Tend - BGG Solo-Mode w/ Foster the Meeple

Listen, I tend to have [music] very good ideas. I tend to like board [music] games. I tend I intend to win this board game. Tend. There should be more tend puns. I just can't think of any right now. Hello everyone. Welcome back to solo mode. My name is Jamie from Foster the Mele and I'm back again today with another solo playthrough.

And today's playthrough is going to be on Tend published by Ivy Studio and designed by there's four designers. We've got Austin Harrison, we have Zack Dixon, we have Kobe Sarnell and Max Anderson. So, lots of designers on this one. Now, Tend, my friends, is not a solo only game, but it can be played solo.

And actually, the solo mode is almost identical to the regular game. So, I'm very excited. I love this game. I've loved this game since I first played the prototype. I will, as per usual mention, I'm not great at it. I wish I was, but I do not score very well. Uh, this is the type of game where you have to like pick a couple things to focus on because if you focus on anything, you're definitely not going to do good.

So, as per usual with my solo playthroughs, I'm going to do a little overview of how the game works and then we're going to get into actually playing the game. So, let's do it. All righty. Let's take a look at how the game works. So, welcome down to the board or the table, I guess. This is a rolling right that has a lot going on.

It is definitely one of the more like heavy rolling rights that I've played. I would say there's a lot of different components that we're going to have to look at. So, essentially, the game is going to be played over 12 rounds, which is going to be tracked down here on the round tracker. During each round, we are going to be taking two turns or two tasks.

Now, we do have this handy dandy reference card that's going to go over how an actual round goes because there's going to be lots of different things for me to explain. I'm going to do my best to cover as much as I can, but not to overwhelm you and explain kind of what I'm doing as I do it, basically.

So, let's take a look at the round phases. The first phase is actually skipped in round one, and this is the one phase that is played differently during a solo game. This is called the neighbor phase. Now, in this game, we have to start, we'll have two cards on our right, two on our left, and we are going to look at those cards and choose one.

So, let's actually maybe do that now. So, I will explain why I'm, you know, picking these. But, we're basically we're getting two and we're going to choose one. So, let's do that. Now, the neighbor phase, um, what you're doing throughout the game is you can, anytime you get one of these things, you can gift it to a neighbor.

So, if you're playing a multiplayer game, if you have a card to your right, you can gift it to the neighbor on your right. And same with the left, gift it to a neighbor on the left. That will then give you this neighbor bonus, which allows you to cross off one of the neighbor rewards to get that reward.

Now, these are going to be worth points at the end of the game. So, you want to be a generous neighbor. You want to be gifting stuff away. This is part of the decision space that we have in this game because instead you could keep the thing that you get and you can get money for it or you can fill out your graph or you can cross something off.

There's lots to do. But if you're feeling kind, then you can gift it to your neighbor. Now, in a solo game, you're just going to gift the card to your neighbor and discard it immediately and get the neighbor bonus. Okay, that's all that you're going to do in that phase. But once again, we are going to be skipping this phase in the first round because obviously we haven't gifted anything cuz we haven't started to play yet.

After that, just so you know, once you've kind of given your card away, which can happen during any point in your turn, like as you're doing tasks or whatever, um during the neighbor phase, you will then refill if you have an empty gap. So, you should always have one card on each side. That's the neighbor phase.

Pretty straightforward. Then we go into the scoring phase. And this is also not going to be scored during the first round or it's not going to happen for a lot of rounds. you actually only have like three times that you're going to be scoring in this game. And it's easy enough to track it here on your round tracker.

So, at the beginning of the sixth round, the 10th round, and then at the end of the game, we are going to be scoring. So, for the first two rounds of scoring, we're going to be looking at these objectives here, and we're going to be putting our score that we have in objective one, objective two, and objective three.

So, at the beginning of round six, we'll score objective one. At the beginning of round 10, we'll score the uh objective two. And then at the final end of the game, we'll score three and everything else. Okay. Next, we go into the setup phase. So, that is where we are kind of replenishing our task options.

To start, we have five starter tasks that we have available to us. And I will go through all of the different tasks when we get to the one of the next phases, but we're essentially just refilling this. Um, after the first round, we're going to start pulling from this deck here. These cards are always going to be face up to show us what's coming next.

They're not available to us until they're down in this row. And we're going to keep replenishing until this row is full. We still have a few more starter cards that can get put out. And then the cards that we kind of mix in with it will get shuffled and then put in as the game goes on. There are three types of cards in here.

There are season 1, season 2, and season 3. So, we're going to get through all of those by the end of the game. Then we go into the growth phase. Now, the growth phase is actually going to happen in your little field area. So, if you didn't know, this is like a farming sim style game. So, you can farm fruit food.

I was going to say fruit and vegetables. They're kind of like alien style fruit and vegetables. You can farm food. You can farm animals. Uh let me just find these are all very tiny teeny tiny. This one might be easier to see. So, we're going to be planting things in our field. When you go into the growth phase, you are essentially just going to be ticking up your dye and then anytime that it's white symbol, you will get whatever that is.

In this case, it would be a pumpkin style thing. So, these are the uh food dice. So, like the fruits and vegetables. We have large, we have medium, and then we have small. Okay. Uh whenever you see the X, you're then going to actually remove it. It's been harvested. It's gone. Now, there's also animals.

So, this is an example of an animal dye. Same thing. Uh What you're going to do is just tick it up. Anytime that you get to a white, you are harvesting that thing. Now, in the animal dye, they never go away because the animals are just there and they're always producing. So, when you see this little kind of arrow loop, you're just going to continue to tick it up until we go again.

Okay? So, animals are giving you ongoing benefits, whereas the fruits and vegetables, you're getting it, and then you're eventually going to have to harvest it and remove it from your field. But that's the growth phase. Then we go into the main phase of the game and that's the task phase. During this phase, we're going to be taking two different tasks which we will be tracking down here in our round tracker.

That's how cuz listen, you're going to see, you all know I'm going to get lost as I play. So, this is how you kind of track what you do. And there are different tasks that you can do, main tasks. So, let's just go through those. And this is where a lot of these components come in. The first one is chopping.

