Critters is coming to Kickstarter. In this chapter
- Setting up
- Shuffling the decks
- Deal out the starting decks
- Setting up the market
- Setting up the Counters
- Understanding the crop dice
- Random crops
- Rolling 3 of a kind
- Discounts
- Deciding turn order
- Setup checklist
Setting up
Shuffling the decks
There are 4 decks in a game of Critters: Farm, , and , each with its own coloured, labelled card back.
Remove all cards from the Farm deck, then shuffle each of the 4 decks separately and place them in the centre of your playing area.
Deal out the starting decks
Each player starts with the same deck of 9 cards:
- 2× Apple Tree
- 2× Berry Bush
- 2× Carrot Patch
- 2× Friendship Charm
- 1× Pick of the Crop
Shuffle your starter deck and place it face down in front of you, then draw your opening hand of 3 cards.
Cards in each starting deck.
Setting up the market
Place the 4 decks in a column, face down. Top to bottom, we recommend:
- deck
- deck
- deck
- Farm deck
Deal 4 cards face up in a row to the right of each deck. These 4 decks and 16 face-up cards are the Market.
Recommended Market setup.
Setting up the Counters
There are 6 kinds of counters in Critters:
- Apple, Berry and Carrot counters are the game's resources: your Crops. The crops in front of you are your Stash.
- counters mark the a has spent.
- counters mark how far a planted has grown.
- counters mark packing progress on your .
Game Counters.
Understanding the crop dice
Critters includes 3 Crop Dice: 2 white and 1 yellow, all with identical faces. They decide random crop gains and rolls.
Random crops
When an effect grants random crops, roll the Crop Dice:
- "Gain 3 random crops": roll all 3 dice and gain 1 crop per die.
- "Gain +2 of a random crop": roll 1 die and gain 2 of the crop shown.
Rolling 3 of a kind
Whenever 3 dice are rolled together and all show the same crop, it's a Season: every player gains +1 of that crop.
Three Apples? That's an Apple Season: everyone gains an Apple.
Discounts
When an effect says , roll the Yellow Die. Keeping the yellow die for Discounts means you can roll it alongside white dice and still tell the results apart.
The card Pick of the Crop says Gain 2 random crops and : so you can roll all 3 dice at once: white for the crops, yellow for the Discount.
What a Discount actually does is covered in the Discount keyword section.
Deciding turn order
Players take turns one at a time, passing clockwise. Decide who goes first however you like. With 2 players, we recommend rock-paper-scissors.
Going later is a small disadvantage, so later players start with crops in their Stash (rolled on the crop dice):
- 2nd player: 2 random crops
- 3rd player: 3 random crops
- 4th player: 4 random crops
Setup checklist
The whole setup, in order:
- Pull the cards out of the Farm deck and deal each player their 9-card starter deck.
- Shuffle the 4 Market decks and stack them in a column.
- Deal 4 face-up cards beside each deck. This is the Market.
- Put the counters and 3 crop dice within everyone's reach.
- Shuffle your starter deck and draw a hand of 3.
- Pick a first player; later players roll their compensation crops.
That's it. First player begins.