Return To Dark Tower - How To Play

hi and welcome to watch it played my name is rodney smith and in this video we're going to learn the one to four player game return to dark tower designed by isaac childress noah cohen rob davio justin d jacobson and brian neff and published by restoration games who helped sponsor this video an old abandoned tower that was once home to an evil sorcerer has been reclaimed by a new adversary strange sounds can be heard coming from it calling to creatures who now attack the surrounding lands it's time for you and the other heroes of the four kingdoms to unite and stand against this imposing fortress so join me at the table and let's learn how to play to set up place the game board in the center of the play area and this is divided into four kingdoms separated by rivers and labeled as the north east south and west kingdoms and each player should sit with one of the kingdoms directly in front of them in the center of the board you now set the imposing dark tower from a previous game you might have removed a few of these seals from the tower and if so add them all back with their skulls face up but don't worry they won't fit in upside down anyway on the board find the spaces labeled as citadels bazaars sanctuaries and villages and on each place the matching shaped buildings and you'll find there's one of each type located in each of the four kingdoms and you still set up the entire board even if you have fewer than four players nearby set the two denominations of warrior and spirit tokens along with 24 skulls spare skulls are included in case you lose any but these you can return to the box for now i have my tokens set in some trays that i have and if you'd like to get some of your own you'll find links in the description find the gear cards which have this back and sort them into face up piles of matching items you'll have six stacks of three cards each the treasure cards have this back and you shuffle them into a face down pile dealing three of them face up into what is known as the market these are the potion and corruption decks and they should also be shuffled into face down piles the cards that look like this are known as companions and you set them out as well along with these three quest markers and this heggle die each person now picks one of the four included heroes to play as and takes the related hero board or you can assign these randomly we'll set up a two player game in this video and return these unused player boards back to the box at this time you can also pick someone to be what is known as the first player the kingdom that's facing your side of the table becomes your home kingdom so the orphan's science player was sitting on this side of the table the west kingdom would be their home kingdom each player now collects the three double-sided virtue tiles that match the color of their board setting them with their faded sides face up into these spaces then in the empty remaining virtue space find and place the gold edged kingdom virtue tile that matches the name of your kingdom then collect seven warriors and one spirit token from the supply as you're starting resources as you're reminded of right here your hero will have a model to represent it and a matching colored base and you set it onto the space of your home kingdom that contains your citadel this tower is very impressive and a little intimidating so i'm just going to set it to the side so it's not competing with me for your attention when we're in these shots all right so now you need to get out an android or ios device that has bluetooth capability like a phone or tablet and install the free return to dark tower app i have an early version of the app so while the version you have will be similar there may be a few differences but nothing that should keep you from being able to follow along launch the app and then after it loads you'll tap start a new game then it will ask you to turn the tower on and to do this you flip the tower over and ensure that you've installed the three required double a batteries that are sold separately and then you turn the tower on by flicking this switch it'll light up and you'll hear some sounds now i should mention the tower is a very sturdy piece of equipment but it has a lot of important technology inside of it so treat it with care and it will last you a long long time with the tower turned on now tap next in the app it's going to start to scan and it'll try to connect to the tower once it does you'll then be able to tap calibrate now the tower is really going to come to life you're going to hear some whirring some beeps some other sounds something's going on in there basically it's getting the tower set up connected to the app and ready to play eventually you'll hear that imposing sound and now you know that the tower is ready and once it's calibrated you can then tap continue you now pick whether you want to play a cooperative or competitive game and we'll choose the standard cooperative mode if you want a greater challenge you can select gritty difficulty and if you have the alliance's expansion for the game and want to include that tap its box we'll ignore those options though and just tap continue now we indicate how many players we have two in this case tap and continue the game comes with a variety of different challenges players can face and here you cycle through and pick the one that you want or have the app pick randomly for your first game they recommend recover as goals treasures so we'll select that each time you play you also get to pick an adversary to face from the many that are included for your first game they recommend astrider finally the kingdom will be overrun by a variety of foes and you get to pick from a variety of different combinations of them first pick any one of these level 2 foes we'll pick the brigands then tap on the card here for the level 3 foes and pick one of those as well we'll take the widowmade spiders then tap the level 4 box here and pick one of these we'll go with the dragon next tap continue where it shows us a summary of our choices now find the companion card with a picture matching