Now, we have a scratch off card right here. So, if I choose to chop, I have to start at any of the top spaces of the line here. Or if I already have one, then I have to do one either in the top row or adjacent to one I've already dug. When you scratch one of these off, it's going to give you something.

It might be a resource. It might be another action that you can take. I'll explain it kind of as I go, but that's what you're doing here. You then get to use those resources immediately. Nothing carries over. So, if I were to, you know, chop a piece of wood, I would then have to choose where I want to use that wood.

Okay. Down here, we have a hatchet action. Now, I can't chop down here unless I have upgraded my hatchet because this costs two chop actions. The hatchet will give you two chop actions. Okay, once we get down to the bottom here, we can unlock lake fishing. So, let's talk about fishing next since that kind of led me into it.

Fishing, which is this one right here. We are going to Whoa. Not throw our dice. We have these two dice. We are going to roll them and then we are going to look. So we start with pond fishing. This is saying I can fish anywhere in column one, row five. So this is telling me right here, this little fish is what I'm fishing.

Which by the way, if I were to be able to fish that, look at this. I have this here and I could gift this to my neighbor in order to mark off one of my neighbor rewards. So, I could choose to do that or I could choose to keep the fish and use it. Now, a lot of these things, including wood, pretty much all of the resources are on the corporate commissary.

You can use them anywhere on here. You can use them for your neighbor rewards so long as it's printed somewhere, or you can sell them. So, this fish here lines up here. So, I can sell this fish for two coins or I can get this manifest. Now, the manifest, which is this shape and color, is going to go into our cargo manifest.

This is actually like where you're scoring a lot of your points, and that's where these markers come in. So, if I had fished this fish, chose to keep it, I could put these two blue fish dots anywhere in my cargo manifest. Now, the only main difference or the only thing to note here is after I already have one color kind of dotted in in a shape, I can't then next time I get that color, place it adjacent, orthogonally adjacent to where I already have that color.

You could do diagonal, but you can't do orthogonally adjacent. Okay? And you could put it wherever. So, I'm not having to go adjacent to everything. And there are five different colors that we can do that with. Okay? So you can sell it or you can put into your cargo manifest. Let's talk about the cargo manifest since we're here.

There's three stalls and we're going to score these at the end of the game. Now you'll see there's scoring points down here. Any of these colors in these boxes are worth one point unless it says something different at the bottom of that stall. In my first stall, any yellow stamps are worth nothing. But in my middle stall, yellow stamps are worth two points.

And on my far right stall, my green stamps are worth nothing. So I probably want to avoid putting yellow here and green here. Okay. If you ever complete a row, you get an extra action, whatever it says. All right. And then at the end of the game, we'll be scoring for each of our stalls. Cool. So that's the cargo manifest.

Next action. Let's uh actually I don't have one up here. Mining. Mining works the exact same way as chopping on the scratch card, except if you want to go below this line, you're gonna have to unlock your pickaxe. Okay? Takes two actions down below. And if you get to the bottom of the mine, you get to unlock your grotto fishing, which is one of the reasons why I want to talk about fishing.

So, at the bottom of the woods, you unlock lake fishing. At the mine, grotto fishing. And these are upgrades. We also have on here a broken bridge. So, if we fix up the broken bridge by putting in all of these resources, we unlock river fishing. Let's just say we unlocked river fishing. Now, we can either choose to fish in the pond or the river.

So, if I rolled these Oh, that's a good example. If you get this symbol, that basically means that you don't have to worry about that color. I could fish in any of the two row. Okay. This basically gives you better and better fish as you unlock better and better places to fish. Another thing to note is if you want even better chances at fishing, then you want to upgrade your fishing rod.

So, we have an upgraded rod. We have an upgraded rod, too. You can unlock those in any order that you want or not at all. Totally up to you. They just expand your area that you can catch, giving you more options. There's also lurs that we can unlock that once again give us better options. So these ones give us plus one fishing action if we have a lure.

So if we did the fishing action, we'd actually get to fish twice. Oh, another thing in mining, which kind of works in the same way as fishing, we have geodess. So if we hit a geode, then we're going to pull out this geo card. We are going to roll. So this is saying four and three. So, it's giving me this little brown thing.

And I could either use it anywhere or I can do the cargo manifest stuff. Maybe get some coins. We're just breaking open the geodess to see what's inside. The next task is tending. That's this symbol here. And that is where we go over to our field. So, we can tend in different ways. We can plant a crop, which is actually planting one of the fruits or vegetables.

Now, it's important to know though that in order to plant a crop, you have to have tilled soil, which are these squiggly lines. So, down here, I could plant this little pineapple because I have enough space for it, but I couldn't plant the pumpkin because I don't have enough space for it. So, that's one thing you could do with tend.

Uh, you can tick up a crop and adjacent. This is essentially watering your field. So, let's just say I know these aren't tilled, so please ignore um let's just say I had this and I chose to water this by ticking it up one. I'm going to tick up anything any of the food that's adjacent to it as well. Or with the tend action, you could choose to till six times, and that's by drawing these squiggly lines in your field, giving you more opportunity to plant more plants essentially.

That is the tend action. Now, there's a lot of other things that you're going to unlock throughout doing this, and I'm pretty sure those are all of the actions. Oh, there's also Zenith orders, which just gets you coins, and you can spend coins in a v variety of different areas. All right, let's walk through some of these other things and then we're just going to play and I'll explain things as I go.

So, starting over here, this is just showing the uh space that crops need. So, each of the different crops, there is also a trellis, trelluses that you can build. If you build a trellis, we have one type of fruit, vegetable, whatever that requires a trellis. So, you have to actually physically draw this symbol.

You can draw it on an empty space or one that's already tilled and only then can you place this type of fruit or vegetable in that area. It needs a trellis. It's all on the paper. I will mention that you can take a fruit or vegetable even if you can't plant it. Um but you just you have to wait until you have the space available to plant.

