ABOVE AND BELOW

In Above and Below, I’ll be your guide as we embark on a thrilling adventure. Your goal? To establish a thriving village from scratch! Armed with nothing but a baby and a fishing pole, we’ll have to get creative to bring our village to life. But here’s the twist: beneath the surface lies a hidden cave system, offering a whole new world to explore!

SETUP

Before we dive in, let’s prepare ourselves for the journey ahead. Each player will gather the necessary materials to get started. These include a variety of villagers, a house card, a handful of coins, and a player board. Take a moment to familiarize yourself with your starting villagers – you’ll find their homes on the back of their tokens. Let’s position them in the grass area on the left side of your player board.

So, here’s what we do: first, we take the house cards and lay them out in the middle of the table. This creates a row of cards that everyone can see. Then, we shuffle the important house cards and each player draws four random ones. These cards go below the star house cards.

After that, we can say goodbye to the rest of the cards, because we won’t be needing them anymore. They go back in the box for safekeeping. Now, it’s time to set up the reputation board in the center of the playing area.

Next, we deal with the villagers. Any villagers that we don’t need right now go back in the box. The special villagers get their own special spot off to the side. The remaining villagers get placed in a draw pile next to the board.

Now, let’s take care of the top of the board. We draw five villagers from the pile and put them in their assigned spots at the top of the board. And don’t forget the round marker! That goes on top of the seventh cave chamber.

Last but not least, we need to organize all the tokens. We put them to the side of the board to create our supply. And finally, we have the cave cards. They go beside the board, face up, so we can see them.

Hey there! Let me walk you through how to play this awesome game. First things first, each player will need to grab a wooden cube that matches the color of their banner. This cube is important because it’s going to go on the torch space of the reputation board. Cool, right?

Now, the fun part. The first player is chosen randomly by the group, and they get to be the starting player. They collect a fancy starting player card. Hooray for being first!

Next up, we’ve got these two piles of house cards and outpost cards. They’re shuffled up and placed face-down under the board. Don’t worry, you’ll get to use them later. Also, we draw the top four cards from the deck and place them in a row beside their decks, so everyone can see them. Easy stuff so far, huh?

Alright, now that we’ve got all that set up, we just need to place the encounter book and the dice near the playing area, and we’re good to go! Time to jump into some thrilling gameplay!

GAMEPLAY

Hey there! Let me explain how this game works. We’ll play it for seven rounds, taking turns in a clockwise order. In each round, we can give our villagers different actions to do. When we finish our actions, we pass our turn. Once everyone has finished and passed, the round ends. Simple, right?

When you’re trying to decide what to do in the game, you have a few options. You can explore, build, harvest, train, or do a free action. Let’s talk about exploring first. To explore, you’ll start by drawing a cave card and putting it on your player board. Then, you’ll pick some villagers to send into the cave. Put them on the card. Now it’s time to roll the dice! The number you roll will determine which paragraph you read from the encounter book. The person to your left will read it out loud.

When you’re playing the game, you have the option to choose what you want your villager to build. They can build an outpost, a key house, a star house, or just a regular house. Once you place your villager on the exhausted part of their board, you can buy the card that matches the building you want.

But it’s not just about building. Your villagers can also gather goods by harvesting, if that’s what you want them to do. And if you want, one villager can even teach another new skills that will come in handy later on. They can also work hard to earn more coins, which can be used to buy other things. There are even free actions you can take that don’t require the use of your villagers, like interacting with other players.

When I finish doing everything I want to do, or I run out of villagers to use, I can choose to “pass”. Once I pass, my turn is over and I can’t do anything else, even if it’s something I could normally do for free. When everyone has passed, the round ends. We move the round marker forward, and then we all get to put our villagers back on our boards. Depending on how much money we have, we get some coins before the next round starts.

The Game Ends

The game ends after we play seven rounds. Then, we add up our Village Points from the advancement track. Each token on the track is worth a certain number of points, based on where it is. Each building is worth one Village Point.

I’m Ellie, and I live in Northeast Tennessee. I adore animals, whether big or small, and I’m a huge fan of fantasy novels. The great outdoors is my happy place. I have an amazing husband who loves me almost as much as our two adorable fur babies. Being a part of this incredible community brings me so much joy.

Let me tell you about a fun game I recently learned called Village Points. In Village Points, players compete to earn the highest reputation. The player with the highest reputation gets a bonus of five Village Points. The player with the second-highest reputation earns three additional points, and the player with the third-highest reputation receives two extra points. It’s a game where your choices and actions can really make a difference!

But that’s not all! In Village Points, some players can also get bonuses based on the cards and buildings they have. These bonuses can give you an edge and help you earn even more points.

The ultimate goal in Village Points is to have the highest number of Victory Points. The player who achieves this wins the game! It’s a thrilling challenge where strategic thinking and clever decision-making are key.

So, if you’re up for some friendly competition and a chance to showcase your skills, Village Points is the perfect game for you. Join in the fun and discover a world of excitement and adventure!