Evenglow - How To Play
Transcript
Hi and welcome to Watch It Played. My name is Rodney Smith and in this video we're going to learn the one to four player game Evenlow designed by Jason Catzwinkle and published by the OP who helped sponsor this video. As an experienced alchemist, you're no stranger to growing weird and wondrous plants. But the ones you'll find in the even glow forest require particular care, forcing you to harness both the power of the sun and the moon. So join me at the table and let's learn how to play. To set up, organize these plant tiles by color and keep them within reach of the players. These are known as vines, henbane, mandrekes, lion's mane, elderberries, and leaves. Also create a supply of these harvest tokens along with the three decks of potion cards organized by type based on their colors.
These are double-sided and you'll keep the side with text at the top face up. Now give each player one of these garden boards. We'll assume we have three players in this video returning any leftovers back to the box. Each garden board has two sides. This side is for the solo mode. We'll discuss briefly later, but for now, we'll keep this side face up. Next, find the 21 plant cards, which have this front, and shuffle them. When you're finished, use this table found in the rule book and on screen, and keep a certain number of the plant cards based on your number of players. In a three-player game like we're setting up, you'll use all 21 cards. Then deal one plant card to each person, putting the deck nearby afterwards. You can look at your own card, but keep it a secret from the other players. Now, the person who last picked fruit becomes the first player, or you can just pick someone randomly. Either way, put this draft board with its active player end pointed at them. This player now finds the four seed cards which have this front, shuffles them, and randomly flips one face up. They then collect the two matching plant tiles from the supply with the color showing on either side of their player number. As the first player, they're player one or P1. So, they gain a vine and a henbane flower.
The person seated adjacent to them in clockwise order is known as player two or P2. So they would collect a henbane flower and leaf tile. Then the next player in clockwise order gains a leaf and henbane flower token. We don't have a fourth player, so nothing more is collected. Each person will now need to add their collected tokens to their garden board. You'll notice this is divided into two halves known as the moonlight and sunlight side. And each of these is divided into exactly 24 numbered spaces. Every person looks at the number in the center of the seed card that was drawn and adds their two tokens to the matching numbered spaces of their board. You decide which plant tile to put into each space, and you can rotate these however you like. Why you might put one token on one side versus the other will make more sense once we know more of the rules. But once everyone has made their choices, these seed cards can be returned to the box.
And that's the setup. In Evenlow, you and the other players will be gathering and planting mystical flowers. But as we saw during the setup, anytime you plant something on one side of your board, you'll also plant something on the other side. Each plant will have its own way of scoring points, and you might even find ways to unlock special potions. Earn the most points from your plants and potions by the end of the game, and you'll win. The game is played over a series of turns, starting with the active player, who is the one with this draft board pointing towards them. And then turns will continue clockwise around and around the table. And on your turn, you'll follow four steps starting with placing your plant card. Here, the active player puts their plant card face up onto the draft board rotated in any way they like. And then from the supply, they collect the two plant tiles showing in the spaces closest to them. So in this case, they would collect a lion's mane and a mandre tile. At the same time, every other player now gains the two flowers shown on this side of the draft board labeled as everyone else.
So, the other two players in our game would each collect an elderberry and henbane flower. Everyone now plants the two tokens they just collected into their own gardens. Anytime you're placing a pair of tiles, you must pick one of them to go into an empty space on the moonlight side, rotated in any way you like, and then the other one must go into the same numbered space on the sunlight side, also rotated as you like. Again, we'll see why you might want to put your tokens in certain garden spaces, but just know anytime you gain a pair of tokens, you must plant them in the matching numbered spaces of both gardens. Also, after planting, you cannot move or rotate the pieces without the use of a potion, which we'll learn about later. Okay. After all the players have placed the plant tiles they collected, the active player draws a new card from the plant deck. If you go to draw a card and the deck is empty, just skip this step. Either way, the active player now moves the card on the draft board to a shared discard pile and passes the draft board to the next person in clockwise order with the active player side pointed towards them.