Next section down here is animals. So this is how you are going to get animals. So, in order to get animals, you actually you have to pay for them, first of all. Second of all, you have to have a fencedin area. So, these two straight lines are fences. All right. Uh so, in order to get an animal, you pay it's two coins for a small animal, which are these purple ones, three coins for a medium, and four coins for a large.

All right. These tick up in the growth phase which once again they're ongoing so they never like go away which is why they're more expensive. Now you can also take this grounds keeping you basically exchange it for coins or resources which allow you to either till soil or build fences before you can put an animal in a fence or on your area.

It has to be completely fenced in surround it. Now you can have multiple animals in a fence. So, the fenced in area can be bigger than the animal itself, and they can be moved throughout the game. All right. [snorts] Uh, broken bridge we already talked about. We have our upgrades, which we've kind of already talked about.

Now, you can upgrade upgrade your tend action as well, just like your hatchet and your axe. And this allows you plus one tend action. Um, then over here, this is indicating our chop level and our mining level. chopping level and mining level. So, anytime that we scratch something off in the chopping level that has a purple background, we're going to cross off one of these.

This is indicating our level and how we're getting better. Same thing is going to happen with mining, but it's going to be a yellow background. Okay, so that's what that is. Once again, as soon as you get the resource, you can use it. Neighbor bonuses we've already talked about. And then last thing on here is the energy bars.

You can spend coins to get an energy bar, which each have two uses. And each use will give you one additional action that you can take. And it could be whatever action. It could be 10, chop, fishing, or mining, whatever you want to do. I think that's everything over here. On this sheet, we have our cargo manifest.

We have our scoring and our round tracker. We've already talked about that. But we also have more things. We have our intern program. We've got season explorer. We've got all of these different things that you can use resources to unlock more things. as an example, one coin for one wood, three coins to do an extra action.

This one is you get all of these special things and you get to double your badge reward. Let's talk about badges. This will be, I think, the last thing and then we can actually play. So, down here we have all of these fun badges. You can spend different resources in order to unlock these badges, which basically says, "Hey, I'm I'm amazing at this thing.

No worries." Once you get three in a row, so three in any of these rows, you unlock a medal. The medals can be used over here to get coins or to get stuff to put in your cargo manifest. If you are able to cross everything off on that badge, you will get these points at the end of the game. There's fives, there's tens, there's 15s, there's 20s.

Okay, if you've unlocked seasoned explorer, that will double your badge points. So, there's a lot there's just a lot. There's a lot going on. Like I said, you can't focus on everything in this game. So, I will not be focusing on everything. I'm going to pick a couple of things to do and that's all that I'm I'm going to do.

All right. That's all that I'm going to do. So, I think that's everything. Once again, I'll explain kind of as we continue on, but to start before we actually like play, let's look at our objectives. So, at the end of season 1, which will be at the beginning of the sixth round, we're going to look at this cruncher, we're going to gain four points for each energy bar collected.

So, we want to focus maybe on some energy bars. At the end of season two, which is going to be at the beginning of the 10th round, we're going to gain 15 points for filling the left and right edges of the cargo manifest. Then at the end of the game or at the end of season three, we are going to do seasoned worker.

We'll score one point for every level unlocked in mining and chopping. When we take a task, we pick one. We write it down. Okay? And then we can't do that same task for our second task. We have to pick a different task. However, if there's two cards that are the same, that means we could do the same thing twice.

But there just has to be a card for it. As these cards come down, this is the last thing and then we're going to play. As these cards come down, it's going to show us some new things that we can do. So, there's going to be some kind of a choice. So, this is mining or fishing. Then, if you meet this condition, this one is if you have two plus mining levels, you also get this benefit.

So, you're trying to maximize what you do on your turn. You're trying to do combos. You're trying to have a good time. Okay? That's all that you're trying to do. And it's hard. And in the rule book, they have some of your uh some of our favorite uh content creators here who have done the solo mode and we are trying to beat their best score, which is crazy.

Um because the last game I played, I got 72 and the lowest one is uh 111. All right. So, we're just trying. We'll we'll just compare ourselves with other people, which you're not supposed to do, but we're gonna do it. So, that's going to be fun. Okay. I think that's everything. Now, let's get started.

I've got all of my markers right here. They do give you with a black marker to mark everything off. I'm going to do my best to not lose track of what I do, but if I do, I do. And I I do. Here's my strategy for this game, cuz once again, you can't do everything. I am going to try to get my energy bars.

The actions that I want to focus on, I want to do chopping and fishing. I'm going to pick two. I'm probably not going to tend like at all, which is going to be crazy. But if once again, if I try to do everything, I might mine here or there. I don't know. It depends on what's going to come up. All right.

But chopping and fishing are going to be my bread and butter. And when I play Stardew Valley, that is exactly what I do. So there you go. Okay. So we have to enter our username. I'm going to say jam. Egg GG. Let's get started. So round one, we skip the neighbor phase. We skip the scoring phase. We skip the setup phase.

We skip the growth phase. We are going directly into the task phase. And like I've already said, I plan to do fishing and chopping. So let's start with some fishing. Okay. Okay. So, I'm going to put right up here F for fishing. Okay. We're going to take our dice and roll them. All right. So, we have one and four.

And won't you know it? I I didn't catch anything. That's literally the worst thing that could have happened. You love to see it. Nothing. I've caught nothing. That can happen. This is why we want to upgrade our fishing rod. We're not off to a good start. My second action I am going to be chopping. Okay, so that's where we'll take this.

And they actually give you a nice little gold coin. And I believe there's an app that you can get as well. Now on the chopping and mining, it will show you a path of least resistance, like the quickest way down, meaning this is where some of those double chops will be. Um, but I'm actually going to I'm just going to start in the middle, which was a great choice.

So, this might be a little bit difficult to see, but I did get a wood and it does have a purple background. So, I have a wood. I think I'm going to start working on upgrading my fishing rod. I'm not going to bother with this one cuz it'll be too hard for me to get. So, [music] I'm going to work on upgrading my fishing rod.

And then it was purple. So, I can go over here and that's going to give me a coin. So, I'm gonna do this to work on that energy bar. Okay, these, by the way, this also has a dot. So, I could have dotted if I wanted, but I kind of like to cross things out, you know, to each [music] their own kind of thing.

