How to Play Survivalist
Transcript
Hi and welcome to Friday how to play with Salom. I'm Salom Martinez. Have you ever wanted to be stranded in the wilderness and test whether you could survive against nature itself? Well, now you can in Survivalist. In this tense survival game for two to six players, designed by Robert Huitt and published by Homestead Games New Zealand. You'll gather resources, craft survival gear, manage injuries and exposure, and prepare for a series of deadly threats waiting at the end of the game. But surviving the wilderness isn't the only surprise waiting for you today. Thanks to Homestead Games, I'll also be giving you a special first look at Grizzly End, a brand new gameplay upgrade that's still hot off the presses. But to get there, you'll have to survive the wilderness first. You think you can outsmart fate and survive longer than everyone else?
Well, there's only one way to find out. Come grab a seat with me at the table and I'll teach you how to play Survivalist. To begin playing this unforgiving survival game, we must start with the setup. First, place the game board in the middle of the table within reach of all the players. This will be your wilderness where you'll search for supplies, recover from injuries, and prepare for whatever nature decides to throw at you. Place the moon token on the snowflake spot here in the round tracker. Next, shuffle the seven fate tiles and place them face down in the fate row. Then, place the number of reaper tokens that's labeled above the fate row. Now, let's add the starting reapers to the threat spaces. Each space is labeled with how many reapers you will place. Threat spaces marked with an asterisk get two reapers depending on the player count. We're setting up for a three-player game, so wildlife fatigue and isolation will get two reapers.
Shuffle the resource tokens and the drop tiles and create a faceown resource token pile and a faceown drop tile beside the board. Draw three resource tokens and place them face down into the valley. Then draw five drop tiles into the drop zone and reveal them all at the same time. Next, draw one resource token and place it face up beside the board to start the resource discard pile. Now, fill the ridge with face up resource tokens. In a three-player game, you'll only use these four ridge spaces. Next, we will place the item cards on the board. If any of the card spaces are marked with this symbol and your player count number, you will not place any item cards in that spot. Instead, you'll place fire tokens as a reminder that these spots will not be used this game.
Now, shuffle the basic item deck and place one face up card on every available basic item space on the right side of the board. Place the rest nearby as a draw pile. Do the same with the expert item deck, placing those cards on the left side of the board. Find the big hall token that matches your player count and place it here. Now each player takes a player board, one survivalist, one fire token, one med cube, one reaper token, and one secret skill card at random. You may look at your secret skill card, but keep it hidden from everyone else. This is where you'll track any wound discs you receive and place it on its matching color space on your board. Now, every player will place a red wound disc on the chest, pink wound disc on the left arm, a cream wound disc on the head, and a maroon wound disc on the right arm. Now, each player will place two freeze discs on the Dspace, and two freeze discs on the Espace in the exposure area of their player board. While we're here, let's quickly look at the rest of the board.
This area of your player board is your backpack. This is where you'll store resource tokens throughout the game. You can collect more than five resources during your turn, but you must finish your turn with five or fewer. Place all remaining discs into the bag and give it a good mix and place all lucky break tiles, meds, and fire tokens near the game board. Finally, randomly choose a player to take the compass token. They'll be the first player. And just like that, the wilderness is ready, the threats are waiting, and your fight for survival can begin. The object of the game is to survive longer than every other player. During the game, you'll gather resources, craft equipment, manage wounds and exposure, and prepare for seven different threats that you'll face during the final round.
That's the goal. Be the longest surviving player. Survivalist is played over 10 rounds. The first eight rounds are your survival rounds. This is where you'll gather resources, craft equipment, recover from injuries, and prepare for the future. Round nine is a special round where you'll get to use your secret skill card. And the 10th round is where every player will face the wilderness one last time. For now, let's focus on the first eight rounds. These rounds all work the same way. On your turn, you'll perform two actions. First, you'll select your action, and second, you'll perform your action. Let's track a little deeper into how these actions work. At the start of each round, beginning with the player holding the compass and continuing clockwise, you'll select your action by placing your survivalist mele onto one available action space. Most spaces can only hold one player, so every choice matters. Sometimes you'll choose a space because it's exactly what you need, and other times you'll choose this space because it's exactly what someone else needs. Once everyone has placed their meeples, we move on to the second action where we resolve each action space from top to bottom. After every backcountry action has been resolved, you'll resolve the campfire and then the clearing. Now, let's see if the wilderness rewards your decision or has other plans for you.
Most backcountry actions have three steps that must always be done in this order. First, you'll resolve risk of injury. Second, you'll resolve the main action. Third, you'll resolve airdrop. When resolving risk of injury, you'll draw the number of discs shown on that space. You must draw these disc even if you are unable to perform the action or choose not to. You will place these discs on your player board. If you draw yellow discs, well, these are harmless and can simply be ignored. Place any drawn yellow tokens into the game box. Do not place them back into the bag. When you draw blue discs, these are freeze discs. You'll place them into your exposure area. Once placed, you cannot relocate the discs within the exposure area. Your exposure area tracks how cold you've become. As freeze discs pile up, you'll find yourself with fewer options and a greater risk of collapse.
