Creature Comforts - How to Play & Review - Boardgame Brody

hey everyone board game brody here with meeple mountain i have my daughter's new favorite game here it's creature comforts a worker placement game using dice to actually perform specific actions that you place your creatures on and this is published by kids table board gaming now like usual let's get right into this players will each take control of a specific creature type you can play as the rabbit the porcupine the raccoon who i tend to play with the fox or the squirrel you'll be competing to gather as much comforts to store in time for winter but you will need to find the resources to build those comforts each player has four workers a player board with four cottages covering up the possible points and two dice matching the player's color then each player is dealt out three random comfort cards and they will decide on two to start with comforts will score you points shown on the top left after you collect and spin the shown resources shown on the left side of the card in addition some cards will have extra text on the bottom for a way to score additional points this might be by getting a comfort that matches that one or by placing certain resources on that card by the end of the game players will only be able to have three comfort cards in their hand at a time from turn to turn and if they have more they will need to discard down to three at the end of their turn players will decide to play a normal game for eight months or eight rounds or a short game of six rounds this is tracked by these cards here called the valley cards use all eight for eight rounds or take out a random spring and summer card for six rounds these cards give spots to place your workers and they will change round to round in fact there are 12 of these spots out here on the board each with a different reward and i will go over these soon but a round has certain steps that you will need to follow and for good reason first a new traveler will come out at the beginning of each round each traveler will have their own actions to perform when placing their worker on this spot but they also have a power that is either done immediately or done when it says to do it on that card for example the black bear will provide an extra apple resource in addition to what is shown on each valley location if you perform an action there or the moose in turn order players can gift any one good of their choice to any other player and if they do they will receive a story resource or the snapping turtle that says every unresolved worker earns two more lesson learned tokens these will make more sense here soon but you can see there is a good variety and some fun and exciting random actions this might cause players to change strategy from round around to better take advantage of this power after a new traveler comes each player will roll their family dice these are the two colored dice in each player's color and place them in the slots on their player board this will allow players to know some of the dice results because next all players at the same time will place out four of their workers workers can go into any of the 12 circle locations and any number of players can take the same action but only one of your own can be in each location and players at this time are free to change their minds and move workers around until they are satisfied with what they have maybe you didn't notice a specific action and someone else places their worker there well you can move one of your other ones to do the same action no problem each location describes the dice criteria that is required for you to resolve that action so just placing your worker there doesn't let you perform that action but rather placing your worker there lets you place dice there but the dice that is allowed by those spots and then when you do that then you can do that action so placement is just the hopes of doing the action that they're placed on some locations show a square icon with a number side inside these locations require a die but it doesn't matter the value on that die to perform the action in addition glades will appear in the game and they will be added to the top of the board on its own card these are possible actions that you can take but do not require a worker only a family die from a player that does not own that glade but the owner will always receive some type of reward when another player plays on their glade after everyone has placed their workers on the board then the first player with the early bird token gets the worm and they go first they will roll the four white dice and place them on the hilltop these dice are locked in and never changed as players perform their turns during that round starting with the first player and going in a clockwise direction players will perform their turn and they will do this by first adding their family dice without altering them onto the hilltop now they will have six dice to use and then assigned from the hilltop to locations where their workers are out on the board these dice can be in any combination of family dice which are the colored dice or the village dice which are the white dice you are free to move the dice around until satisfied because some of the dice might work in multiple areas while other dice might need to be used in a specific location for you to be able to take that action if you have any lesson learned tokens these can be used to adjust a die plus one or minus one so that you can take an action that requires a different value but when doing this you will never actually change the dice value but instead you will place your lesson learn token either on the plus or the minus side next to that die that you want to modify these less and learn tokens can be very valuable especially when you really really want to take a certain action and the dice roll does not go your way if you ever have leftover dice you can check to see if there are any glades that you can take advantage of remember that the glades require family dice so the color dice only so if you can rearrange your dyes so that the extras are your family dice then you might be able to use them on a glade to get additional resources for me i