Clandestine: A City of Secret Societies

0:00 Clandestine is on the table or clandestine, however you want to pronounce it. This is the next game from Brooks Fun Games. They had done Legacies, very different game. Very different. Uh and that was a while ago. I can't remember if they've done anything between now and then, but this is their next big release uh coming to crowdfunding. And it's a game of it's not a cult. No, it's secret society. secret societies. Uh clandestine organizations. The big headline here is this crazy rondel that we're going to be talking about that uses a Mancala mechanism as well. But we today we wanted to give you a tour of everything that we've got going on here. If you want to see a gameplay, and I mean a serious gameplay, go check out Thinker Themer's channel. They have like a 2-hour 40-minute play-through. I'm assuming from beginning to end because I haven't watched the whole thing yet myself.

0:50 is a it is uh it's a big game. There's there's a lot going on, but we're kind of going to break it down. We're going to give you a tour of the city, so to speak, because that is kind of the central component of the game. You are all all these different factions, organizations, whatever you want to call them. Secret societies. Secret societies that are influencing the goings-on of this city in the middle of the board. And the city, as you see here, is made up of a few different parts that connect, kind of like puzzle pieces. And the size and shape of the city is going to change based on the number of players that you have. Because each player is going to bring in their little set of chambers, their little section that are actions that only they can take. But it's also going to add to this sidewalk, this whole public area that's going to form a rondel on the outside. So we've got a two-player game set up with both of our factions here. If we were going to have more players, there would be more of these big chambers out and all these little smaller connections. So no matter how you're building them, you are going to end up with this one big circle in the middle that's the public sidewalk, and all of these, you know, clusters on the outside that are your privates. Now, the reason that I'm kind of using these terms so much is because it's going to really matter It does. because as you're doing the Mancala of these actions, some of these meeples represent citizens of the city Public ones.

2:06 that are public, and some of them are your uh particular cult leaders that are private uh sorry Not cults. society leaders that are private. And then you've got these universal meeples that can do either one. So a huge huge part of the game is manipulating the paths that all these meeples take to try to set yourself up for some huge actions. Yeah, everything you see here on the table, by the way, this is a prototype. The game is in flux. They're making some tweaks and, you know, touching things up, but just if you see any components that don't fit together exactly right, that is because of that. Uh but to illustrate Ryan's point, some of the movements you're going to make here, you're going to on your turn, and I want to point out right now as your player board relates to taking your turn, they've got everything you do on your turn right across the top of the player board.

2:54 but It is such a simple thing. There's a few games that have done it, and it's a brilliant idea because it takes somewhat complicated game and helps players remember, "Okay, boom boom boom, step by step." But one of the things you're going to do is identify and choose one of these locations that you want to activate. Then you're going to be calculating the power at which you're going to activate that. So if I was going to discover, for example, and we'll talk a little bit about all these actions in a second, I'm going to do it at this massive power right here. Now, this is a game we've played a few rounds just to sort of seed the board with some examples, but I'm going to set my dial to the action points. This would be 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 because the leaders are worth two. I'd have seven power to do my discover action. The discover action is going to take me over to the relic board, but after I take that action, I'm going to move all of these. And like we said, you're going to pick all of these up Mancala style, and then you're going to drop them down on this board going clockwise, on your boards going counterclockwise. Now, I have to drop the public ones off here.

3:58 The public one next is going to go here. This public one is going to go here. These two are going to follow whatever leader they're with, and because it's one of my leaders, he's going to pull him them into my chambers. So this one would go here, this one would go here, and finally my leader would end up there. Yeah. That's how things are going to get sort of dispersed as you play the game. Now, had this been a public leader, which is one of these guys, these universal guys would have followed them around that track, too. So there is a fair amount of thinking, and I would say the most thinking you're going to do in this game, like there's some thought and strategy to going on with what you're trying to get done. However, the people at the table who might take a little longer than others, they're going to be spending their time figuring out, "Okay, how do I how are these guys going to move so I can set up my next action?"