And then that person follows the same four steps of a turn. They place their plant card on the draft board rotated as they want, gaining the two flowers closest to them. while every other player gains the two tokens on the opposite side. Then each player plants their tiles in their gardens. And if there are cards in the deck, the active player draws a new one and then the old one is discarded and the draft board moves clockwise and around and around the turns will go. So that's the flow of the game. And as long as you're following the rules I've described so far, you can place your tiles in any empty space as rotated as you like. But at the end of the game, you'll earn points based on how your tiles are arranged. So, let's go through each type of plant and see how they can earn you points. To help with this, I'll be freely moving tiles around on the boards to create the examples I want to show you. Let's start with vines. These have stems that touch the edges of four of their tile sides. And when stems between tiles touch, they're said to be connected. So here we have one, two, three connected tiles. This one is not connected. It has sides that are touching these other tiles, but its stems don't connect with them. If instead it had been rotated like this, now it connects to this tile. So, all four of these are connected. At the end of the game, you'll earn one point for
each vine tile in the largest connected set of vine tiles within each of your gardens. For example, on this side, we have three different groups of connected vines, but this is the largest one, so it would score 1 2 3 four points. The smaller groups here and here score nothing. But remember, you also score your largest group in your other garden as well. Over here, we have two different groups that are tied for the largest. So, we would pick either one of them to score, earning one, two, three more points. I should also mention your gardens will have a lot more tiles on them at the end of the game. I'm just creating simplified examples so they're easy to see and follow along with. And notice you'll find the scoring rules for all the different plants summarized here on the bottom of your board, which you can refer to while playing. But now, let's see how leaves score. Like vines, these also have stems. And at the end of the game, you'll check for your largest group of vines in each of your gardens and score two points for each leaf with a stem connected to those vine groups.
Here we have leaves that are connected to both of these different groups. But again, you only consider the leaves connected to the largest vine group within a garden. So these would score nothing. This tile has one of its leaves connected to this vine group. So it's worth two points. This one has both of its leaves connected to the largest vine group. So each of these are worth two points. Meaning this tile scores four points total. This leaf is adjacent to the largest vine group, but its stems are not connected to it, so it scores nothing. So in total within this garden, we would earn two points plus four points or six points. And again, you'd score for any leaves connected to the largest vine group in your other garden as well. Here we have a tie for the largest vine group. So we could pick either of these to score the leaves from, and we'll pick this one. So here the leaves would be worth two points plus two more points plus two points here and here for a total of eight points in this garden. Next up we have henbane flowers and these score two points for each set of exactly two adjacent henbane tiles in your gardens.
These two are adjacent so they're worth two points but three or more henbaines adjacent to each other score nothing. Not only that, you get a bonus two points for each pair of hen bananes where neither of the pieces are touching the outside spaces of your garden, which are these spaces. So, this pair is worth two points plus two more because neither of its pieces are on the perimeter. On this side of our garden, we have a pair where one piece is touching the perimeter. So, these are worth just two points. These are worth just two points. And these would be worth four. Moving on to lion's main tiles. These score three points for each set of exactly three tiles in a group. So this would score three points. And so would this. But this group would score nothing because it's not a group of exactly three lion's mane. Unlike henbaines, you do not score bonus points for lion's mane groups that are not touching the perimeter. So each of these would score just three points.
Mandrekes score four points for each set of exactly four tiles in a group. So this would score four points and so would this. These would score nothing because they are not a group of exactly four mandrekes. Like lion's manes, you also do not score any bonus points for avoiding the perimeter. So these are worth just four points. This brings us to the last type of tile, elderbererries. in each set where you have exactly five of these in a connected group. You score one point for each of the tiles within the group that are on the perimeter of the garden. So here we have exactly five and they would score one two points. Here's another group of five and they would score 1 2 3 four more points. This grouping has tiles on the perimeter but scores nothing because they are not a group of exactly five elderberries. So, your tiles will help you score points at the end of the game, but during the game, how you arrange certain ones can also earn you potions. For example, as soon as you have a group of exactly three lion's mane in a triangle, you must move one of these harvest tokens from the supply onto it like this. And then collect one of these essence of undo potion cards from the supply. When you gain potions, just put them in front of you with the side face up that shows text at the top here. We'll see how potions are used in a moment, but I
first want to go over all the different ways you can collect them. As soon as you create a group of exactly four mandrekes in a straight line, either horizontally or diagonally, you put a harvest token from the supply onto them and collect one of these chaos elixir potions. At the moment you have a group of exactly five elderberries in any arrangement, you add a harvest token to them and collect one of these tincture of transmutation potions. Now, I should mention after gaining a potion from an arrangement of tiles, if you add another token to that harvested formation later, it does not gain you a new potion. And these required groupings we've discussed must be the exact number of tiles and required shape all on their own. So if I later added this mandre tile here, I would not gain a potion for these four unharvested tiles because they're connected to these other mandre tiles forming a group of eight. On the other hand, if I put this lion's mane token here, I've created a grouping of exactly three lion's mane tokens in a triangle.