always try to assign my white dice first for this reason after you're finished arranging your dice you will then resolve each action or glade where you assigned your dice most likely gaining resources comfort cards improvement cards or exchanging something for something else let's go over some of these locations so you can see how they work the valley here has two cards the forest and the meadow these locations all give you resources of different types to build your comforts some might require up to three dice that will reward you with more resources while others might give you one resource but the requirement is only one die and easier to do also the valley provides wood yarn mushrooms fruit and grain which are five of the six goods in the game any one good can be represented as this icon here for different reasons in the game so keep that in mind as well this icon though does not represent stories coins or lesson learn tokens but the valet can also provide stories and coins which tend to be more valuable than the goods the river has three locations where you can obtain stone the sixth of the six goods but the spaces with a greater reward requires less of a variety of values than the ones that reward less stone the wheel on here will move each round so the values will be different as you play the game so the best spot this coin and stone spot might be at a six now but will go through each number and at some point it will require a one value die to get the same stuff and that same spot requires one die of that one value where this one requires a die of either this value or that value and this third spot over here is more open and easier to do and requires one of the three values on one die this is the owls nest and this is where you get new comfort cards to place in your hand because you can't craft a comfort unless you have the card there are two locations here the first one is where you can grab any one visible card of your choice cards slide to the left and a new card comes out to the right the second spot will let you draw cards from the deck blindly if you end up on this spot and you place a die with a one or a two value you will be able to take two cards from the deck any other value higher than the two so the three four five and six will get you one card this side of the board is the workshop you can come here with any number die but the larger the value the more choices of improvements you can choose from so with a one you can only pay for the bottom improvement but a five you can decide on one of the cards from the five spot down you will then pay the shown resources on that card you'll place it by your board removing the bottom cottage of your player board or if it's a glade place it above the board also removing the bottom cottage of your player board to place it on there claiming it as yours at the end of the game you will gain points for the shown points in the spaces with removed cottages as well as the points on those improvement cards each improvement card will give you a benefit of sort this is listed in the text on the bottom of that card some examples are the weather vane where you can change one village die by one which stays there for the remaining of that round the recipe book which gives you extra points for placing stories on each food comfort that you have the bicycle lets you start your turn by moving one of your workers to a different location and you would want this because you now know the values of the white dice and my favorite is the wheelbarrow where you will place this with a worker in the valley or river to then gain a good glades will give you the shown resource or good to the player placing on it and then the owner will get something in return and sometimes like the guest cottage the player playing there will get a choose a resource to give that player to take that action and in this example to gain a story resource and giving the other player a gift of any other good it might just be worth it this is the end each month there's a new card with different options each round but according to the value of die that you choose to use with that action your actions can be different following what it says on the card some examples are the blue jay where you can get two coins with a one or two or trade in coins to get stories but see how there is a 2x in the arrow you can only do that twice the beaver lets you trade wood to coins as many as you want or trade wood and any other good to get a story up to three times these abilities also usually make sense with the added bonus for that round as you can see that the beaver you have the chance to get a lot more wood and then you can come here to exchange it into one of the higher ranked resources the skunk gives a story if you use a one die value you can discard a comfort card from your hand and you gain two of any good this is where the two three four or five value die or with a six value die you can discard two comfort cards to gain a coin and a story the last spot is the market which might not be used especially at the beginning of the game but might be heavily used near the end because it lets you exchange goods a coin for any good which should be avoided unless you really need it because a coin is worth more than a good is or you can exchange two of the same good for any other good or three goods of any type for a coin you can do any or all of these as many times as you'd like when placing a worker here now during the game if you assign a worker to a place where you don't get the dice to perform that action then you gain a lesson learned token using strategy of which actions you try for can be important as you might go to two actions that both use three dice which will take your six dice and leave you with two workers without actions this can be good if you want it because you will gain tons of resources with those actions and then gain two less and learn tokens that can be used later to help manipulate the dice to perform other actions but just understand that you're limited to four workers and six dice at the end of each player's turn they will then turn in resources to craft any comfort cards that they have in their hand these cards are placed separately