tokens and continuing from zero on the dial again. If you would earn more than 200 points, flip this token over and continue using the dial from zero again.
Either way, the player who now has the most points wins. In the case of a tie, the tied player with the most imprint tokens on their biome board wins. If there's still a tie, the tied player with the fewest cards in their biome wins. And if there's still a tie, the tied players share the victory. The game also comes with a solo mode which uses this card where you'll work to outscore an AI opponent. You can then flip the AI opponent to this side when you're ready for an even greater challenge. But those rules I'll leave for you to discover on your own. Otherwise, that's everything you need to know to play Oasis New Life on a Distant World. If you have any questions about anything you saw here, feel free to put them in the comments below and I'll gladly answer them as soon as I get a chance. You'll also find forums for discussion, pictures, other videos, and lots more over on the games page at Boardamegeeek, and I'll put a link to that in the description below.
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