your main goal and the adversary card and token matching the one you chose along with the cards and tokens matching your chosen foes and all of these items you can set nearby for use later there are several other cards and tokens that come with the game but they'll only be used in certain situations so you can just leave them in the box and pull them out as necessary with our goal adversary and foes selected we tap continue and after a quick loading screen we'll get a few more instructions here it tells us to place two skulls on each sanctuary and bizarre building again as we can see these are labeled on the board so we set two skulls into each of those buildings as instructed even in kingdoms that don't have players assigned to them and when we're done we tap continue we're now told to collect these four river of fire tokens from the box and set them nearby as we continue we're then told that the person we chose earlier as the first player should collect this zeta companion we're also told to add some foes to the board and the app will show you which kingdom to place them in and then highlight the space and tell you that space's name at the bottom you then find that foes token and add it to that space as you click next you'll be instructed to add additional foes to the indicated spaces so keep doing this one at a time until you've placed all of the foes the app requires once done if we tap continue now we'll be given a bit of story explaining the situation we find ourselves in and the goal we need to accomplish to win this is telling us that we have to find the four treasure cards that have the word as goal in their title and obtain five virtues once we have those requirements we then need to go to the upper icefang's location of the board and perform a quest we now place this main goal marker into that labeled space of the board to remind us where we have to go to complete the main quest we'll learn more about this important objective later but now we tap continue and here we're told it's the first month of our adventure and tapping continue again means the game is ready to begin and that's the setup in return to dark tower you and the other players will be working together to fight monsters gain powers survive the threats of the tower and achieve your objectives if you complete the main goal the adversary will leave the tower to face you and if you defeat the adversary you all win the game is played over a series of rounds known as months and you must defeat the adversary before the end of the sixth month or you all lose in the very first month of the game starting with the first player and going clockwise around the table one time each player will take a single turn the app will then inform you that that month is over and a new one will begin in future months the next person in clockwise order from the person who went last will go first in the new month and then you take turns in clockwise order until the app stops you in other words in the first month everyone takes exactly one turn but in later months you won't know how many turns you'll get until the month ends the app will tell you when it's over but this chart found in the rulebook will show you the average number of turns you'll get based on the number of players so in a two player game you'll get around seven turns per month also at the start of every month except for the very first one the app will give you two monthly quests so let's skip ahead in the app to the second month to show you what that will look like as we confirm we're ready to start month 2 the app will tell us that some new quests are waiting tapping continue reveals a companion quest and we can read this area out loud describing what is happening then we're told what tasks we've been asked to complete in this case we have to spend 16 warriors while in the muted forest and we place this companion quest marker into that space of the board as a reminder and again the app will show us where on the board we'll find that space with the companion quest established we can tap continue and here we're given an adversary quest this will also describe a situation and task that you need to complete this time questing in the dayside space so we can then place this adversary quest marker into that space as a reminder with the two quests set up you can then hit continue and the players will be able to start taking turns completing quests as you play is optional but often very helpful if you finish the companion quest you'll likely gain a new companion or helpful item while completing the adversary quest usually prevents something terrible from happening sometimes a quest will provide you with a special item from what is known as the quest deck which we left in the box during the setup if so you go through these cards to find the related item or items these will provide you with various benefits and if you ever spend or have to lose a quest item just return it back to the box you'll have until the end of the month to complete the quests you've been given and if you succeed or fail to the app will explain what happens at that time and then you'll gain two new quests for the next month now remember for the very first month of the game you won't be given those two quests instead you'll just begin that month with the first player taking their turn and a player's turn is broken into three parts the start the middle and the end you'll find reminders of what you can do during these stages of your turn in this area of your player board and during the start of a turn you can take the banner action listed here this is optional you don't have to perform your banner action but if you don't you won't be able to perform it later in your turn in this case we're shown the symbol for a spirit token so this means we collect one of them from the supply other game effects may come into play that say they resolve at the start of your turn and if so you would resolve those right now as well after the start of your turn you go to the middle of your turn shown in this area of your board and here you can move perform one of the three possible heroic actions in this area and