The Whatnot Cabinet - How To Play

[Music] hi and welcome to watch it played my name is rodney smith and in this video we're going to learn the one to four player game the whatnot cabinet designed by steve finn and eduardo bariff and published by pencil first games who helped sponsor this video taking a walk and enjoying nature can be its own reward but some people like to keep an eye out for other curiosities too one time i was out for a trek and i came across a monopoly hotel piece in the middle of nowhere on this little beach on a tiny island in france i was totally tickled by that well this game is all about keeping an eye out for those hidden treasures and collecting them into your own cupboard of curiosities can you collect the best collection only one way to find out join me at the table and let's learn how to play to set up each person takes a player reference one of these cabinet boards and a pawn matching the color at the bottom in this video we'll set up a game for three players but in a one or two player game each person collects two pawns instead next set this journey board in the center of the play area this top row is the landscape area and has five numbered spaces randomly select a player to put their pawn into the first space and then in clockwise order each person sets their pawn in the next empty numbered space so it looks something like this if you have a two player game instead the first player goes into space one and four and the second player adds their pawns to spaces two and three the cards with this back are the curiosity cards which you shuffle dealing five face up in a row here then shuffle the wonder cards which have this back and deal one face up nearby all remaining curiosity and wonder cards you then return to the box now set these point tokens in the supply nearby i have mine set in some game trays i have and if you'd like to get some of your own you'll find links in the description below these are the curio tiles i have many of them in the bag already but if you're setting up a two-player game first return to the box any that have this symbol on their backs in their corners but otherwise you put all of the tiles into the bag and give them a good mix and that's the setup in the what not cabinet players will be selecting actions and collecting curiosities for their cabinet and how you arrange your collection will provide a variety of different ways to score the player who forms the best collection scoring the most points by the end of the game will win the game is played over six rounds or three in a two-player game but either way each round is broken into three steps starting with the prepare phase here any player draws four tiles from the bag and sets them face up below the journey board this area is known as the outdoors if it's the first round and only if it's the first round and you draw either of these two special types of tiles just set them aside and then draw replacements until you don't have any of those special tiles in the display of four then shuffle any special tiles you drew back into the bag again just keep in mind you only do this during the very first round of the game in later rounds if you draw those special tiles during the prepare phase they're left in the outdoor area and are not replaced okay now it's time for the next step of the round taking turns one at a time players will take turns based on the order of their pawns in this landscape row so here blue would go first then green then orange now keep in mind in a two player game each person has two pawns on this track so here blue would go first then green then green would take another turn and then blue would go either way on your turn you'll move your pawn from the landscape road to any one of these action columns in the area here so long as another pawn isn't already in that action areas column so the very first player gets their pick of any of them which is an advantage to going early after moving your pawn you then resolve each of the actions shown in your column if there's more than one then they'll be separated by a line and you must perform all of the actions showing in order from top to bottom fully completing one before you perform the next so let's take a moment here and go through each of the five columns and their actions but just know by the end of every turn whichever action you took will always have caused you to collect and add two new tiles to your cabinet they just each do it in different ways for example column one requires you to draw three new tiles from the bag you'll examine them privately pick two to keep and then the other one you'll discard anytime you discard a tile in the game you place it face down unseen in a shared discard pile also whenever you gain a tile you must immediately add it to an empty space on your cupboard board so now we have these two leftover tiles in our hand that we have to add tiles you place don't have to be set next to each other or match any of the tiles around them and after we go through all the actions i'll explain why you might want to put certain tiles in certain places but just know once placed tiles can never be moved column two has two different actions first draw two tiles from the bag picking one to keep and the other you add to the tiles in the outdoors now before we get to the second action in this column remember we just picked a tile to keep and as soon as you do that you must place it into your cabinet which i do now then i perform the next step which represents collecting any one outdoor tile and again you guessed it since i just collected a new tile i must immediately place it into my cabinet in column three you first draw a tile and add directly to the outdoors then you take any two tiles from the outdoors and add them to your cabinet column four is very similar but instead you draw two tiles from the bag to put in the outdoors and then you collect any two from the outdoors and add them to your cabinet and finally in column five there are three actions first you discard all cards from the outdoors so they all go face down into the discard pile next you draw four new ones from the bag and then put them directly into the outdoors once they've all been placed you then collect any two from the outdoors to add to your cabinet so you see no matter which action you take you'll always end up collecting and adding two new curio tiles to your cabinet by the end of it oh i should also mention if you ever need to draw tiles from the bag and it's empty just shuffle all the discarded ones back into it and continue drawing as necessary now one