The Adventure Store | How to Play | Learn to Play in 11 Minutes! | Trick-Taking Deck Building Game
Transcript
Hello everybody, my name is Zoya.
And my name is Tyler.
Together we make up Card Board Gay, a couple that loves to play board games. And today we'll be teaching you how to play The Adventure Store.
The Adventure Store is a one to four player game designed by Taylor Reiner and published by Inside Up Games, who also sponsored this video.
Now this is a prototype and it may be subject to change, but with that said, let's go to the table and let's learn how to play. As always, you'll begin by setting up. First, place the shop board in the center of the table. Next, stock the Adventure Store with 12 different types of shop cards. You can either use one of the curated sets in the rule book with the starter set recommended for your first game, or shuffle the randomizer cards and reveal 12 sets for your game. Find the matching shop cards and group each type into its own pile. Then, randomly place those 12 piles onto the spaces across the upper and lower shelves. Place the trial marker on one and the favorite style marker on nine. Next, shuffle the two sets of shopkeepers challenges separately and reveal one of each. This challenge can earn you renown throughout the game, while this one will be scored at the end. Next, place the initiative token nearby and all the crowns into a shared supply beside the board. We'll refer to this supply as the tip jar for the remainder of the video. Now you can proceed to player setup. Each player will choose a character and take its corresponding character mat and matching renown tracker. You'll place the renown tracker on the zero space of the game board, then collect 10 crowns for your character mat.
Finally, find the 22 cards belonging to your character. This is your starting deck. Shuffle it, draw 11 cards, and place the rest face down beside your character mat. You're now ready to play. In The Adventure Store, you're fighter competing across eight trials, trying to finish the game with the most renown. Each trial is essentially one adventure in the arena. You'll fight a series of trick-taking battles using the cards in your hand with every battle you win earning you five crowns. But, crowns aren't victory points. At the end of the trial, how many crowns you've collected determines how much renown you earn. And then, during the first five trials, you'll also spend those crowns at the adventure store to add stronger cards and new abilities to your deck. So, throughout the game, your deck will keep changing, and the cards you buy will start appearing in future trials.
Now, although winning battles will earn you crowns and ultimately renown, completely failing to earn a single crown can potentially let you steal first place. And getting cards out of your hand quickly can earn you initiative. So, this isn't necessarily a game where you want to win every single trick. But, more on that in a moment. Before we fight, let's take a look at the cards in your hand. Most are combat cards, and each belongs to one of the three combat styles: brute strength, cunning wisdom, or arcane magic. They also have a combat value. Your starting deck will have one of each of the suits with values ranging from one to six. You'll also have augments. These are played alongside a combat card to modify its value. And as you upgrade the deck, they can also provide other abilities, as well. And finally, everyone also begins with an Eldrazi's Gambit in their deck. This is neither a combat card nor an augment. Instead, you can play it by itself to avoid a battle and steal five crowns directly from the tip jar.
Now, let's get into the first trial and the specifics of the flow of the game. Before the first trick of the game, or a fight, each of you has the option to refine your focus by discarding one card from your hand. You don't have to, but remember, getting rid of cards can help you leave the arena sooner, or potentially get rid of a suit. You'll decide if you want to do this starting with a player to the right of the first player and working counter-clockwise. You'll randomly determine the first player for the first fight, but in future trials, whoever has initiative will lead instead. To start off the first fight, the lead fighter plays a combat card and its combat style becomes the lead style. Then going clockwise, everyone takes turns either playing a card or cards from their hand. If you have a combat card matching the lead style, you must follow with that style. If you don't have one, you can play any other combat style.
When you play a combat card, you can also play one augment with it. Add its modifier to your combat value and resolve any abilities on the cards you played. Or instead of playing a combat card, you can play Eldris's Gambit. If you do, immediately take five crowns from the tip jar. You will not be eligible to win this fight. Now there's one more way to play extra cards and this is one of the most important parts of this game. Co-co-co-combo strikes. When it's your turn, look at the total combat value of the fighter immediately before you. If you play a combat card with or without an augment and your total exactly matches theirs, you may combo strike by playing one additional combat card matching the style of the card you just played. You can't combo strike if you led the fight and you can't match an Eldris's Gambit because a Gambit has no value. You can additionally add an augment card to your co-co-co-combo strike, meaning you can play a total of three cards in the fight. You can do this before to match the card being played or after to boost or decrease your card's value and or utilize the ability.