So, that's round one. In a solo game, this is going to go relatively fast. Okay, so now we're going into the neighbor phase. I didn't do anything for my neighbors. Sorry about it. Going to the scoring phase. Not time to score. We are going to go on to the setup phase. So we discard all of these. We are going to fill in the first three.

Okay. We are going to bring these two down. And then we are going to flip these over so we can see what's coming. All right. Now we are in the growth phase. We're basically going [music] to be skipping the growth phase every round because I I don't know. I might plant something, but I kind of doubt it.

It's It's hard to know what's going to come up, but just so you know, if I skip it, [music] that's why. Task phase. So, well, we're definitely going to go fishing again, I think. And over here, we do have a chop action. And it wants you to have either fishing rod upgrade unlocked. Not going to happen.

Two mining levels. Not going to happen. Okay, so we're going to go fishing first. And hopefully I actually catch something this time. Oh, that's good. Okay, so it's a two and then any. So I could take anything in the second row here. Uh, okay. So that's actually great because this one I can either take three coins or three in my cargo manifest.

And I'm going to take the three coins because I can't gift it. So, I'm going to take those three coins and I'm actually going to use those three coins to unlock my fishing rod since I've already had bad fishing luck. So, I've I've done my fishing. We got to mark it down here. And now I should be better at fishing.

So, I could if I wanted to I could fish [music] again or I could chop again. Choa chopa choa. We also want to start working on upgrading that hatchet so that we can chop more. Uh, we're going to chop. We're going to chop. So, I could go any of the top rows or I can go down. And I am going to just go down.

Ooh, this is great. Okay, so this gives me plus one chop action. So, I get to go again, which I love. Okay, so we're just going to keep going straight down here. And that gives me a wood. So, I do not need wood to upgrade my hatchet, but I could use wood to work towards the broken bridge to unlock river fishing.

Although, I'm hoping to get lake fishing at some point. Now, some of these are going to be like, look, river fishing unlocked. So, we know that card is going to come up eventually. [music] Or I can use it down here. But I think or I could just get a coin. I'm already overwhelmed with choice. [music] I think I'm going to Oh, you're the wrong side.

I'm going to work towards [music] some of these badges cuz last time I only unlocked one and it wasn't good. I'm already overwhelmed with all the decision. Okay, so that was my two tasks I did. Chopping and fishing. [music] Okay, we go to the neighbor phase. Didn't do anything. That's not good. We definitely want to do some [music] stuff because we need those blueprints.

Scoring. No setup. Let's [music] do it. So, all of these get discarded. This is going to go here. Now, we are going to shuffle these up and then pull those other two down. And then we're on to round three. fishing. Oops. I need another one. All right. Okay. And let's flip these. Two chopping levels, maybe.

[music] All right. So, this one wants two mining levels, river fishing unlocked. Not going to happen. But what we can do, I might take this zenith orders. And what we're going to do here is we are going to unlock an energy bar. So you just circle it and then each time you use it, you can cross it off.

Okay? So you can use it for you can't do two coins again, but you can tend, chop, mine, or fish. And you get plus one action per use, one use per task. So I couldn't do fishing and then use that again. Okay, so that was my first action. And now for the second action. I do think maybe we'll do Oh, there is no chopping.

How scandalous. How very scandalous. Let's do fishing. There's no chopping. And I wanted to do chopping to see if I can get more chopping levels. So, okay, a four and a a two. I was like, but we have unlocked this. So, I can actually do this whole cross because we've upgraded our rod. Um, and so none of these ones still.

Good golly. Uh, but we did do this one again, which is either three coins or three blue. We have to start working on that blue or on our cargo manifest. So, I do think I'm going to put three [music] here. Whether or not that was a good idea, I don't know. But we have to do this. We have to [music] We have to do it.

Now, I could use an energy bar to fish again, which might not be a terrible idea because I would really like to do that. So, I keep doing that. We're going to cross this off for an additional fishing action. All right. So, we've got five and three. I keep doing that. But you'll see here, we've actually done this.

We were able to catch it with our upgraded rod. So, I am going to give this to my neighbor, which allows me one neighbor bonus. And that's actually going to be a piece of rock. So, now I need to figure out where to put the rock. Hm. It is worth one yellow cuz I don't know that I want to bother with that.

So, let's just do the one yellow. And I'm going to put it over here. Uh I probably should have put it down here, but it's fine. I wanted to put it over here because I put two in there. Uh because it's worth more points in here. Okay, those are our two well technically three tasks. Cool. So, now we're going to go into the neighbor phase.

So, we actually do get to draw two. Now, see, this is why I might want to take a tand action. So, if I decide to, you can like if I'm like, oh, I'm not really working towards these things. At the next neighbor phase, I can discard these and just draw one um for each and not get a choice. So, [music] I might do that, but we'll see.

All right, scoring phase. Not there yet. We are going into the setup phase. Let's do this. One, [music] two, three. Boop. Boop. Now, look at this. I definitely will want to do this because either fishing rod, either of the fishing rod upgrades unlocked. So, that's going to give me an additional thing.

Okay. Growth phase. No. Let's do this. So, 12 tilled soil. No. Two chopping levels. No, not yet. But if we use this to chop maybe hard to say. So I am going to chop first. So let's chop. Okay. Um and we're going to chop with this action because we have our fishing rod unlocked. So we are going to get that.

But we'll do our chop first. Now I could go over. I could go under cuz I'm not even [snorts] close to unlocking this. Let's go over one. Dang. I was really really hoping that it would be purple. It wasn't. Okay, so that's going to give me a tree stump which I could use for two coins or I can use somewhere in here.

I don't think there's anything over here that needs it. So, I might use it for the coins to work towards this. I'm also going to get this, which I'll use here. Okay. Um, I think that's everything. So, I chopped. I did my stump for coins and I got this. Okay. So, I didn't get my second chopping level, which kind of sucks, but that's okay.

