Queen Alice - Start Playing in 13 minutes - Concise Board Game Tutorial
Transcript
pull strings across the looking glass and orchestrate brilliant chess moves for a powerful action in this strategic euro game in Queen Ellis.
And today we're diving into a quick start tutorial for Queen Alice. We'll explain everything you need to know if you want to get started quickly and pick up the details and icons as you go along in 15 minutes or less. And we'll link the project page in the description.
And hey everyone, it's Stella
and Tarant. Welcome to Mean University. And hey, if you enjoy this video after watching, like, subscribe, and comments, you know what to do. Now, let's go to the classroom. Set in the world of Alice in Wonderland, Queen Alice is a four action euro featuring a central board where players choose their actions on a chess board and four miniame sideboards where these actions play out, each labeled with one of the French playing card suits. All actions and tracks are then further subdivided into two colors, red and white,
each of which serves as a parallel half of the same action. During play, the players collective actions will advance the red and white Alicees on their tracks. And at game's end, whichever Alice has gone further becomes queen, increasing the endgame scoring for players achievements in her color. This means players will constantly weigh up both the types and colors of actions they take. This is your player board. This clock tracks as you gain and spend time, the game's minor resource. You can hold at most 10, and any excess gives you one victory point. Then there are three main resources. Two types of cake. the cherry cake which is used only in the costs of red actions and buttered toast used only in the costs of white actions as well as tea which can feature in the costs of either color. When you gain a resource indicated by the white number move a cube from your platter to the resource and when you spend one indicated by the black number return the cube to the platter.
You are limited by your cube count, so any excess you gain beyond that is wasted. But you can discard a resource, returning the cube to your platter at any time. Five black resource cubes begin locked. An effect like this lets you unlock a black cube directly to the depicted resource, and from then on, it can behave exactly like a colored cube, increasing your resource capacity. You can also spend three time or relock any black cube which wasn't already spent as part of this action as a wild resource. You have red and white hearts and diamonds which you can deploy to the matching action boards and personal red and white pieces beginning on the other boards.
On the central board, each player has a marker on each cat track, while the Alice markers are shared among the players. Based on a randomly chosen player aid, set up the chess board for its starting configuration. You'll have a deck of starter cards in your color. Shuffle them and draw a hand of three. Markets of bronze, silver, and gold upgrades are available, and you'll be deck building throughout the game. Draw two train cards to finish setup. Choose one and its red or white side and gain its resources. Choose a first player and you're ready to play. The game plays in clockwise turns and each turn is resolved in four steps.
Tick tock.
First, discard one card from hand and resolve its discard effect. Second, play one card from hand. Resolve its when played effect. Then move the card's chess piece on the central board. Then gain the resource from the piece's destination row and then resolve the sideboard action from the piece's destination column and in that piece's color. You may instead forego the sideboard action to gain two time. Third, optionally pay six time to resolve the same sideboard action in the same color again for its normal costs. Then redraw to three cards.
Ooh, so we are playing chess cards and a heavy euro all at once.
Yes, there's a lot of overlapping pieces here, but most important is the chess board since movement there drives your main actions. On a standard turn, after resolving your discard and when played effects, you move the chess piece on your played card according to the standard chess movement rules. For the pawns, that always means one space, never two, and always forwards away from the spaces boarded in their color. You're not allowed to castle. You may move to an empty space and activate that space. You may move to capture an opposing colored piece. Even to capture a king, there is no check.
Put the piece in your jail of the opposing color and gain the rewards, which will be one time for a pawn, one time and a cake for a mid-range piece, and one time a cake and a cat step for a king or a queen. Then activate the space. Your move can rescue a piece from jail. The jailer gains a time, even if it was you. Place it in an empty respawn space boarded in its color and activate that space. You can promote a pawn. Immediately gain one cat step, then respawn the pawn and activate the destination. And if a piece has no legal move, you can leave it in place and activate that space.
You may do this for a blocked pawn, even if unblocked pawns are available. After gaining the resource, you'll take the sideboard action in the destination column and in the moved pieces color. For the central wild column, you may choose any action, but must also pay one resource. You do not pay this cost again if you pay six times to repeat, but the sideboard action you choose to repeat must be the same. The first action is hearts, which takes us to the live flower garden.
