Paleo

14th March 2020

It's a Sunday night, I'm on my PC in my living, logged on to Zoom and the Tabletopia website.

In Paleo each player controls a tribe of cavemen and is a cooperative card about life & times in a prehistoric times. According to Paleo, our caveman ancestors were pretty obsessed with woolly mammoths, either chasing or running away from them!

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Caveat: Paleo was played virtually on the Tabletopia website, so I cannot attest to the quality or lack of regarding the components.

What's in a game?
Paleo is a card game with a lot of different types of cards, the majority are encounter cards (Explained Below) but not all cards and tokens are used in every game.
Paleo uses a base set of encounter cards and also employs a module system which determines which other sets of cards are used, each game uses 2 modules from a selection of 10, this will also affect the games difficulty. The rules suggest combinations to use for easier and harder games ranging from 1 to 7 in difficulty. Ultimately you can even choose your own set ups. Modules can add a narrative flavour to the game as most modules are themed.

• Encounter cards: As the name suggests these are cards that a player's tribe will encounter during a day, there are several different types of encounter cards and when turned over they detail the encounter that tribe has. Each different type of encounter card can be identified by it's own unique illustration, such as a forest on forest cards, a river on river cards and so on. Additionally, there may be extra elements to the illustration, such as a forest containing a woolly mammoth indicating that it is like a mammoth will be encountered. Encounter cards mostly consist of  but are not limited to forest, river & mountain cards and also include:
  Forest: When a forest card is turned over, it is likely (But no guaranteed.) that the tribe will encounter wood & food.
  River: It is likely that players will encounter food & pelts on river cards.
  Mountain: Stone & pelts are mostly encountered on mountain cards.
  Campfire: A campfire will allow a combination of the following actions, crafting, increasing the tribe's size, acquiring a dream card, making a discovery.
  Dreams: These are always beneficial, they sometimes replicate actions on other cards or have their own special action, all are unique.
  Hazard: These red cards always represents danger, be they wild animals, environmental problems or calamities. They can pose a significant threat to members of a tribe
• People cards: These cards form a player's tribe, they each have a number of hearts representing how damage they can take before dying, most also have 1 skill, strength (For fighting/hunting mostly.), awareness (Important to being able to deal with danger.) and skill (Used for crafting). Some come with tokens/tools as well. 
• Discovery cards: The tribes will need to make discoveries in order to succeed, some discoveries are specific to certain modules. These range from learning how to create new types of tools to creating prehistoric art.
• Mission cards: Each module has its own mission card, thus 2 are used in every game, they represent extra requirements that must be met during the night phase.
• Mystery cards: There are 22 of these, which cards are used is determined by which modules are used.
• Meeples: There are 3 types of meeples in the game and they represent the game's resources, food, wood and stone. Food is vital for your tribe, wood and stone are used for crafting.
• Tokens: They represent tools or resources to which a player's tribe has access, There are 3 basic tools that players are always available to craft, torches with confer awareness, flint grants skill and a spear increases strength. Other tokens become available when players make discoveries, they include items that may grant a combination of abilities or will have other affects. Additionally, some tokens are discarded when used and others stay in play permanently.
• Base camp board: This board has spaces for three different decks. the people deck, dreams deck and discovery deck.
• Night board: This used during the night face, it contains the victory and defeat tracks, it also has spots for the mystery and mission cards.
• Discard board: Cards are discarded either face-up or face-down and they are discarded on to this board.
• Discovery rack: This is where revealed discoveries go, I think the physical component is actually a rack that you construct
• Graveyard: Some cards are discarded out of the game entirely, this is where they are put. This is also a thing that is constructed if you have the actual game.
• Victory tokens: There are 5 victory tokens, when all placed together they form a caveman painting and represent winning
• Defeat tokens: 5 skull tokens are used to track defeat, when all 5 are placed on the night board, the players collectively lose.
• Dice: These are custom dice, we didn't use them as some modules don't require them. I believe they determine resources randomly for certain cards/encounters

​I've never seen the physical components other than in photos so can't comment on their quality, however the game's artwork is cheerful and colourful.

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Setup

• First choose the modules you will be using. This will determine which mystery, mission & discovery cards are used.
• Put out the people deck & dream deck face-down
• Shuffle the base encounter cards with the modules' encounter cards, then deal the entire deck out to the players as evenly as possible. Each player has their own encounter deck.
• Each player draws 2 cards from the people deck, this represents their tribe, they may also acquire tokens, depending on what people they drew.
• Collectively, the players start with 5 food.

That's it for the important parts of setup.

How's it play?
Paleo is played over any number of rounds, each round has a day phase and a night phase. The vast majority of gameplay occurs during the day phase, the night phase is mostly for managing what happened during the previous phase.

Day phase
What actions a player can under take will depend on the situation and what encounters they errr.... encounter!