Now, I could chop again. I'm just looking to see maybe I should tend because this needs a pineapple. Or I could mine because that's for mining. But they're way the heck down here, you know, so that's not going to be helpful. Oh, I could get a mud up here. Let's chop again. I do have another chop. So, let's chop again.

Chopa chopa choa just to see. I could tend, but I think I'm going to chop. And let's go down here. Okay, so it didn't give me what I wanted, but it's going to give me this. So, I have one coin, which I will spend [music] here. And then I also have a stump. I'm getting lots of stumps. You know, I'm [music] stumped.

A stump is two coins. So, I'll use the coins. Okay. [music] Now, I do have another energy. So, I could chop again, but I don't think I'm gonna because I can't get down here yet, [music] you know, which isn't great. So, we chop chopped chopp. Let's move on to the next round. I was really hoping I'd find a piece of mud that I could gift away, but I didn't.

So, neighbor phase. Now, I do think this is risky, but I am going to get rid of these [music] and just draw. There we go. Perfect. Fishing. That's what we want it to see. Okay. Uh, scoring phase. No setup. Yes. Look at these ones. One animal owned or two chopping levels. I do have two chopping levels, so I'll have to do that one.

Okay, here we are. growth. No. Back to the task [music] phase. So, at the beginning of the next phase, we are going to be scoring this. So, we need to keep that in mind cuz I only have one unlocked. So, if I get two coins, I should put them here. Now, we definitely want to do this. And I think we definitely want to do fishing [music] so that we get this mud.

We could do something crazy with it. So, let's go fishing. Four and four. Okay. So, I could gift that away, which I probably will because I need to get this unlocked in order to upgrade [music] my hatchet. We're getting I'm not going to score well. I can already feel it. So, that's going to give me a wood, which we'll put over here.

Okay. Uh, [snorts] and because I use this and I have two chopping levels, I get the mud. And I am going to use the mud. Could give me two yellow. Or it could give me two coins. And I should use the coins to do this. Perfect. All right. So, what did I do? I chopped. No, I didn't. I fished. Okay. So, I could fish again.

Um, yeah, I think I'm going to fish again and then with my energy. Okay, then I am going to probably chop for my second. So, this is my fish. So, I could do anything in four. So, I could do this, which I am going to do, which might seem silly, but it's going to unlock this blueprint for me, which I I need.

Um, so I've done both of my neighbor things. I'm a very nice neighbor, FYI. [music] Uh, okay. So, that was my two fishing because of this. And then I'm going to chop chopa chopa choa. Okay, I still don't have the hatchet. So, let's go maybe here. It's giving me a stump, man. I should have been working on this cuz I've gotten so many freaking stumps.

I am stumped. And I don't really want to upgrade the rod again. I don't want to build fences. So, a stump will give me two coins. Oh, yeah. Okay. I'm going to take the two coins. So, I'm going to do this so I can get this copper over here. And then I am going to take this so I can get this wood here, which is going to give me a metal.

And that metal is going to be three coins or two of these purples. And I am going to take the purples. So I need to also start looking at this. So I am going to put them here. How many was it again? Two. Cuz I need to get the left and right edges. So full down. So that's what we need there. Okay. So that was from my chop.

From this I did this those two coins. I did the wood which gave me the metal. I think that's I think that's everything. Okay. So, um I do have two more extra. I could chop again, but I kind of want to wait. I really need [music] something here. Okay, I think that's everything that I'm going to do. So, we now go on to the uh neighbor phase.

So, I'm going to [music] get two on each side to replace. And I'm definitely going well, not much choice there. So, I'm definitely going for the fishing ones cuz they seem to be easier. And I really want to do this one in particular so I can get that purple to unlock my hatchet so I can get down here.

Now we're going into scoring phase and we actually do get to score. So I we're going to score objective one. Gain four points for each energy bar collected. I have collected two so I will get eight points. So you're just going to write that right here. Okay. Okay. Then we're going to go into the setup phase.

Let's do that. Shuffle these bad boys. Okay. And then we'll bring these down. So, this one wants plus five mining levels. Nine boxes covered with mining goods. We don't have that. [laughter] Okay. Farming goods. Grotto fishing unlocked. Well, that's not happening. Okay. So then we go growth. We're not.

Now we're into the task phase. The next thing at the beginning of 10 is we're going to be looking at these edges. So we probably want to fill those up because that's going to give us 15 points, which is not nothing. Cool. So what do we want to do? Plus two mining levels, plus five mining levels. So I am not going to get any of those things.

None of these are giving me the Oh, one is giving me the option for fishing. So, we are going to go fishing for our first action to see if we can hopefully get something over here. So, we have five and two. And we can do this. So, it's giving me this. I really wanted it to be this. Mhm. Okay. So, I basically only have this blue thing, which is either a coin or one blue stamp.

Neither of which are super helpful. I think I'm going to take the blue stamp and we'll put it here. Okay. I should have put these three down. I don't know why I didn't. I immediately regret that. Um, okay. And then I actually think I might use my energy bar to go fishing again. Two. Two. That's better.

Not really. 2 gives us this. I mean, it's better for like this thing, but it's not giving me the fishy that I need. Um, but it is giving me three blue or three coins. And here's the thing, this is crazy, but I'm going to take the three coins because this will hopefully give me the purple blueprint. Uh, I need one more coin to do that.

All right. [music] So, my second action, cuz that was my energy bar action. There's no chopping. So, I actually think I'm going to go digging in the mines. Let's go right up here. Oo. So, that's giving me plus one. Let's go over one cuz I'm not planning on unlocking anything. Okay, that's going to give me a rock, but it's a yellow rock.

Okay, so we're getting a rock and a coin. The coin I'll use for this, which I'll use for this, which unlocks my hatchet, which is great. And the rock, well, I could use the rock for either a coin or one yellow stamp. Not really working towards anything else that needs a rock. Um, because I'm not really working on the mines here.

See, and I've already like neglected the pages. Okay, what did I do? I minded. I got to write that down. So, I think I'm actually going to take the yellow stamp. I definitely don't want to put it here. It's worth more here. Am I going to get an Well, let's try it. I'll put it here. Even though it would be worth more in the center.

