How to Play Stakeout

0:00 Oo, that looks tasty. Welcome folks. The Hungry Gamer is back with another how to play video and today we're learning how to play Steakout designed by Amber Well. Before I get started, please do note that everything you're seeing here is still in the prototype phase and is subject to change. Additionally, if there are any rules changes after this video is published, then you'll be able to find those in the Klingon subtitles. So, please make sure you have those turned on. And thank you to the entire Stakeout team for sponsoring this video. Now, what this game is is this is a dice placement game in which you are trying to be the best investigator. And for this, I have my creepy game toppers mat that I put out for it. It's not a supernatural investigation game, but it was the best one that I had. In any event, in this game, you're going to be in a film noir world using your dice here to solve three different cases from your clients. And to do that, you'll have a client. You'll be investigating different places and items and occasionally be getting a hot tip. Now, for setup, now setup is very, very simple. First, you will take your client deck, your investigation deck, and your hot tip deck, and you will simply shuffle all of those

1:22 Then each player will take one of the stakeout player mats and they will select a color. For this I will select white like so. And I have one car and 10 dice. Then each player gains one hot tip card. They're given two client cards and we'll talk about those in just a moment. We will put these cards over to the side. And then from this deck, depending on your player count, you will put face up investigation cards, and you're going to put out player count plus one. So, pretending we are playing a two-player game, we would place three of them out like so. And before I jump in any further, I will point out that at the top of each of these investigation cards, you'll notice there's a symbol here. There's a house symbol or an evidence symbol, and here there's another house symbol. But I will point out that there are also people symbols like that, all being things that you can investigate. And with that, you have set up the game. Whoever the last player to watch or read a mystery will get to go first. Otherwise, you can just all roll your dice and see who goes first. But the first thing that everyone's going to do is everyone will pick one of their two clients to be the client that they are working for right now. In this case, we have the cryptic stranger, which we'll see at the top is worth five points, and the circus performer, which we'll see is worth three points. In the middle, we have our flavor text. Down here, there's an ongoing investigation bonus. So, if we take the cryptic stranger, anytime we're placing dice on a location, we can add or subtract one on two dice that we place. And that'll make sense in just a bit. Or on the other, we can begin an investigation on evidence with only using one die instead

2:54 of two. And again, that'll make sense in just a bit. Then down at the bottom, it's telling you how many different things you need to investigate in order to complete that case. So, for the cryptic stranger, we would need two suspects and two locations. For the circus performer, one suspect and one evidence. and we'll decide we're going to try to get an early fast start. So, we're going to work with this circus performer. Then the other players would select what they're going for as well and then we would be able to start the game. So, the first thing that you're going to do every turn is you will roll two dice. Now, if for some reason you have zero dice, then you'll have to pass. But if you only have one dice available, you can just roll a single. But for now, we will roll our two dice. And as you can see, we have a four and a one. Now, there's several things that you are able to do with your dice on your turn. I will also take this moment and point out that many of the hot tips, like this one right here, may allow you to roll more dice from your supply. So, in this case, before I rolled these two dice, I could play this hot tip to add two more dice to my active pool and then roll all of them like so. And we will pretend that that's something that I did. Then, there are three different things that you were able to do on your turn. And you can do them in any order.

4:04 And you can do any combination of them. The first most basic is you can investigate. And investigation means you're placing dice on one of the cards out here or on any personal leads that you may have. And I'll talk about how you get those in just a minute. So, as we're looking here, we see I have a two, four, five, and a six. So, as I'm looking, I'm looking at what each of these cards needs. Well, that's actually not very useful to me. However, because in order to start an investigation on one of these cards, you have to be able to play two dice onto the card. So, if for example, I had rolled two fives, I could start an investigation on the typewriter, like so. Or if I already had diceed out on one of the investigation cards, I could then choose to add just a single die out there. So, let's say I had this one, I could add a single one there. And I'm just going to reroll these dice here. However, if we recall, as I'm working for the circus performer down here, it says I can open an investigation on evidence with a single die. So, if say I had rolled this here, 6645, normally I would not be able to place on this card, but because of my power, I can open with just a single die like so.

5:13 Another thing I might do is I may use a hot tip card like this one here to add or subtract one from two dice. So, then I could make this one a five also. And I can make this one here a three. And just like that, I've gotten three dice onto that investigation card. I will point out that it is possible for other players to be placing their dice out as well. And we'll pretend that the green player that we are playing against also has put two dice out here. And and what this means is is that you are both racing to complete the investigation on the typewriter. And in this case, you'll notice that the green has also had to put down the two fives because to complete the card, you must get all of the numbers with your colored dice. And so what'll happen is, let's just say later on that we managed to finish this first. Then what would happen is we would claim this evidence right here.