If you draw red, pink, cream, or maroon discs, these are wounds. You'll place them on their matching body parts on your playerboard. Each location can safely hold up to three wounds of its matching color. The real danger comes when discs can't fit. If you would receive a fourth wound of the same color or an 11th freeze disc, you immediately pass out. When this happens, return your mele to the player board and your turn ends immediately. You don't get to perform the main action and you don't get any air drops. Fortunately, med cubes can save your life. If a wound or freeze disc would cause you to pass out, you may discard one med cube and return that dangerous disc back into the bag and draw a new disc. If you survive the redraw, continue with the rest of your turn as normal. If the newly drawn disc would also knock you out, you can keep spending med cubes as long as you still have them. Once you survive the risk, it's time for the main action. There are three main actions in the game. gather, forge, and craft.
Let's traverse through each action in greater detail. When you gather, take resource tokens from the ridge and place them into your backpack. Some gather spaces let you take one resource, and others let you take two, and one space lets you take all available resources. The ridge only refills between rounds, so resources taken by earlier players won't be available for later players. That means that timing can be just as important as the resources themselves. After collecting resources, keep the ones you want and place them in an available spot in your backpack area. Any resources you don't want or can't place are discarded. When you forage, you'll take a faceown resource token from the valley and place them into your backpack. Unlike the ridge, you won't know what you're getting until you've taken them. Sometimes it'll be exactly what you need, and other times it'll be three fish and a growing sense of regret. Either way, keep what you want and discard the rest. Finally, when you craft, you'll choose a basic or expert item card from the board. You'll discard three resource tokens shown on that card from your backpack and place the crafted item card face up beside your player board. You can also use fire tokens to help fill in the gaps. At any time, two fire tokens can be used as any one resource token. Just remember that you can never hold more than four fire tokens at once. If there are any med
cubes sitting on the card, take those as well. These items are the heart of the game. They're not just worth stars for tiebreers. More importantly, they protect you from specific threats during the final round. Some items protect you against single threats, while others protect you against multiple threats. One thing to remember is that item cards aren't replaced immediately. Empty spaces stay empty until the end of the round. After completing your main action, you may gain access to air drops. The hexagon on the action space shows how many airdrop tiles you may consume from the drop zone. Choose a drop tile, resolve its effect immediately, then discard it. These effects can grant resources, fire, healing, information, reaper manipulation, and several other useful abilities. However, your exposure can limit which drop tiles are available to you. Look at the letter in your exposure area. If a freeze disc occupies one of those spaces, you cannot choose the matching position in the drop zone. The colder you become, the fewer opportunities you'll have available.
After every backcountry action has been resolved, move to the campfire. If your mele is here, remove one wound and three freeze discs from your player board and return them to the bag. Then move on to resolving the clearing. If your mele is here, remove two wounds and one freeze disc from your player board and return them to the bag. Neither of these spaces require a bag draw, grant resources, or provide airdrops. They're simply your opportunity to recover before things get worse. When you're done resolving the chosen backcountry action, you'll take back your survivalist mele and place it back near your playerboard. Once everyone has resolved their actions, it's time for bedown. Bedown is performed in between rounds. You'll start by advancing the moon token on the round tracker. Next, pass the compass to the next player in turn order. Then reveal the leftmost unrevealed fate tile. Each fate tile matches one of the seven final round threats. When a fate tile is revealed, move the reaper above it onto the matching threat. This is important because reapers make threats deadly. During the final round, every reaper beside the threat forces unprotected players to draw two discs for each reaper that's on the threat. As more fate tiles are revealed, some threats become far more dangerous than others. After that, place one med cube on every available item card currently on the board. Replace any item cards
crafted during the round. Discard the remaining ridge resources and refill those spaces with new resources. Replace only the valley resources that were taken. And finally, discard any remaining drop tiles and draw five new ones. Then the player with the compass begins the next round. Continue playing this way through the eight rounds. After round eight, advance the moon and compass as normal. However, this time you do not perform another beddown. Instead, proceed directly to round nine, the secret skill round. During this round, players no longer place meeples onto action spaces. Instead, each player, starting with the player holding the compass and continuing in turn order, reveals their secret skill card and resolves it. To do this, you'll spend resources from your backpack to take advantage of exchanges available on your secret skill card. You can only make each exchange once. Remember that two fire tokens may be used as one resource token during these exchanges.