perform one of the four possible reinforce actions listed here and all of those are optional and you can do them in any order and even split up your move to take actions before during or after it so you might for example do a reinforce action then move two spaces perform a heroic action and then move some more so let's start by learning how movement works here you can move a number of spaces up to your move value as shown here so in the case of the orphan scion we can move up to three spaces but notice it says you can spend one spirit token returning it to the supply to double your movement this turn however you must pay that cost before you perform any movement this term some effects on other cards that we'll learn about later like this one may modify your movement and if so you apply all modifiers before any doubling if you've already started moving and then gain something that would affect your movement value it won't apply until your next turn each point of movement takes you from the space you're in into an adjacent space which is any space sharing any amount of gold land border or these thick blue river borders so for example i could move three spaces going from here to here and then to here and maybe over to here and nothing on the board stops your movement you can always move through foes other heroes skulls markers or anything you'll also notice that each space has a name and also represents a type of terrain based on its color and the symbol found in it you'll find the terrain types listed in the rulebook and here on screen and they can be important when resolving effects as we'll see later but that covers movement so now let's talk about heroic actions there are three to choose from and again you'll find these listed on your hero board and you can perform any one of them so let's go through each of these starting with cleanse we'll see how skulls end up on the board later but they're bad and when you take the cleanse action you return all of the skulls from a building in your space back to the supply and unless an ability says otherwise you can't cleanse in a space with no skulls with that understood let's quickly look at virtues these are found on your hero board in this area and you start the game with three active virtues and then three others you can unlock later as we'll see whenever an active virtue would apply you resolve its effect for example this one says that after you perform a cleanse action you may then remove one skull from any other building anywhere on the board so be sure to keep an eye on your hero's virtues as they will give you advantages while playing and that's the cleanse action but now let's take a look at a different heroic action battling this allows you to fight a single foe in your space so if there's more than one declare which one is your target now open the battle screen by tapping this icon you'll now see all the possible foes in your game with their status listed below which indicates how dangerous they currently are the longer foes are on the board the more dangerous they'll become next select the foe you're battling in this case the brigands then tap battle you'll now be shown a display of the cards that make up the briggs digital deck spread out randomly face down you'll be facing a number of those cards equal to the level of that foe this is printed on their card here so this means we'll face two of their cards but we pick which ones by tapping on them in the app so i'll pick two of them now the app will then reveal each of the cards i selected one at a time and then i have to resolve them for example this one says to lose two warriors for each skull on buildings on or adjacent to myspace i'm adjacent to two skulls so i'd lose four warriors which means i return that many from the ones that i have back to the supply many battle effects will require spending warriors and we'll see how you can gain more of these later if you can't fully resolve the requirement let's say for example i didn't have enough warriors then complete as much as you can and gain a single corruption card this is taken from the top of the corruption deck and added face up to your player board in this area a corruption's effect is active immediately and will weaken your hero in some way you only gain at most one corruption from any one effect no matter how much of the effect you failed to complete so if a single battle card wanted me to lose for example 12 warriors and one treasure and i couldn't fulfill both of those requirements i still only take one corruption if i failed to complete a future battle card i would then gain a second corruption and if a player would ever have three corruption at once all the players lose immediately when you lose the game while playing tap this game lost icon here to quit in defeat now keep in mind even if you fail to fully resolve the requirements of a foes card and have to collect a corruption you've not lost the battle whether you completed the requirements of the card or not you then tap confirm and the next card will be revealed and then you can attempt to resolve its requirements if you can just do what it says and tap confirm to move on but if you can't remember you just resolve as much as you can and then take a corruption for example in this case i'm now told to lose a potion well i don't have a potion so it looks like i'm going to have to take another corruption but listen you're not completely at the mercy of the enemy you are a hero after all and can fight back using what are known as advantages there are six different advantages you may have access to as we see here beast magic humanoid melee undead and stealth you may also have wild advantages which can count as any one of the other types so let's see where you can get these advantages from advantages will always show an up arrow so here's a magic advantage on one of our scion's virtues you may also acquire cards like this one that provides you with advantages this amulet gives you two wild advantages when you're in a lake space while this scroll can be spent which means you discard it to give you four stealth advantages advantages can be divided into