I don't know. Okay. Now, I could do the mines again because I have another energy. Um, I just don't know if that's worth it. I should probably save it for like the hatchet or something. So, no. So, that's my two tasks. Let's Well, I've skipped right ahead. I'm sorry. Let's go in the right order. So, neighbor, no scoring, no setup.

I was doing it in the right order. I was just being fussy. Okay, let's do this. >> [snorts] >> So, one animal owned. No. Nine boxes covered with farming. No. Grotto fishing. No. I already know I'm not doing very good. [laughter] I'm not I'm not doing good at all. Okay. So, we do have our hatchet unlocked.

So, we are definitely going to want to chop cuz we're going to get to chop two times. So, let's chop because I have my hatchet. Um, there's only one chop action. So, I can either chop twice up here or once down. And we definitely want to go down. And let's go here. Why not? Oh, perfect. Okay, so that's giving us a purple tree stump.

So, purple is here. So, we're getting wood and a stump. Now, the stump can give me two coins. Is there anything I need the coins for at the moment? I could do [sighs] I'm going to do the energy bars, honestly, because I just want more. Um, okay. And I did the tree. So, I could I'm going to use my energy bar for sure.

I just don't know if I want to use it to chop again. I think I do. So, that energy bar is completely used. We are going to chop again. Woo. Okay. So, it gave us a bone. Now, the bone can't be used over here. I could do three yellow, which I will do. I just would really like to put them in here. 15 points versus two.

It'll be worth more if I do it down here. So, I'm going to do three yellow. Okay. For that bone that I got. And that was the double action for the energy bar. So now I get to do my second thing. And I will be fishing. I almost have lake fishing unlocked. So let's go fishing. One. One. Great. Um okay.

So, I can either gift it, which will give me this copper, which isn't much, or I can get one. It's not good either way. I'm getting one coin either way and one stamp. I'll take the coin. So, I will I'll gift it. No, I won't. Yes, I will. I'm gonna gift it. Oopsies. I'll gift it so that I can get this, which I will immediately use for the one coin, which I will use to unlock my last energy bar.

Okay, now I could go fishing again, but I think I'm going to save it. I just I think I'm going to save it. I don't know. So, that's Oh, I just went fishing. So, that's both of my actions. Mhm. Okay. Oh my gosh. All right. So, next round I get to Well, I'm just going to keep taking the fish because at least it's the only thing that I know I will do, you know.

And by the way, at the end of the game, I'll get three points for each one of these that I've [music] crossed off. I can't remember if I mentioned that, but I don't think that I did. scoring. No. Let's get rid of all of this. And here we go again. All right. So, that one's five chopping levels. I only have four.

This one's lake fishing. Maybe I can get it. We'll see. Okay. So, growth, no task. Ow, I banged [music] my elbow. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to try to get lake fishing unlocked. So, I'm going to do this. Probably use an energy to do it twice. We'll see. So, let's chop this one. We're going down.

Oh, nice. Nice. Okay. So, it's giving us a little bit of sap and it's purple. So, that's going to give us some wood. Let's do this. And then we're getting sap which is down here which is very good. Problem is I could put it in here. It's going to be worth so much more in here. So I am going to stamp.

How many more? It's worth nothing here. Okay. Here. Look. I'm going to do this. This seems so silly. Like all of these could have been two [music] points in here, which is probably more than I would have gotten from that if I'm even able to do it. Okay, it's fine. Everything's fine. I am going to use an energy to chop again down here.

All right, I got another sap. That's great. So, that's going to be four coins. And I have unlocked lake fishing, which will be great for this. [music] Okay. So, I can get four coins or I could do four more yellow. Will four coins do me any kind of good? I can use three here to get another action. That's pretty good.

But I think I'm going to do this. And I'm weirdly >> [laughter] >> If I do this, it's going to be 2 4 6 eight points [music] at the end of the game. If I do this, I don't know what it will be, you know. So, let's just do this. I'm going to do 1 2 [music] 3 4. Okay. All right. So, I double chopped chop chop because of my energy bar.

Now, my second action I I'm going to do this and I am going to go fishing. um fishing and now I have my lake fishing unlocked. So I get the bottom benefit which is very good because I get both of those things. All right, so I could do anything in the one and I could do either but this one I think is a bit more lucrative.

Um yeah, definitely. Okay, this one down in the corner is going to be four of these blue. I'm definitely doing it. Let's do it down here. Okay. Um, so there's that. Now I could fish again, but that seems silly. So, let's not. Yeah, we're not going to we're not going to do that. That sounds silly. Okay, I think that's everything for this round.

I didn't gift anything. I only have one energy extra action left and I still have a lot of game left unless I do the three coins [music] and I have one more round and I need 1 2 3 4. So I I'll want to save it. Okay. Yeah, we'll want to save it. Okay, neighbor phase. No, nothing. Um let's go [music] to scoring.

We're not doing that yet. So, we will set up. We go. Okay. Flip these over. We're getting close to the end. Uh, nine plus boxes covered with fishing goods. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 [music] eight. I need one more. Two plus animals own. Two plus chopping levels. Either. Okay, so both of these are giving me additional things.

Okay. So, I will go. This is the Here's a problem. This is a problem. I'm going to do this first because it will let me unlock this, which will let me do purple. I can't I need yellow here, blue here, yellow here, [music] blue here. Okay, I need to think about this. Think, think, think, think. I'm gonna be chopping and fishing.

So, let's chop. Let's chop a chop a chopper first. Okay. Chopping. We're chopping. Um, and we'll do this. No, we'll do it with this one. So, I'm going to get this. Okay. So, let's chop. Now, I could chop really anywhere, but I have the hatchet. So, I may as well I'm going to go here. I think that's a geode.

Nice. Okay, so that's purple. Which gives me a wood. I will use it here. And it gives me a geode. Nice. See what we've [music] opened. I could take anything in five. The best thing in five is this one. [music] But oh, here's what sucks. This is what sucks. Here's what sucks. So, I need something that's going to give me two.