4:45 because you know, now I've got my leader here to take the ascend action, but he's by himself, so he's only at a power of two. Right. And that that is right there. Everything that David described is is the meat of your turn. That is the big thing you're doing on your turn is trying to figure out which action you want to take, which leader you want to use, because that's going to guide the way that things drop. And each one of these spaces are broken down into actions that you can take. Now, the inside is always going to be one of two actions. It's always going to be discover or fundraise. And the way that you build this board in the center, it's always going to alternate between those two. Fundraise is pretty simple. You just get coins. It's one of the resources that you're going to want to use. Now, in our game, I'm playing one of the societies, the Garden Club, that really wants to have coins because I can spend coins in some interesting ways that we'll talk about. So I really want to try to take those fundraise actions.

5:35 But the discover action, which is going to let you discover relics, is also really important. These two are kind of the backbone because you really need money, which is one of the main resources, and relics, which are something you're going to be turning in throughout the game. You really need those to do a lot of the other things in the game. Yeah, so speaking of relics, that's another board here on the table. The relic board is going to start out with some basic relics to seed the board, and then all the relics are in this one big deck. As you acquire these, you're taking that discover action, calculating your strength, and then spending your strength to acquire based on the values on the cards. Not only that, but as you go up, you're going to have to have more strength to get one from this row, or two strength to get one from this row. Not to mention, if you acquire relics from different branches here or different routes, you're also going to take on chaos. And chaos is going to be something, again, back to our player board, that you add up the left-hand side of your board.

6:33 Chaos is not good. With that said, there is another faction that actually, while they still lose points for having chaos, they're actually able to manipulate and use chaos in really interesting ways throughout the game. But typically speaking, as you climb up here, the chaos is going to be negative points at the end of the game. Plus, the more chaos you have, the less you're able to do a lot of these anytime actions on your player board. Yeah, and your uh Mariners Union really wants discover because that's a faction that really benefits from relics. So it's interesting, we kind of chose a fundraise faction and a discover faction, but all of the factions kind of benefit from some different action spots. Some uh well, I should say all have a different arrangement of actions on their board because you notice fundraise is important to me. I have one extra fundraise action built into my cycle here, and David has one extra discover built into it. Some of the other factions will actually even have some different action spots that don't appear anywhere else that are specific actions to them. So again, by manipulating these, by trying to control where, especially these universal guys that can go either direction, trying to branch them off the main path and pull them in to your society board is how you're going to power some of these actions that are beneficial to you. We already talked about two of the basic actions, but the other action I really want to talk about is reveal because that leans even more so into the asymmetry of these factions. Because we all have this unique deck of secret cards that are really going to, number one, lead into your power, but number two, give you some aspects to

8:04 really change up the game. Yeah, it's going to be one of the things you're allowed to do throughout any given turn. Basically, after you've identified the action you want to take, you have the chance of playing a secret card. These do a wide range of things that are kind of like very useful in the moment. And all of these have two uses. There's a top or a bottom part, and you're going to use one of these. For instance, this one, Dawn Passage, says, "Relics don't cost extra strength when you acquire them this turn." So I can ignore the extra strength icons out there, or I could simply just add one strength to whatever action I was taking. Obviously, I wouldn't use that if I was taking the relic action. I would use it if I was using another action, but the cards have multi-uses that way. Not to mention, some point values up in the upper left-hand corner, which interestingly enough are going to be points at the end of the game for whatever secrets you happen to have in your hand.

8:56 Yeah, that you didn't use. Yes, they didn't use. Yeah, all all of the cards are multi-use. And I want to talk a little bit before we talk about the last big thing you're doing in the game, talk about the multi-use because the cards, the secrets, yes, they can be used for upgrading your action, they can be used for increasing your strength a lot of times, or they have symbols, they have little set collection symbols on the bottom left that can be turned in for ascending, which is a big thing you're going to do in the game. The same thing is true for the relic cards. The relic cards you take have two uses as well. They can be played out onto the board to give you some kind of extra benefit when you take an action, or some of them are ongoing powers, some of them are in-game scoring. And that is all going to trigger if you play them out around your little chambers like this little card you see here. But you can also discard them. The cards in your hand, relics or secrets, can be used to ascend, and that is this board over here. Ascending is a huge thing you're doing in the game.