Once everyone has played a card, determine who wins. If there's no favorite style, the highest combat card in the lead style wins. Cards played off suit normally cannot win. Later, one style may become favorite. Think of this as the trump suit. If at least one fighter played the favorite style, the highest combat value in that style wins instead. And if there's a tie, whoever played earlier wins. The winner takes five crowns from the tip jar. Everyone then places everything they played into their own discard pile, and the winner leads the next fight. Then, you do it again. This continues as your hands gradually empty. Once you have no playable cards left, you leave the arena and stop participating in this trial. If all you have left are augments, those are discarded and you'll leave as well because augments can't be played by themselves. The first fighter to leave the arena takes the initiative token and immediately earns two renown.
If they already had initiative, they'll keep it, but they don't earn the renown again. Initiative means you'll lead the first fight of the next trial, you'll shop first, and when you buy a card, you can put it on top of your draw pile instead of your discard pile. If two players both leave the trial in the same fight, the earlier player in turn order will gain the initiative token. Eventually, once only one fighter has playable cards remaining, the remaining cards are discarded and the trial ends. Now, you'll turn your performance in the arena into renown. Normally, this is simple. Compare how many crowns everyone collected. The player with the most crowns will receive first place, next most takes second, and so on. Based on your placement, you'll earn the amount of renown shown beside the current trial. If players are tied for crowns, they'll share the same position and both receive its renown, and the appropriate following position is skipped. But, before doing that, check whether anyone can steal first place. To do this, you must have zero crowns and have participated in the final fight.
If you meet both conditions, you'll take the first place renown reward regardless of how many crowns everyone else has collected. Everyone else is then ranked below you normally. This is how deliberately avoiding crowns can actually be a strategy. But, you can't simply empty your hand with zero crowns and claim first. You'll need to survive all the way to the final fight. Also, it's important to know that you can do this in the first trial as all players receive 10 crowns to start. After renown is awarded, you'll head to the adventure store. And this is where the crowns you collected become upgrades for future trials. First, you'll check for the shopkeeper's helping hand. If exactly one fighter finished alone in last place, they can accept the shopkeeper's offer. If you do, return all of your crowns and take any one card from either shelf for free. You won't shop normally this trial, but during cleanup, you'll also choose the favorite style for the next trial.
If you don't take the helping hand, you'll continue normally. Before shopping, anyone who has zero crowns receives store credit equal to the richest fighter. So, even if you earned nothing, you won't necessarily be shut out from improving your deck. Then, starting with whoever has initiative, you'll take turns shopping. You can only buy cards from the lower shelf. Pay the cost on the top of the pile and place it on top of your discard pile, meaning it'll eventually cycle into your deck. If you have initiative, you can instead choose to put it on top of your draw pile. At the start of your turn, if there's an empty space on the lower shelf, you'll first choose an entire pile from the upper shelf to move down. So, as cards disappear, new items gradually become available. Now, instead of buying a card, you can pay five crowns to trash a card from the lower shelf, permanently removing it so nobody can buy it.
Or, you can pass, which ends your shopping for this trial. Now, it's important to know that you cannot save crowns. Anything you haven't spent when you pass goes back to the tip jar. Once everyone has passed, you'll proceed to clean up. First, advance the trial marker. Then, everyone will draw a new hand of 11 cards, reshuffling their discard pile when necessary. If someone accepted a helping hand, they'll now choose brute strength, cunning wisdom, arcane magic, or none as the favorite style. Otherwise, the favorite style stays where it is. Then you head back into the arena and begin another trial. You continue this cycle through trial five. And during this time, the decks you started with will become increasingly customized with cards from the adventure store.
Trial six, seven, and eight are known as the showcase. At this point, the adventure store closes. You'll still fight, collect crowns, and use those crowns to determine renown. But, there's no more shopping. After scoring each trial, the crowns simply return to the tip jar. After the eighth trial, you'll resolve the end-game shopkeeper's challenge. First place will earn eight additional renown, and second place will earn four. Although second place isn't awarded in a two-player game. Then, whoever has the most renown is crowned the adventure store champion and wins the game. Once you're familiar with the game, feel free to try out the asymmetric character abilities and a range of combinations of items in the adventure store. And that's the adventure store. Do you have any questions? Leave them in the comments down below. We'll get back to you as soon as we can. And of course, if you found this video helpful, make sure you hit that thumbs up button. Hit that subscribe button if you're new here cuz we love talking and teaching board games.
And hit that little bell cuz you know when our next videos come out and we can all partake in the joy of board gaming.
Now this game is on crowdfunding, so you can check that link down below and learn much, much more about it. But for our question of the day today, if
you owned a store, what is one specialty item that you would sell?
Ooh, maybe it's a cute little trinket. Maybe it's something big. Let us know your answers down in the comments below. Until next time though, we'll see you later. Bye.