from other cards so that you don't confuse them with the ones in your hand the current player will then take their dice back and carefully return the village dice to the hilltop without changing the values and at this point if you have more than three comfort cards you'll have to discard down to three and then it's the next player's turn who will take their dice on the hilltop assign their dice and perform those actions after all players have assigned their dice and then resolve their actions then the round ends you will do simple upkeep to get ready for the next round you will rotate the river dial once discard the leftmost comfort card move the cards over and place a new one out discard the bottom improvement card slide them down and draw a new one for the top the traveler card is discarded and the early bird token passes to the player on the left because they will now get the worm six or eight rounds later the game ends scoring is done by adding up points you've earned on your comfort cards including whatever text is below if you completed those requirements improvements that you've purchased cottage slots that you've uncovered and leftover resources that you have a story resource is worth two points a coin is one point and three of any good is one point as well the player then with the most points wins the game wow i'm super impressed with this game my six-year-old just loves it and i'm right there with her so i find that this is an intro advanced type game which is exactly what my six-year-old needs to understand strategy and how you can play the game different ways and still do well and for me it's the same do i try for an action that requires a lot of my dice to get a lot of resources that i actually don't need currently but might need in the future and also gain some less and learn tokens because i used my dice on those big actions and can't do the action off with one or two of my other workers or do i try to get what i need now so that i can take an action to collect more comfort cards and have a better idea of resources i do need now but might not be the best opportunities to get those resources because action spots have changed remember worker placement spots change from round to round so taking advantage of what's actually available is really important because you might not be able to get certain resources or as much of a resource next month the game also ties in thematically with its seasons by not giving certain resources in certain seasons which ties into the strategy as well at the beginning of the game you might feel like you're going to be using most of your time using your workers to get resources but after a couple of rounds you find yourself with so many resources that you need to find the right comforts to complete the game is a balance between these two things and some can do this better than others you have a hand limit of three comfort cards so this only lets you work on three things at a time you can try and plan for others if you finish some of those comforts during your turn where you end and build those comforts and then discard down to three cards that limiting factor causes you to plan and strategize also when uh placing your workers you are essentially planning what dice you think you might have access to these spots are not guaranteed so strategically thinking uh what your chances for some spots are can really help but there will be times where you waste your dice either because you used one die for each worker and have two left over or you couldn't perform certain actions that you have your worker on lesson learn tokens can be a huge lifesaver but to get those you have to have you have to not use one of your workers for an action if you're very strategic with this you can use all your dice on actions and still receive less and learn tokens to use at a later time when you really really need them i'm not sure if this is 100 correct but i try to use all of my six dice with some type of action every turn sometimes it's a worker that would use three dice one worker that uses two and another that uses one with a free one for wiggle room to get a lesson learned token or maybe i do two workers that require three dice each and the other two are wiggle room workers or three that use two dice each or some type of combination of all this i feel like the dice are proportionate to the space's power which isn't really true but i try to not waste dice glades can also become very helpful in these instances as you can place one of your family dice on those when you have extra but ultimately you can plan perfectly and then a roll just might not go your way but everyone shares the four dice at the same value so it will reflect this type of result for everyone lastly you can gain extra points with some comforts with finding matching items or ones that require a certain resource to score more points the improvement cards also can be a great point generator with minimum work so don't forget about those as well now we just absolutely love this game i anticipate an expansion to add more season cards and some added mechanic that lets you score even more points somehow there are plenty of traveler cards and comfort cards just wish there were a little bit more of a variety of the valet cards to use maybe this is because these uh make things more balanced with the comfort cards i'm not really sure but that would be the only thing that i felt like didn't get spoiled in this game you know the components are just amazing this is the deluxe edition of the game so wooden resources which really helps the game feel more special there is a bright future for kids table board gaming so gather comforts for your home for winter with your family and friends in creature comforts by kids table board gaming again this is board game brody i hope you enjoyed this video stick around and check out some other board game reviews to see what you might want to get to the table

Channel: Meeple Mountain

Views: 2,282

Keywords: board games, card games, dice games, tabletop games, tabletop, meeple mountain, gaming, dice, board game review, review

Id: lR-HyMdRTQw

Length: 19min 56sec (1196 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 17 2022