two different types automatic like the amulet here which have a black background and conditional like the scroll which has a gray background to use a conditional advantage you have to spend it that means you discard it and since this is a treasure it would go to the bottom of the treasure deck but in the process of doing this you gain its advantages to use at any time during this battle on the other hand when you use an automatic advantage like this amulet you don't lose it you can only use each automatic advantage you have once per battle but when you take a battle action in the future you'll have this advantage to use again when you're ready to use an advantage like this circlet of conviction first ensure its type matches one of the traits of your target these traits will be shown in the app and on the foes card so these brigands can have humanoid and stealth advantages used against them the circuit has the humanoid advantage so i can use it by tapping the foe's current card in this area but before i do keep an eye on these two areas all right let's tap notice one of the dots by the sun disappeared but also the effect on the card just got weaker we no longer have to lose a potion at all that said if i have other advantages that match either of the foes traits i could use those as well and weaken the enemy even more for example i could spend this treasure to gain four stealth advantages to use at any point during this battle so i could use one of my four just gained stealth advantages to tap here again and things got even better i actually gained three warriors for facing this card now and once you see only one dot left on the sun icon you know that card is at its weakest it can't be weakened any further i should mention you don't have to spend all of the advantages that you have on the card you're currently resolving in the app maybe you'll spend some on one foe card and then save some for a future card you'll face during that fight however any advantages you have but don't spend by the end of that battle action are lost so if i had tossed out this treasure in order to get four stealth actions but i only used two of them well the other two are lost i don't get to save those for a future battle also if you gain an item during a battle and it provides you with an advantage you can then use it during that battle action but if you lose an item in the middle of a battle that had provided you with automatic advantages that item goes away but you can still use the advantage that was on it during that battle each time you spend an advantage the app will keep track of it here and at most you can spend 10 during a single battle either way once you've resolved the current card tap the confirm button and if that was the final folk card you had to deal with you'll now be told to remove that foes token from your space sometimes an effect in the app or on a card like this one will let you remove a foe without battling it when this happens tap this button in the app to see a listing of all the monsters currently in play from here you can then tell the app the one that you want to remove by holding down the related button for it after that you can then remove the related token from the board and that's how you resolve a battle as your heroic action for the turn but instead of cleansing or battling you have one other heroic action you may instead perform questing there are two ways to quest one is to be in a space with a quest marker when you satisfy its requirements you can always see the requirements of a quest by tapping on it here and if you're in the required space and satisfy its requirements hold down this button until it changes color and read out the results resolving any outcomes it provides the main goal is resolved the same way and completing this puts you on the path to winning the game so it's ultimately what you and the other players should be focused on completing but we'll discuss what happens when this is completed a little later in addition to completing a quest with the questing action you can also use this action to explore a dungeon dungeons will be added by the app to the board and it will tell you what type of dungeon it is and where to place it you then find the related token and add it to that space from now on while you're in a space with a dungeon token you can explore it as your quest action this dungeon icon will be available for you to tap and then you can pick the dungeon pictured on the token in your space you'll now see the starting room of that dungeon and any unexplored rooms you can enter from it so now we'll pick one of these rooms that we'd like to explore the app will then reveal what happens next often you're faced with a requirement and may then use at most one valid advantage you haven't used yet during this quest action by pressing the improve button to improve the room now whether or not you used an advantage follow the presented instructions to resolve that room like a battle if you cannot fully resolve the requirements do what you can and then gain a corruption but either way the room is then cleared and you can decide whether or not to explore a new room or just leave the dungeon somewhere hidden in each dungeon is a target room which contains a hidden object or important person you're trying to find and as soon as you find that room you've completed the dungeon and will be told what happens and then the dungeon token will be removed from the board now if you leave the dungeon before finding the target room any rooms you did clear will remain cleared for the next time any hero explores that dungeon and those are all the possible hero actions and again you pick only one of them to perform on your turn or none of them but if you perform a heroic action as you're reminded here you then gain two spirit now in addition to moving and performing a heroic action you may also perform one of the four types of reinforce actions so let's see how these work next to perform a reinforced action you must be in a space with a building and then depending on the type of building it is a reinforced action allows you to perform one of two possible effects