Life of a Chameleon - How to Play (Clever Tactical Area Movement Game)

hi everyone it's taryn and stella here from maple university thanks for joining us today we'll be teaching you how to play life of a chameleon and so after this video you'll be ready to play the game stay tuned [Music] let's learn to play life of a chameleon game designed by nathan and jake jenny and published by last night games if you find value from this video later please hit the like button and subscribe to us hit the bell and leave your feedback in the comments for others to find for now let's get to the table in life of a chameleon players are competing chameleons trying to hop around their ecosystem and eat bugs in specific sequences in order to score objective cards players need to manage the movement of bugs and constantly change colors to camouflage themselves to effectively hide from predatory snakes and to eat the best buds the player with the most points when the track reaches the end 16 or 20 depending on your player count will win the game to set up place the boards side by side with the game tracker on zero place one random bug cube onto each of the spaces except for the center so you'll have a total of 18 bugs at the start of the game place a random stake onto each of the six middle ring spaces it doesn't matter whether the snake matches the bug colour or not shuffle the purple colour deck and then deal one card face up to each player who takes the matching chameleon piece and places it in the center of the board the face up card for each player is important because you'll be changing chameleon pieces through the game so this tells all players which piece represents you shuffle all decks and then lay out a face up display of three purple color cards and four red objective cards keep the remaining chameleons bugs and dice nearby ready for use choose a first player and you're ready to play life of a chameleon is played in turns starting from the first player and going clockwise around the board each turn begins with the mandatory placement of one new bug at random roll the color die and the d20 and then place a bug of that color from the supply on the matching numbered space you'll then take three main actions any number of free actions and then resolve any end of turn effects before play passes to the next player what we'll do now is take you through the main actions then some of the special effects that can trigger from the main actions then the free actions and then the end of turn there are four different main actions in the game and on a turn you can take three different actions or repeat the same action multiple times these actions are move your chameleon move a snake change your color or lie in wait for more bugs to move your chameleon take your chameleon piece and move it one step to an adjacent space to move a snake take any one snake piece anywhere on the board and move it to an adjacent space to change your colour discard your current colour card and then take one of the three face up cards to replace it then replace your chameleon piece on the board with the new matching chameleon alternatively you can look at the top card from the deck and then choose whether or not you want to change color but if you choose not to change color your action is still lost and you discard the card finally you can lie in wait for more bugs first set the color dye to the color of your choice and then roll the d20 placing that colored bug on the matching space you can then optionally repeat this with the same color or a different one until you've placed a maximum of three bugs with the action there are important restrictions on these actions and indeed all actions in the game and this relates to the game's food chain which goes bug chameleon snake chameleons will try to eat bugs however they will scare off any bugs that are not of the same color snakes are predators to the chameleons and although the chameleons are never eaten by the snakes in the game they once again need to camouflage themselves to hide this means a chameleon can sneak past a snake of the same colour but not one of a different colour snakes and bugs have no predator-prey relationship and can happily co-exist in any colour combination how this manifests on the board is as follows if a bug ever shares a space with at least one chameleon that is not at least partially the same color then it runs away and the active player must move that bug to any one adjacent space even if the active player is not the one whose chameleon is doing the scaring for example if this player rolled this at the start of the turn and placed an orange bug here then this player would be the one who gets to move it it only takes one non-matching chameleon to scare a bug away if you scare more than one bug at the same time then you can move them to different spaces or the same and it is permissible to scare a bug onto another space where it will again be scared it's still the active player's responsibility to move that bug again and so you can move a bug through a chain of non-matching chameleons to move at a greater distance if you wish the scaring of bugs can be triggered by a movement by a placement of bugs or by a change of chameleon colour when considering the interaction between snakes and chameleons a snake may only share a space with a chameleon if at least one colour on the chameleon matches this movement here would be legal but of course triggers the bug to be scared any action that would cause a snake and a non-matching chameleon to share a space is illegal this chameleon could not be moved here this snake could not be moved here and this chameleon could not be changed to a color other than blue in this way you'll find that snakes can be a particularly effective tool for blocking the movement of your opponents to where they want to go the third restriction of note is that snakes are very territorial and cannot share spaces with each other when moving a snake you either must move it to an empty space or you can move it into a space with another snake but must continue moving it until you reach an empty space this lets you move a snake a long distance through a chain of other snakes if you wish all of this leads towards the game's free actions which involve eating bugs and scoring points on your turn you may take any number of the following free actions that you wish these are eating bugs putting bugs on objective cards or playing achievement cards each of these may be done only on your turn not on an opponent's turn to eat a bug take a matching colored bug off your current space and then put it in one of three possible locations firstly onto an objective card in the display which you then immediately take adding it to your supply secondly you can place it onto a valid objective card already in your supply or thirdly you can add it to your stash which is a collection of bugs not yet on objective cards for which you can have a maximum of 5.