thing you might be curious about is what are all these curio tiles for why would you want certain ones and then why does it matter where you put them in your cabinet great questions let's go back to the table and find out curio tiles come in five different colors red yellow green blue and purple they also come in five different types leaves crystals bottles shells and animals i assume you're not stuffing a literal cat into your cabinet it's probably some kind of cat glassware or something probably at the end of any turn where you've completely filled a row or column you stop and score it for rows you only pay attention to the types of curiosities you have there ignore the colors the types again are represented by the images you see there and also the symbols they have in their top left hand corners if all of the types are the same like we see here then you score three points and put one of these three point markers to the right of that row if instead all of the items in that row are different you'll score one point if you don't satisfy either condition in other words they're not all the same or all different you'll score no points and add one of these blank tokens instead if you fill a column ignore the types of objects there and only pay attention to their colors if all four colors are the same you score four points for that column putting a token above it if all four are different colors score two points instead and again if neither of those conditions are true you just gain a blank token worth nothing so just remember on a row or shelf as i like to think of it you want the same types of objects and running down a column you care mainly about the colors but those aren't the only considerations to think about when you're placing things in your cabinet during setup we placed five random curiosity cards here and each represents a different goal from your cabinet the first player to complete a goal or goals on their turn will claim them for example for this one the first player to put a tile in each of the four corners of their cabinet completes it and then would place it by their cabinet meaning no other player can claim it later we won't go through each of the goals as they're all explained on them but if you have any questions there's additional information at the back of the rulebook as we'll see at the end of the video you also score points for curio tiles in your cabinet that have a crown symbol as well as for tiles that match the type shown on the random wonder card selected during the setup something else we should mention is that while playing you might choose to gain either one of these special action tiles so let's go over how they work when taking this one you immediately discard the outdoor tiles drawing four new ones from the bag and then you claim any one of them for yourself and add it to your cabinet then you discard the action tile itself with this tile you're required to take a tile from the bag and then you must add it to your board but then you'll keep this special action tile beside your cabinet as this type is worth points at the end of the game it's also possible that after resolving a special action tile you'll then gain another one which you then immediately resolve and you'll keep resolving them until you get one of the regular tiles that can actually be added to your cabinet with that understood we now know how players turn works you move your pawn to a column perform its actions which will give you two tiles that you must always add to your cabinet claiming any points or cards they've helped you earn then the next player with a pawn on the landscape row moves their pawn to an empty action column and performs their turn and you'll continue like this until all the pawns in the landscape row have been assigned to actions then it's time for the cleanup phase first just check to see if your game is over this is very easy to do if everyone's cabinets are full the game is over now this will happen in six rounds for games with three to four players and in three rounds if you have two players assuming the game isn't over you now discard any tiles from the outdoors players then move their pawns from the action columns directly into the landscape spaces above them so this means the actions that players previously took will dictate the order that they take their turns in the next round and then a new round begins with a new prepare phase where again you draw four new curio tiles from the bag and add them to the outdoors and then players would take their turns and you'll continue like this until the game does end and then you move to final scoring first earn the points showing on the tokens around your cabinet you'll also earn one point for every one of these crown symbols on the tiles you've collected so keep an eye out for those when you're collecting tiles now add the points showing on any curiosity cards you collected and if you used any of these special action tiles during the game you'll remember you were told to keep them and that's because each one of these is worth one point you'll remember during the setup a random wonder card was selected and every player now gains one point for every curio tile of that type that's in their cabinet so here this player would get two additional points if you haven't already move all the player pawns directly up into the landscape spaces above them and the ones in the first three spaces will gain the related points there so here blue would gain three points green gets one and orange gets nothing the player with the most points wins in the case of a tie the tied player with the most of these blank tokens wins and if there's still a tie the tied player in or closest to the first landscape space wins the game also comes with rules for solo play designed by keith mateka but those i'll leave for you to discover on your own and don't forget each player has a double-sided reference that reminds you of all the core game rules and scoring but otherwise that's everything you need to know to play the whatnot cabinet if you have any questions about anything you saw here feel free to put them in the comments below and i'll gladly answer them as soon as i get a chance you'll also find forums for discussion pictures other videos and lots more over on the games page at board game geek and i'll put a link to that in the description below and if you found this video helpful please consider giving it a like subscribing and clicking that little bell icon so you get notification anytime we post a new video but until next time thanks for watching [Music] [Applause] [Music] you