9:50 it is the core concept of the game aside from scoring points. Yeah, this is like increasing the level of your society, how well known they are, how much how powerful they are. And you've got this little dial here in the center that's going to go up as you kind of level up. And this dial tells you uh your your hand size goes up. It tells you how many resources you have to turn in. But a large part of ascending is spending coins that you've collected and turning in unique sets. Each one of these uh relics and your secrets are going to have unique set symbols on there. Sometimes one, sometimes more. And you have to turn in a certain number of them to interact with this ascension board, which as you'll see is kind of split up to two, three, four, and five being the final level. Yeah, for example, I ascended In fact, we both ascended in this game here. But when I did, I spent these cards here, for example, would give me one, two, three, four. And four of one color is all I needed to ascend plus some money. In which case, I was able to take this first ascension token and then this token at the bottom. Yeah. The interesting thing at this board, I don't know if you mentioned this, is everyone else is going to be able to get a little something, too. Yeah, the first person to ever ascend to a new level gets a little bit of a bonus. So, the you know, if you can manage to do it. And then based on the color that you turn in, so David, for example, uh went down this yellow track, the economic track. He was the first person to ascend, so everybody else got a bonus. So, the first time somebody hits level three, four, or five, you're going to give a bonus to everybody based on whatever tile or

11:22 whatever power is up here at the top. You're also going to get to choose one of these bonus tokens that matches your color. So, I ascended with economic or if David ascended with occult, you get to choose a token that matches your level. So, if you get up to level five, you get access to any of those tokens. And again, these are one-time use. They might give you some kind of bonus. I chose one that says, "Whenever I take fundraise, I just get two extra coins." Leaning into the garden club that wants coins. You are all about that money. I'm all about that money. If anybody ever gets to level five, if they level up to the very very final spot, they take that first player to ascend token and then they end the game. Uh triggers the end. They don't win, first of all, we should say. You don't just win. It's all about intrigue, which are the victory points in the game.

12:08 Uh yes, you don't win. You still collect victory points. But that is one way the game is going to trigger. The other way the game is going to trigger is if the relic deck ever runs out. But that seems like a lot That seems like That seems less likely, for sure. One thing we didn't point out, too, is when you first ascend over here, you're also going to be able to take one of these conjunction cards. Yeah. The conjunction card is going to do a couple things. They have some powers that are very interesting, and we have three out there because this is a two-player game. But across the top of the conjunction cards is sort of a setup of relics in a format that you want to try to replicate around your chamber because you're going to be able to score points for every card that you have kind of in the correct space. You're going to get two times the points of that card. Yeah, our intrigue, as we call it. Yeah. Also, each one of these is going to give you a special action or something you can do in the game again that nobody else can do. A major part of the game is those kind of executive or bonus actions David hinted at earlier. At the start of the game, you're only going to have one little token that can be placed over here, and you'll see that some of these are anytime actions, and some of them are only done on your turn. A lot of the your turn ones are going to unlock more leaders for your board or unlock more of these tokens so you can take more of these actions. But these are conversion actions that are generally going to either get you some energy, which is another resource that you'll want to use, maybe get you some cards, or that you put these relic cards out here.

13:27 However, some of these are going to give you extra spots to place it and are going to trigger trigger some kind of conversion that only you have. And these can be very powerful. But you only ever get one, and it's first come, first serve. So, literally, the first person to ascend is going to choose one, and this will become a power just for them, plus it will, like David said, tell you the arrangement that you want to hit. For every one of these that you get, you're going to get double the points of that relic, which is kind of huge. They can be worth some serious points already, and doubling them is really important. Yeah, and you are going to score points from all sorts of different places in the game. In fact, the final end-game scoring has, I think, nine different steps that you're going to go through. pretty long list of things that are going to score points. all the details, but there's going to a lot of scoring of points. There's a lot of little things where you have to kind of like this divided by two and things like that. So, you're going to get a lot of intrigue at the end of the game, for sure. Although, I you will score some intrigue along the way.