6:04 And so what the other player or players gets to do is they get to select one of the dice that they have already placed on the recently solved investigation card. So in this case, green would have to pick a five. However, if, let's say, green had this on the card, they could then choose either the five or the one, and then they would take that and put it into their saved area, and they'd be allowed to use that whenever they want on their turn. Then I would take the card, and what I like to do is I like to place it like that, just underneath the case that you're doing, cuz now I can see I've completed one evidence, and you can see I need two. However, there is more to it. First, you would refill the spot there. Now, there's a gun that you can get. Then, if you look at the bottom of your player board here, you'll see you get bonuses for completing those investigations. So, if you complete a location, then you gain a new lead. In other words, you can take one dice off of the card you just completed, set it to any value you want, and then place it on another investigation card. And this actually allows you to break that rule of normally having to place two dice to open an investigation. If you finish investigating a person, then you get to draw one hot tip card. And if you finish investigating evidence, then you get to take a dice, roll it, and place it in your saved dice location. And you can use that at any time, even on the turn you get it, despite it saying it has to be used on a future turn here. That is a rule that has been changed. And finally, you'll take all of your dice and put them back into your ready pool. The next thing that you can do is you can do a

7:35 wire tap. And then again, after you've rolled your dice, you can discard two of them. So, back into your pool to do a wire tap. And what a wire tap means is you will draw five cards from the investigation stack. You'll look through them and you'll decide which one you would like to keep. Now, if we recall, for our case here, I need one evidence and one suspect. So, I'm gonna look through here and I'm going to pick a suspect, Agatha, the author. And so I would place that in my play area. And that means only I can investigate that. Though I still would have to start out by placing two dice on there to open the investigation. And and you can only have at maximum two personal leads in your play area at any given time. Then you take the other four cards and you simply discard those. The third thing you're able to do is again after you roll your dice, you can discard dice to go on a stakeout. And you can take any die that you have, even one that's in your save dice, and you can discard it to move your car up one space. So, we'll just say I discard all three. And what this means is it's going to give me access to a die of my choice later on. So, for example, on a future turn, it's very important to note that if your car has moved forward, then you may not use your stakeout die on that turn. In a future turn though, you can choose to activate your dice here, which means you would go all the way back to the beginning and then you look at where you were. In this case, I was on the three. That means I could take from my supply a die and set it to 1, two, or three. We'll say I do a

9:05 two. And then I could use it in one of my investigations. Or you'll notice if your car is at three, four, or five, rather than get a die, you could choose to gain a hot tip. If on the other hand, your car was all the way at the end, you would get both a hot tip and you would gain a single die that you could set to any number that you want. In this case, we'll say it's going to be a four cuz I will continue my investigation right up there. And then one more time, your car goes all the way back to the beginning. Now, the only other thing that I need to point out is, as I mentioned at the beginning, sometimes you may have to pass, and that is when you have no dice left in your pool or for some reason you choose to pass. And that normally happens if you have too many of your dice out on the board in other places. So if I was here, then I would have to do a pass action. And it's very simple.

9:52 When you do that, you select one of the cards that has your dice on it. You remove all of them and they go back into your ready supply and then your turn ends. There's only two other things that I want to point out. You'll notice that the Prescott Museum right here has these asterisks on them. And what that means is you simply have to place two of a kind of your choice on the card. There are also some cards that require a There are also some cards, as you can see, that require a three of a kind. The last thing to talk about is closing cases. As we looked at earlier, my circus performer needed a suspect and evidence. I had the evidence earlier, and we'll just pretend that I just finished investigating Agatha here. As a reminder, I would remove all the dice. I would then get a hot I would then get a hot tip for finishing investigating a suspect. And as I said, I like to place them underneath like so, so I can see what I have. Now, in this case, I have my suspect and my evidence. So, I have closed this case. What then happens is you take the cards, you flip them over, and you place your client on top of it.

10:56 That is one of your closed cases. Then you would draw two new clients. In this case, I have the street urchin and the farmer. Make your choice. Remember, you get a new power that goes along with them while they're active and their point values at the top and the requirements are down at the bottom. Then after you make your choice, in this case, I'll pick the street urchin, you discard the other card, and you continue the game. You continue the game until eventually one player closes their third case. At that point, all other players get one more turn and then you score. Scoring is very simple. You will take all of your cases and you will add up their points and points are found on the bottom. So for the circus performer case, I would gain four points for the typewriter, four points for Agatha, and three points for the circus performer, meaning this case earned me 33 points. I will point out that you do not have to close all three cases to win, though obviously you have an advantage if you do because you are gaining more points for doing so. And that's how this game works. I will also point out that there is a solo mode in the works. And so if you are interested in solo play, that is an option as well. Finally, I'll say that if you're interested in my thoughts on this game, you can check out my preview video which is linked down in the description. As always, if I made any mistakes in this rules video, please let me know down in the comments with the timestamps so I can get that in the cling on subtitles. Also, that's very embarrassing. And if and if you found this video useful, please like, subscribe, share, maybe become a channel member. As always, thank you so much.

12:18 Have a wonderful, wonderful