all of these effects are shown on your hero board beside the related building and each of these buildings has one effect that is free to perform and the other will have a cost when reinforcing you pick just one of these effects to perform so for example at the citadel one of the options is to gain one potion for free when you gain a potion draw the top card from this potion's deck and place it face up in front of you there's no limit to how many potions you can have and each one will provide some kind of effect that you can resolve when you spend the potion which will send it back to the bottom of its deck and i should mention anything you have that can be spent you can spend at any point during your turn so keep an eye out for items you have that could help you going back to the reinforced actions you can see here while at the citadel you can instead spend five spirit to gain one virtue this allows you to flip any one of your inactive virtues to its active side giving you access to its effect right away and remember the main goal for this scenario is to have five of your virtues unlocked so now i only have one more to go if you're at the sanctuary you can reinforce to either gain one spirit for free or spend five spirit to remove all the corruption cards you currently have any corruption that you lose is returned to the bottom of the corruption deck in any order that you want at the village you can reinforce to gain six warriors for free or spend one spirit to gain 12 of them there's no limit to how many warriors or spirit tokens a player can collect and if the supply would ever run out just use a suitable replacement while at the bazaar you can reinforce to gain one piece of gear for free gear you collect from any one of the face-up piles in the supply but each player can have at most only one copy of each type of gear gear like potions will provide you with a benefit but these are ongoing you don't lose the gear card when you use its benefits at the bazaar if you reinforce and instead spend two spirit you can gain one treasure when collecting treasure choose a face up one from this area known as the market and any time a treasure leaves the market replace it with a new one from the top of the deck treasures you gain you add to an open space below your hero board here and you can have at most four treasures at any one time so if you would ever gain more than that discard any extras to the bottom of the treasure deck until you're back down to four we saw examples of treasures earlier and these will have various benefits some are ongoing and others require you to spend the treasure to use its effect one of the objectives in the scenario we're playing here is for a player to collect four of asgol's treasures and these are any that show that name in their title and those are all the possible ways to reinforce however before you perform a reinforced action you can choose if you wish to roll this haggle die if you get a blank side nothing extra happens and you resolve the action as normal but if you get this side your reinforced action is cancelled and you won't get to perform it at all if you get any of the other sides then after the reinforced action you also get a bonus this side means you get three warriors here you gain one potion and with this side you collect one piece of gear and that's everything you need to know to resolve the middle of your turn where you can move and take one heroic and one reinforce action in any order breaking up your move to perform actions as you like additionally at any point during the start or middle of your turn you can make trades a trade can happen between you and any one other hero in your space as long as you both agree to the trade you can't trade virtues or corruption but you can give or take warrior or spirit tokens any types of items or companions we haven't discussed companions yet but the first player started with this one and companions provide you with additional abilities for example this one says that once per turn we can spend a treasure we're holding which just means that we discard it ignoring any effects on the treasure itself but then the companion grants us three wild advantages alright with the middle of a player's turn complete they now move to the end of their turn collecting one skull from the supply and dropping it into the top of the tower you'll see an opening here to drop the skull into but before i do let me just prepare you for what might happen the skull that you add might drop out one of the open doors in the tower or it may disappear into the tower levels of the tower might rotate you might see lights and hear sounds in a later turn skulls you have dropped in previously might suddenly appear and spill out onto the board and i'll explain some of those outcomes in a moment but the important thing to understand is this at the end of your turn you must add a skull to the tower if you don't have any skulls left in the supply to drop into the tower then the players all lose this is why it's important to use the cleanse action to remove skulls from the buildings sending them back to the supply also as soon as you drop a skull into the tower you can no longer use any of your items even ones that would deal with skulls or events it's the tower's turn to act now let's say after adding a skull to the tower a skull drops out a skull leaving the tower must then be placed in a building located in the kingdom where the skull exited the tower from so if a skull had come out of this door but tumbled and rolled into this kingdom we would still bring it back and add it to a building in this one since this is the kingdom facing where the skull exited from when a skull enters a kingdom the player who is seated by that kingdom decides which building to put the skull in if you have less than four players like we do here any kingdom that doesn't have a player seated by it is known as a dormant kingdom skulls that enter a dormant kingdom still go into one of the buildings there but the player who dropped the skull into the tower decides which one it's added to if a building would ever receive its fourth skull it's destroyed