Once every player has resolved their secret skill card, the round comes to an end. There is no beddown after round nine. Just move the moon token and pass the compass to the next player and begin the final round. In round 10, everyone will place their mele beside the first threat on the track. All surviving players will face the same threat before anyone moves on to the next threat. Starting with the player holding the compass, resolve the current threat. If you crafted an item card showing protection against that specific threat, you're safe. Ignore any reapers beside it and move on. Or if you've earned a lucky break tile during the secret skill round, now's the time to use it. Discard it before facing a threat you aren't protected against to skip that threat entirely. Because out here, even the best survival plan could use a little luck. If you aren't protected, things get much more dangerous. For every reaper beside that threat, draw two discs from the bag. So, the more reapers that are gathered, the more discs you'll have to draw. If one of those discs would give you a fourth wound of the same color or an 11th freeze disc and you can't save yourself with the med cube, your survival comes to an end.
You'll lay your mele on its side next to the threat that cut your survival story short. If you're still alive after resolving the threat, move your mele to the next threat. Once every surviving player has faced the current threat, pass the compass to the next living player and repeat the process. Continue this way until every player has either survived all seven threats or have been eliminated. Whoever survives the longest wins. If more than one player survives the same number of threats, it's time for the tiebreaker. When that happens, the tied players will add together all of the stars shown on their crafted item cards. then subtract one point for every wound and freeze disc remaining on their player board.
Whoever has the highest total wins. If there's still a tie, the tied player who selected their action latest during the first round wins the game because in the end only one survival story gets told. And that's how you play Survivalist. I'm Salom Martinez and I want to thank you for Was that probably just a wind? Um, anyways, I I want to thank you for gathering supplies. Okay, that was not a wind. Um, I completely forgot the special first look at a brand new gameplay upgrade for Survivalist, Grizzly End. Now, before we jump in, I want to mention that what you're about to see is a special sneak peek. Grizzly End is a brand new gameplay upgrade for Survivalist that hasn't been publicly revealed yet. The version you're seeing here is still hot off the presses, so these are not the final components, and they may change before release. Now, the best part is that everything you've already learned about Survivalist stays exactly the same. Grizzly N doesn't replace the base game. Instead, it layers right on top of it, adding new decisions, new opportunities, and a few very large reasons to keep looking over your shoulder. So, let's see what was making all that noise. After completing normal
setup, find the grizzly end card that matches your player count and place it beside the board. Place the bear and board tokens on that card. Place the field notes beside the board with their icon side face up. Place the field guide token on the clearing spot in the game board. Finally, place one berry token on every action space in the game. That includes every backcountry action space, the campfire and the clearing. If you're using additional content that adds action spaces, place berries there as well. Berries are only placed during setup. Once they're gone, they're gone. They will never refill. Whenever you're the first player to visit an action space containing one or more berry tokens, collect one berry from that space and place it beside your player board. This creates an interesting new decision. Sometimes you may choose an action because it's useful and other times you may choose an action because it has a berry on it. You still have to resolve the risk of injury as normal, but the berry is yours. They can be spent in two different ways. If you don't collect enough berries to attract a predator, the field guide gives you another option. Whenever you select the action space containing the field guide, you may purchase one face up field note by paying its berry cost. Resolve its effect immediately and remove that field note from the game.
Then move the field guide to the opposite corner of the board. If it was in the clearing, move it to the campfire and vice versa. Once your action actually resolves, you still take the campfire or clearing action as normal. Think of the field guide as a collection of small survival tricks. Helpful, useful, but not the main event. Because the real reason you're collecting berries is to bring out the bear and board tokens. During the secret skill round, players may spend berries to lure predators onto the threat track. Spend the right number of berries shown on the grizzly end card. Take the chosen predator and place it onto any threat you want. Yeah, that's right. Any threat. Why would you want to place a predator onto a threat space? Well, when the final round begins, threats are resolved exactly the same way as in the base game. The only difference is that bears and boores make those threats even more dangerous. Yeah, I know. If you've protected against a threat, well, you can ignore both the reapers and the predator. But if you're not protected, you'll still draw discs for the reapers and then you'll suffer the additional penalty shown on the grizzly end card.
Now players aren't just watching fate, they're watching each other. Every berry you collect could become a predator on the threat track, encouraging you to explore more of the board while wondering who's about to unleash a grizzly. Just like in the base game, the player who survives the longest wins. If players are tied, resolve the tiebreaker exactly as you would in the base game. Because out here, surviving the wilderness was only the beginning. Now you have to survive everything living in it. And that's how you play survivalist along with the grizzly end upgrade. I'm Solomon Martinez and I want to thank you for gathering supplies, crafting survival gear, surviving the wilderness, and staring down a few hungry predators with me at the table. And I hope you get to explore the back country, outsmart the wildlife, and survive long enough to tell the tale at your own table. Until our next Friday, how to play, remember to learn, play games, and always have fun. Adios.
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