objectives must be filled either from left to right or right to left in this case if the player ate a green bug then the bug could go on this objective but this one would not be valid likewise with an orange bug the player could not newly take this objective from the supply it would need a violet or a red placed on it first any time you gain a new objective into your supply draw one achievement card from the deck into your hand your second free action option is to move bugs from your stash onto objective cards and this follows much the same rules you can take a new objective card from the supply and immediately place one bug onto it gaining a new achievement card as a reward or you can move a bug onto a valid coloured space from right to left or left to right on one of your existing cards you can also return two bugs of any one colour to the supply in order to take one bug of any other colour before then placing that new bug once all spaces are filled on a card then that objective is complete and you'll score its points at the end of the game additionally you take another achievement card from the deck and add it to your hand meaning each card can give you two achievements one for taking it and one for completing it it will also trigger an advancement on this track although not till the end of turn phase bugs placed on objective cards remain there until the end of the game the last type of free action is to play an achievement card from your hand and there are three types of cards goals which are worth points events which resolve actions on the board and wild cards which you can discard at any time to add a bug of any color to your stash or straight onto an objective when you play an event play it face up and then resolve it immediately and there are three different events in the game move bug lets you move any bug one space extra action lets you take an extra main action on your turn and sneak lets you enter and share a space with a snake of a different colour with that sneak remaining active until you and that snake no longer share the same space this could last for multiple turns depending on the actions that you or your opponents take goal cards show a number of victory points in the corner and you'll hold these in your hand and then play them face up on your turn if you meet the objective there are two types of goals hide and gather with hyde you can play it as soon as you share a space with the matching colored predator even if you do so by means of a sneak for gather you will score the objective when bugs of the three colors showing on the card are gathered together in a space adjacent to your space when you play the gather goal face up you will remove the bugs from the board and place them back in the supply gathering is triggered only after the scaring off of bugs this move for example would not trigger this gather because these will have to be scared away once again once you've finished your actions you'll go to the end of turn phase and at this point if you took any objectives during your turn you'll replenish them from the top of the deck and if you took any of the color cards then likewise replenish them from the deck if the deck of colors ever runs out shuffle the discard pile then if you've fully completed one or more objective cards on this turn then roll the four-sided die once and advance the black marker that many spaces along the track this progresses the game towards its endgame triggers of 16 or 20.

note as well that it's possible to run out of bugs of one color from the supply there are only 15 of each color and this would occur if they were either all on the board or objective cards once the supply of a color has run out no more of those can be placed when the black marker reaches 16 or more in a two player game or 20 or more in a three or four player game the game ends immediately players now have one last opportunity to complete objectives by moving bugs from their stash cashing in pairs with the supply or playing wild cards from hand players should complete all of these steps in ongoing turn order in case one of the colors of bugs runs out players can't do any other types of actions even free ones during this phase they can't take new objectives or eat bugs or play goal cards even if they now meet the conditions to do so on the board each objective you've completed scores the points in its top left corner each goal you've completed likewise scores the points in its top left corner and incomplete objectives score negative 2.

this player's total score is 17. the player or players with the highest score wins and that's how to play life of a chameleon we hope you enjoyed this video if you find this video useful please help us by hitting that like button subscribe to us you can also hit the meeple in the corner to do so and hit the bell icon so you'll know when we have new videos you can also follow me on instagram for my board games journey comments suggestions and feedback are all welcome in the comments section below thanks for watching and see you next time