you remove the building and the three skulls on it from the game don't put them back in the supply and the fourth skull that destroyed it is then returned to the supply if a player loses a building in their home kingdom they gain a corruption but if a building is destroyed in a dormant kingdom then no one gains a corruption and remember if a player would ever have three corruption at once all the players lose now in addition to dropping a skull and resolving whatever might happen as a result the app might indicate that an event needs to resolve at the end of your turn as well these will show this event icon and you should read the event out loud with the player who dropped the skull into the tower resolving any choices that need to be made events may do any number of things like add move or attack with foes or the foes on the board may grow in power the tower itself might rotate or act in some way or maybe if you're lucky something good might happen it's often during events that companions you've collected will act and provide you with some benefit so the more companions you have the better sometimes an event will instruct you to remove a seal when this happens the lights on either side of the related side will glow and the specific seal will pulse a glowing red you then apply some light pressure to the related seal and slide it upwards this will either reveal an opening like we see here or a glyph symbol if it's an opening it's possible that skulls might have been hiding behind the seal so once it's removed they'll spill out and if so you place those skulls following the normal rules if instead a removed seal reveals a glyph it will match one of the symbols found on your player board representing that type of action no matter which kingdom your character is currently standing in if a revealed glyph is facing your kingdom then to take the related action you will have to spend one spirit token okay with that understood after any events have been resolved the next player in clockwise order takes their turn and turns will continue like this until the players all win or lose remember you lose if any player would have three corruption at once or if you ever need to take a skull from the supply for any reason and there are none left there or if the sixth month ends to win you must defeat the adversary before any of those things happen to do this complete the main goal by satisfying its requirements in this scenario a player needs to have four of asgool's treasures and have unlocked five of their virtues then if they're in the space with the main goal marker they can press down on the hold the complete button until it fully changes color they will then be presented with some story to read out loud and discover that the adversary has emerged from the tower you'll show their location by putting the adversary's foe token onto the indicated space of the board as shown in the app from now on you'll be able to start a battle with the adversary just as you would any other foe by going to their space and tapping on the battle action icon in the app and selecting the adversary but during the battle there are two key differences first after resolving at least one of the adversaries battle cards you will then be given the option to retreat before facing more cards so this lets you go in fight the adversary a little and then leave before you're overwhelmed but the app will remember the progress you've made against the adversary so far also anytime you use an advantage to adjust the effect on a card the adversary has revealed against you the change you make to that card will persist in future battles so if we used two advantages against this adversary card then in the future when this card is revealed from the deck again it will still be at this reduced level in this way you can weaken the future effects you or the other players will face when you battle the adversary later and you'll likely have to battle the adversary several times before the app tells you that you've landed the final blow once you have the app will inform you that the adversary is defeated and the players have all won instead of playing cooperatively you can also play return to dark tower competitively with players racing to be the first to retrieve a relic hidden within a tower dungeon you'll find these rules detailed here in the rule book but i'll leave those for you to discover on your own you'll also find a page here explaining some of the other tokens in the game for when they come up like these river of fire tokens so refer to this area if you have any questions about them i should also mention the app automatically saves your game after every turn so if you need to change the batteries in the tower or you have to pause the game you can stop and the next time you open the app you'll see an option to continue your last game and remember each time you play you can pick different adversaries and different combinations of foes to ensure a unique experience every time but otherwise that's everything you need to know to play return to dark tower if you have any questions about anything you saw here feel free to put them in the comments below and i'll gladly answer them as soon as i get a chance you'll also find forums for discussion pictures other videos and lots more over on the game's page at board game geek and i'll put a link to that in the description below and if you found this video helpful please consider giving it a like subscribing and clicking that little bell icon so you get notification anytime we post a new video and if you'd like to support us directly you can join our patreon team which i'll have linked below but until next time thanks for watching [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Watch It Played

Views: 70,863

Keywords: How To Play, Watch It Played, Instructions, Board Games, Card Games, Tabletop, Miniatures, Play Throughs, Board Game, Tutorial, Tutorials, Rules, Learn, Learn How To Play, Game Rules, Learn To Play, Return To Dark Tower, Restoration Games, instructional

Id: OtJk0qYCmk8

Length: 36min 24sec (2184 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 18 2021