What a wonderful place to spend a golden afternoon.
In the action color, pay the cake cost of the next heart on your track. Optionally, move the colored gardener by paying one T per step. Place the heart on a rose in the gardener's sector and gain the rewards under both the rose and the heart. If a sector is filled, move the gardener to rest when he may be moved to any sector for free on a future action. The main benefits here are the live flowers, which offer various engine building benefits, including increasing your hand limit to five, making it free to activate the wild column, gaining time and resources when you activate a chest piece, and more.
The second action is diamonds, Humpty Dumpty's wall. In the actions color, pick any wall space for which all spaces under it are filled and pay the cost based on the row and column. Choose and place a diamond in any order and gain the benefit of the wall space and of the diamond. Gain two points if you build in the same row as the egg half and a further two points for four if you filled that row and advanced to half. The third action is clubs. A history lesson from the twins Tweedled Dum and Tweedled D. Move the twin in the action color along a single yellow or black arrow paying the cost in its color.
Gain the resources visible on arrival. So here it would be a green book and this white book while for the next to arrive it's the green book and two time then optionally spend books to buy a single bookmark from the full market of those available. Some give a once- off reward some give a once per turn bonus. Flip it back up at the end of your turn. And some offer endame scoring bonuses. The final action is spades. the Mad Hatter and March hair delivering invites as the king's messengers. Move your piece in the actions color one, two, or three spaces along these interlocking tracks, paying the cost for distance as shown.
Gain the reward in your destination only as well as for any seals you cross. First cross gains the higher reward. Any lagards gain the lower. then gain a single card reward, either acquire or invite. You may acquire a card matching the banner on your destination, paying any extra cost above your chosen card and adding it straight to your hand. You must strictly take from the area matching your banner, except with two yellow live flowers, which let you take from higher or lower levels at a cost or benefit of one time per shift. Slide left and refill empty card slots only at the end of your turn.
To invite, take a card of any level from either your hand or discard pile and place it in an invite pile beneath your board. It's now out of your circulating deck, but unlike cards in your deck, it will now score the points in its top right corner at game's end. Each main action has a mini version triggered by an icon like this. smaller than the main version, but always free to resolve. For hearts or diamonds, it's discarding the next token without placing it, but still gaining the revealed benefit. For clubs, it's advancing a twin along a black arrow only for free and gaining the benefits as usual. And for spades, it's advancing a messenger one space, gaining the normal reward and card bonus.
As players specialize in the different red and white actions, the two alyses draw closer to becoming queen
and earn a lot of points for the players as they do it.
Each time a player gets about 60% of the way through a track, for example, by clearing three hearts or diamonds or reaching the right level on a sideboard, that color's Alice advances one space and the player scores the points that are covered. Maxing out one of the cat tracks has the same effect. When a track is completed, for example, reaching the end of a board track or clearing all hearts or diamonds, place a crown on the next space beyond that Alice, which does not show this no crown icon, and score double the points that are covered. When Alice moves, she skips spaces with crowns. On the turn when Alice reaches one of these wish spaces, discard a crown. And at the end of this turn, all players will score that wish objective, gaining in-game points.
When an Alice reaches the top space, discard another crown. And should you ever need to move an Alice or place a crown, but cannot, score five or 10 points, respectively. When the last crown is gone, finish the round and then count up final scores. Whichever Alice has progressed further is queen, and all players score eight points for each of their crowns in that color. If they were tied, all crowns would score eight. Then, in the Queen Alice's color, flip both wish tiles over to their higher scoring platinum sides. Skip this step if tied. On each side of the board, each player now rescores zero, one, or two of the wish tiles based on their position on the cat track of that color.
At the points from any cards in your invite pile, some of these will combo with other cards invited. And score the points for any of your endgame scoring bookmarks. Highest score wins, and if tied, victory is shared. Thanks for watching. And if you like this video, maybe you'd like to watch this next one. Have a great day.