and that would gain me one of the essence of undo potions. Also, the potions in the supply are limited. If you run out of a type, you no longer collect it if you have the required shape in your garden. As we'll see, potions allow you to move tiles in your gardens. But just be aware, potions can never move tiles that are locked. Locked tiles are any that were part of the group that gained you a potion and have a harvest token on them. So, all four of these mandre tiles are locked. They cannot be moved by potion effects. If you later add a token adjacent to these, even one that matches the type that are locked, the newly added ones are not locked. So, these two tiles could be moved by a potion effect. With that in mind, let's see how potions work. On any player's turn, yours or another players's, you may flip a single potion you have to carry out its ability. So, just to be clear, no matter how many potions you might have, you can only use at most one during each turn. So, let's go through the different types of potions and see how they work. The effect of the card is printed at the top. And when you resolve essence of undo, as it says here, you select any two unlocked tiles and swap their positions. These really can be any two tiles, so they can even be ones that are on the same side. But for this example, I'll flip my potion and pick these two.
I would then have them switch places, and I can also rotate them as I like. And this might cause me to create a new arrangement that could then earn me a new potion. When you use the tincture of transmutation, pick any unlocked tile on your board and replace it with any tile from the supply. Let's say I use this potion and pick the tile here. I would then return it to the supply and take any other plant tile from the supply to put into its place, rotate it as I like. I could even take the same type of tile I had just removed from that space just so that I could rotate it in a different way when replacing it. Finally, we have the chaos elixir, which you can use when it's time to collect the two plant tiles at the beginning of a turn. Remember, if you're the active player, you take the two tiles showing on that side of the board. And if you're anyone else, you take the other two tiles. When you flip a Chaos Elixir, you must still take one tile from your side of the card, but then you take one tile from the other side. So, if I was the active player, I'd have to take one of these two, and maybe I would take this one. Then, I would have to take one of these two, and maybe I'd choose an elderberry. Then, I'd add these to my garden following the usual rules. And those are all the potions. You'll find a summary of how to gain and use each of them here on the back of the rule book if you need a
reminder while playing. And remember, you can use at most one potion on your turn, your turn, or another player's. When you do, flip it to show that card cannot be used again. All right, with that, we've covered everything you can do on a turn. And turns will continue around and around the table in clockwise order until the game ends in one of two possible ways. One is if the supply runs out of any type of plant. When this happens, finish the current turn and then the game ends. In the rare event that there's not enough of a required plant for all the players to collect what they are owed, each will collect plants in turn order, starting with the active player and going clockwise until the supply runs out of the plant type that was required. Any player who did not get a plant type they were owed then takes any other type of plant in place of whatever ran out. The game can also end if the last plant card has been played, meaning the deck is empty and none of the players have any in their hand. You then finish that final turn and the game ends. Then it's time for final scoring using this included score sheet where you earn points based on the arrangements of your tiles. As we learned about previously, you also earn the points showing here on each of the potion cards you collected, whether they are face up or face down. Players also earn three more points for each set of
three unique potions they have. And again, it does not matter if they've been used or not, but you may only count each card once in each set. So here, we would earn three points for this set and another three points for this one. then the player with the most points wins. If there's a tie, the tied player with the most potion cards wins. And if there's still a tie, the tied player with the most unused potions wins. And if there's still a tie, the tied players share the victory. The game also comes with a My First Gardens family variant where you won't use harvest tokens and potions and scoring rules are simplified. There is also a solo mode where you play against the reverse side of one of the other garden boards with three of them having three different levels of difficulty for you to try to beat. But the family and solo variant I'll leave for you to discover on your own. Otherwise, that's everything you need to know to play Evenlow. If you have any questions about anything you saw here, feel free to put them in the comments below and I'll gladly answer them as soon as I get a chance. You'll also find forums for discussion, pictures, other videos, and lots more over on the games page at Boardamegeeek, and I'll put a link to that in the description below. 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. And if you'd like to support me directly, you can join our Patreon
team, which I'll have linked below. But until next time, thanks for watching.