So, I could take this for two. They're going to be worth nothing, but I feel like I need to do that. Or I could take three coins, which also [music] doesn't really do anything. Okay, I'm going to have to [music] I could do any of those ones. I'm going to do the two yellow even though these are not going to be worth anything at the end of the game cuz yellow is zero points in here.

Now I just need two more stamps to get my 15. If I'm focusing on this and it's just totally not worth it, I can't be held responsible for my actions, honestly. Okay, so that was my chop. And then I'm going to get this because I have two chopping levels, way more than two, which is going to get me this, which is going to get me a medal, a silver medal.

So that's going to be three purple, which I will use here. I need one [music] more thing and I need it like now. Okay, but that was all one action. [music] So, next I'm going to go fishing and then I'm also going to get this thing. So, let's fish. So, I could do anything in the third row. All right.

So, these ones are definitely best. Yeah, these ones are best. They're going to give me three blue stamps, which I will take. Okay, so I'll be able to do that, which is good. That's good. And then I get [music] this thing now. What's that worth? One coin or one yellow. Neat. Is there anything? Maybe I will do this.

Do I try and give myself some extra actions near the end? Oops, [music] I went fishing. I think now I could go fishing again if I wanted to. I don't know that I'm going to be able to unlock any of these other badges, which is so silly of me, but we'll see. Now, I could go fishing again, but I think I'm going to hold it.

What is it? Score one point for every level unlocked in mining. Okay, maybe I'll start I'll start switching over to mining. Although I need more wood and I need mud, which I get through up here. Okay, so I could use this again to go chopping again. See if I can get wood and mud to complete this. But we still have three rounds.

So let's [music] just let's just wait. Okay, that's the end of that round. So we are in our neighbor phase. No scoring phase. Yes, we're scoring this. I'm going to get 15 [music] points. You'll love to see it cuz I got both of the edges complete. Um, right. Perfect. So, now we're going to get at the end of the game, we'll be looking at mining and chopping levels.

So, we did our scoring phase. Let's do this very close to the end. Okay. All right. [music] Let's see. Whoopsies. All right. So, no river fishing unlocked. No two mining levels. No tilled. No. 15 boxes of no mining goods. I don't think we have any of those. So, we're into our task phase, I think. Mhm.

What do I want to do [music] here? I still need wooden mud to complete this, which will get me [music] that. I think I should do this. So, I think I'm going to chop. I'll use this one to chop. And because I have my hatchet, I actually get to chop twice. So, let's go one. [music] Oh, nice. But that's not what I needed.

So, I get shot twice. Two. Oh my god. Okay, that's okay. So, I got two purple. So, I get a tree and a stump. a stump and I get a mud. So, I still have one stump and [music] then this metal. A stump is two coins which I will use here to unlock this. Okay. And then I get the metal which is silver. So, it's three purple or three coins.

I will choose the three purple. Okay, let's It doesn't really matter unless I could fill up one of these rows. Let's try for an extra fishing action. Okay. Did I get everything? I think I did stuff in that. Now I have gotten this which is good. I got one batch. [laughter] Okay. And I did What did I do?

I chopped. Okay. So I could I don't want to do that again. But I do have one of any action and I still have one energy bar. So I am going to go. Do I want to mine or do I want to fish? [snorts] I think [music] I want to go fishing. So let's fish. Four and a three. So, four, [music] three. Um, okay. So, I could do any of those, [music] right?

So, I'd want this one, which is this. So, I could do three blue or three coins. Or I can try to unlock some more of this [music] stuff. I don't think I'm going to be able to. Three coins. Get me some wood. Get me one wild good to be used on a badge. H I think I'm going to take the blue. We'll try to fill this up, I suppose.

Okay, good. Then that was this fishing. So, I don't have Do I want to go fishing again? Not getting a lot from badges, but I might go fishing again to see if I could do another one of like these things cuz this is going to get me points at the end. So, let's just see. Woo! One and a two. Okay, so I could do this one or this one, which would get me this or two coins.

So, I think I'll do this for that, which will get me an iron bar, which is one yellow stamp or one coin. One yellow stamp or one coin. Or I could try to use it over here. I just don't think that's worth it. I think the stamps are more worth it. So, I'm going to do a yellow stamp right here. So, they're worth two points in there.

Brain, brain, brain, brain. Okay. So, that was my extra. I've used up all my energy bars. I do still have one extra action over here. I don't know if I was supposed to use it right away. I don't think so. I don't actually know if I was supposed to use that right away. Um, so I'm not going to. So if I did that wrong, I apologize, but I don't think I [music] was I don't think I needed to.

I think you can save them. Oh, great. These both suck. [laughter] Okay, [music] that's okay. So, scoring phase, no. Setup [music] phase, yes. We have two rounds left. These down. So, this one, lake fishing unlocked. 15 boxes covered with fishing goods, which I think I have 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14.

Okay. Nine with mining goods. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 I definitely have that one. Two chopping levels. cuz I don't have that one. So, we have lake fishing. So, let's do this. I will go fishing, I think. And these blueprints. I'm going to go fishing and see if I can get that blueprint cuz that will give me two hearts, I think.

I don't know. Let's go fishing. It's going to give me a bone regardless. So, three and a one. Another bone. Or three and a one, which gives me wood. But I definitely want the bone. And I Or I could do Ooh, that might be [music] better. That one would give me a four square. That will give me a four square or four coins, which could get me a blueprint.

Okay, I'm going to take the squares. I think the this is going to give me the most points at the end of the game. So, this is just what I'm going to focus on. It just doesn't fill in here like I would like it to, but that's okay. Let's put it down here where it will fit. Why did Oh, and I I was like, why did I say that would give me a bone?

A bone. So Bowen's going to give me three yellow or two coins, but I think the yellow once again is going to win out because it's going to give me lots of points at the end. Lots and lots of points. So what did I say? Three yellow. One, [music] two, three. Very good. Okay, so that was fishing. Remember, I still have one more extra action here.