14:23 You will score some intrigue along the way. There could be some conversions that get you intrigue, and there could be some secrets that get you intrigue. But it seems like the end-game scoring is kind of the meat and potatoes of the scoring. Yeah, that that is a huge part. And a huge part of your scoring is how high you were able to get on that ascension track. So, you really do want to get up to level five because that's 25 points for hitting. And then all the relics you collected are points. Like there's there's just, like David said, a ton of ways to score points, and each faction is going to even maybe have some things that score points that are unique to them. Uh we've been talking about this all through the video, but really, each one of these factions is super unique, more so than just having a unique little set of chambers. Like my garden club that I've been talking about briefly, I'm collecting money, and I can invest this money on different action spaces or different relic paths, and I can kind of accrue this money on these spaces over the course of the game. And whenever I take these actions, I get that much money back from the bank.

15:18 Yeah. So, at the end of the game, I'm raking in money from everywhere, trying to, you know, find ways to spend it, of course, but like I'm going to have a ton. Yeah, and like we said earlier, I'm all about the relic hunting. We mentioned the weeping masks. These guys are the ones that can use chaos in an interesting way. There's two more, which are pretty interesting. The blue army is going to give you some powers mostly within the secret decks. That's really where most of their powers come into play to manipulate a lot of the people out here. So, you're able to Yeah, they're the people's army. Yeah, they are the people's army, and you're going to be able to basically set up big turns probably at great amounts of strength. And then the secret serpent keepers, which are the sneakiest of them, are able to actually set traps out on the board. So, you can actually use some of the secret cards face down so that when someone uses that spot, then it activates and you've set a trap for them. I I I haven't looked at their deck. Maybe there's good ones for you to use.

16:11 There are good ones for you and bad ones for your enemy. And I think a big part of it is, cuz we haven't played that faction, cuz, you know, it seems a little bit more advanced. Uh but big part of it is guessing like is that going to be a helpful one or is that going to be a bad one? And but if you couldn't tell again from how much we've been talking about all of these variable powers, they're huge. They're hugely different. And a lot of that is based on these decks. Yeah. These decks are going to improve as you level up. Every level you ascend, you're going to take some of your set-aside secrets, shuffle them in, and continue drawing them. They not only are worth more points as you go, but some of their powers are just crazy when you get up to the final level. And they really do, they lean so hard into your power. Even the base level and the fact that these are multi-use are tricky because you're like, "Oh, I I could ascend right now, but man, I really want to get this player." I had one This one, closing the distance, I'm able to play this in this row or this row, and it reduces that extra strength cost. So, I mean, if I played it here, then effectively, this doesn't have extra strength. Also, these don't have any extra strength.

17:08 Yeah, it's your powers are pretty crazy. Very, very interesting, and it makes collecting these relics just a lot easier. I'm going to have a lot more relics. I'm going to have a lot probably a better chance at getting that conjunction card set up with the relics done. Not to mention using lots of relics to ascend, probably more so than most others. And between your unique player board, your unique secret decks, as you're playing these relics out here, and I mentioned these relics can give you bonuses to that particular action. They can give you in-game scoring. They can give you ongoing abilities. Some of these tokens out here on the ascension board are ongoing abilities. Your conjunction card might give you ongoing abilities or alchemy abilities for that trade conversion. So, by the time you're done, you're going to have a vastly different set of powers, probably every time you play this game. Even if you use the same faction, the cards you play out here, the conjunction you have, it's all going to be very different and lead you to exploring a lot of different strategies.

18:03 Yeah, the game, we think, really ramps up quite a bit. Not to mention the things that Ryan just said, but also, as you play, a lot of these universal uh characters are going to turn into player characters that you can actually use as leaders. So, you're actually able to This board's going to look very different in terms of what pieces are out here, and the actions you're going to be taking naturally are going to ultimately be stronger and stronger and stronger. I I didn't mention this, but every time you ascend, you're adding more of these guys to the public spaces. So, they Yeah, by the end of the game, like this dial goes up to 24. We didn't have any 24 strength actions. But the fact that it goes up to 24 leads me to believe you can take some massive turns in this game. And also, the reason why they have a dial.

18:49 You wouldn't You wouldn't want to have to track Where am I? Am I on 17 or 16? But anyway, that is Clandestine. If you have any questions at all about it, please make them in the comments below. We'll get down there and answer whatever we can. Until next time, though, make sure everyone has fun at the table, and we'll see you then.