So, I think I think I might do this one. My interpretation, and I actually don't know 100% if I'm right, is that um it says nine plus boxes covered with mining goods, which I'm pretty sure is my cargo manifest, those boxes. So, that's what I'm assuming. So, it's four, five, six, seven. Yeah, I have way more than nine.

All right, which means I could do this. So, I am going to go mining. Maybe I'll go down here. Plus one shop. Okay. So, that's going to give me this. I was really hoping it would unlock one of these, but it [music] didn't. So, that's going to give me one of these chrome things, which I could use a yellow for.

I really should have worked more on badges because if I had been working on the badges, you know, all right, I'm doing mining. Although, I could try. But what's the point? So, it's going to give me one yellow, which is going to give me two points at the end of the game. Put it up down here. Try to make sure it's not next to another yellow.

Okay, now I do still have this. Perhaps I will wait until the end. Why didn't I do this? That would have given me an extra thing. That was silly of me. It was very silly of me. But that's [music] okay. All right, that's okay. So, you never know. Um, do I want to bother? I kind of want to exchange them.

Those are the exact same. That was That's good. That's cool. That's cool. We're not scoring, but we are doing setup. This is our final round. One, two, three, four, five. So, plus eight mining levels. No. Uh, plus 15 boxes covered with farming goods. No. Plus five mining levels. No, this is not going to be [laughter] a very good last round.

Uh, okay. Let's do let's do mining first. See if I can get more of these unlocked. All right. So, let me do this mining. Okay. I'm just going to go down, I think. Oo, this gives me plus one and a coin. So, a coin. What can I use that for? Not much. [snorts] Um, sure. Okay, so that's going to give me plus one.

I can't go down here because I don't have the upgraded hatchet. So, maybe I'll go over. Yay, a mining level. So, that's going to give me a coin and a stone. And [snorts] a stone will could give me another coin, which could give me this blueprint, which could give me a heart. They're not worth [music] anything extra, but I think that's the only thing it's really kind of good for.

Or a yellow. You know what? I'll do the yellow in here because that's going to give me more points. That's what I'm here for. I'm here to get some points, you know. All right, so that was mining. Now I'm going to do fishing, I think. I really wish [music] that cuz Yeah, it's fine. [laughter] Oh my god.

Um, okay. Let's do fishing. Anything in the two. Anything in the two. Um. Oh, that could give me a geode. That could be good. So, I will Why did I say it would give me a geode? [music] Oh, right. I was like, why did I say that? So, I will gift this to my neighbor to do this, which will get me a geode.

Roll our dice. Okay. One and three. Okay. So, that will give me either Well, it's going to give me three yellow. Can I put those somewhere? Can. But where? Oh my god. Can I not have to make sure they're not touching anything? But I think they will be. One of them won't be if [music] I do. Whoopsies.

If I do this one, two, three, and that one's going to be worth nothing. Trash. I don't think there's anywhere else I could have put them. Freaking yellow everywhere. Okay. So, there was that. Now, what am I doing? I was fishing. I'm going to use this. I guess I'll use it for fishing. I'll just do fishing again.

Five and two. So, there's a bone or anything around it. Now, this one is worth way more. So, we'll use this one. It's going to be four blue. Now I got to find a place where I could possibly put it. I might not have a place. Yes, I do. Four blue. One [music] 2 3 four. Trying to fill up this cargo manifest, you know.

Okay, so that's my fishing. And I think that's everything cuz I've used this. I think I've I think I've done everything. Can you imagine if you were trying to do literally all of the actions? I didn't tend not even one time. I think tending is the only thing I didn't do. So, I like left a whole section of this just untouched basically.

Okay, so now we're going to go on to final scoring. So, the first thing we're going to do is here. Score one point for every level unlocked in mining and chopping. So, it's 7 8 9 points. Okay. And now we are going to score our stalls. And then we're going to score our neighbors and our badges. [music] So for badges, I'll just put a five right now cuz I already know that that's all.

I only unlocked one badge. I have marker all over my finger. All right, let's do stall one. So the yellow is not worth anything in here, but we have 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11. Okay. Uh, I'm going to do stall three because this one I'm going to have to do some doubles. So, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19.

Okay, I did it again. Uh, and then over here. So, yellows are worth two. So, I have 2 4 6 8 [music] 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34. Okay. And then neighbor in a solo game, these are each worth three points. So, in a multiplayer game, it's I think if you have you get three points for each additional one that you have in comparison to your neighbor.

But anyways, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 points. Okay, now we calculate. I need my calculator. 8 + 15 + 9 + 11 [music] + 34 + 19 + 18 + 5 = 119. Woo! 119. That's not too bad. Let's have a look. Who do we beat? All right, [music] we beat Paula Deming. We beat the Hungry Gamer. We beat Matthew Jude.

We beat Von. We beat Carly. We didn't quite get to Monnique. Is what it is. But that's pretty Look, that's like middle of the pack. Now, these, by the way, are the requirements. I don't know if I've actually did that. upgrade a pickaxe and hatchet. So, no. Fish and chop only. No. Completely fill stall three.

No. Unlock all fishing areas. No. Seasoned explore. No. So, like really, I didn't do like as good as both. Whatever. If we're just looking at numbers, then I am middle of the pack, which is fine by me. But my friends, that is 10 from Ivy Studio. I love this game. I love a crunchier like roll and write.

This is like look how big this is for a roll and write. There's a lot going on. And like I said, there's there's like a million strategies you could do because I didn't tend at all. I could have went all in on fishing and unlocked all the different kinds of fishing and not bothered with anything else.

I could have focused on my badges instead because there's a lot of points in badges if you're able to unlock them. But the thing is, you got to focus on so much stuff. this is important. Like everything is important and it's super fun. Lots of variability. Like I said, there's a bunch of different objective cards.

There's uh more of some of these ones. And there's also these are all just the basic versions of these cards. There's also advanced versions which I didn't use because I knew my score would be lower if I did and I didn't do that. Anyways, that's TEND. If you're interested in learning more about TEND, I will link the BG page in the description below.

But once again, my name is Jamie from Foster the Mele and Board Game Geek. I will see you again next month, but until then, happy gaming and goodbye.