• Sleep: Before choosing an encounter a player may elect to end their day and send their tribe to sleep instead, this means not drawing 3 cards from their encounter deck but discarding the remaining deck face-down on to the discard board. If a player only has hazard cards left, they may want to do this.
  If a player has no more cards left, their tribe must go to sleep.
  When a tribes goes to sleep, that player no longer participates in the remaining day phase and their tribe cannot help other tribes.
• Choose an encounter: Each player draws the top 3 cards from their encounter deck and puts them in a row face-down. Then without looking at them, they choose 1 to encounter and return the other 2 to their encounter deck in any order they see fit.
  Since different types of encounter cards have different backs, players will have an idea of what kind of encounter they will have, but not the exact type. For example, if a player chooses a card with a forest back, it's like (But not guaranteed.) that they'll find food or wood.
  A player's encounter deck also represents the time they have left during the day (More is explained on this below.).
  Before choosing this card, all the players will most likely want to have a discussion about what cards everybody should choose.
• Reveal encounter cards: All players simultaneously turn over their cards, now each player must deal with their encounter.
• Complete encounter: Most encounter cards will have 2 or 3 manners in which a encounter can be completed, all a player has to do is meet the conditions one of these encounters demands and then they will earn it's reward.
  For example, if you reveal a wood card, you may discard 1 card from you encounter deck to gain 1 wood OR discard 2 cards to gain 3 wood.
  Encounters can have varied requirements, a player might need to have a certain strength to fight an animal for example or certain tools
• Ignore: Generally a player can choose to (Or may have to.) ignore a card, unless the card is a danger (See below.)!
• Help: If a card shows an illustration of shaking hands, then that player can choose to help another player and ignore their own card, allowing them to lend the other player their abilities and tools. This option appears on many cards and is a critical strategy to winning the game.
• Danger: Some cards are dangerous, they cannot be ignored and the action must be completed, if the player cannot complete it, then typically their tribe takes damage. All hazard cards are dangerous and some innocent looking encounters will also place a tribe in danger.
• Discard: When a encounter is either completed or ignored it is discarded face-up on the discard board.
  Some cards that are completed must be discarded to the graveyard, they are now permanently out of this game.
  Frequently players will be required to discard cards from the top of their encounter deck, mostly to complete actions. They are discarded face-down on to the discard board.
  Any hazard cards discarded this way inflict damage on the player's tribe, so it's not necessarily a good way to try and avoid them.
• Discovery: Some encounters allow the player to draw a card from the discovery deck and put it on to the discovery rack.
  Frequently a discovery makes a new type of tool available to be crafted by the tribes. Some discoveries can be completed to gain a victory token.
• Craft: Craft encounters give the player the opportunity to craft 1 or 2 tools, this usually requires specific types of resources and crafting ability. 
• Collect people card: Some encounters allow people to be recruited to a tribe.
• Mystery: When completed, the player turned over a card on the mystery deck and has that encounter, which can be beneficial or negative.
• Collect rewards: When an encounter is completed, they player's tribe will gain a reward, usually this is contextual to the card, often its a basic resource - food, wood or stone, sometimes it's a tool. If player's are lucky it might be a victory token.
• Damage: Dangers & hazard cards in particular can inflict damage, this is distributed to people cards as they player sees fit. 
• Death: If a people card loses all it's health, it is discarded to the graveyard and a skull is added to the night board.

Once all encounters have been dealt with one way or another, then players once more draw 3 cards from their encounter deck and choose another encounter to have.
Play continues during the day phase until all player tribes have gone to sleep, the day phase is now over and the night phase commences.

Night phase
The night phase is much shorter than the day.
All tribes must collectively discard an amount of food equal to the number of people cards in all their tribes. If they cannot manage this, a skull is added to the night board.
Furthermore they must also meet the conditions required on the 2 module specific missions. Each one they fail adds another skull to the night board.
Once the night phase is concluded, all the cards on the discard board are put into a single deck, shuffled and dealt out to the players again, then the next day phase begins.

Endgame
Play continues until the players have accumulated all 5 victory tokens, in which case they immediately all win.
If 5 skull tokens are placed on to the night board, then the players immediately lose.
​Some mystery cards may contain alternate ways to win the game.

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Playing area on Tabletopia.

Hunter; has 1 strength, starts with a rope.

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Overall
First thing I'm going to talk about are 2 interlinked mechanics.

The exploration mechanic of drawing 3 face-down cards and choosing one from the card back is excellent. It feels a bit like exploring, does a player choose to go to the forest or the mountains? They'll have a pretty good idea what to expect but it's not guaranteed. They most likely will get the wood or stone or whatever they're looking for but they might encounter a rockfall or a dangerous animal.
Additionally, players will also get an idea of what's coming in future turns
It's a great mechanic.

The other equally great mechanic is how each player's own deck also represents their tribe's time & energy, completing encounters frequently forces a player to discard 1 or 2 cards from their deck, so when it's depleted - so is the tribe for the day. When the game begins on day 1, players will have 15 cards, so it's possible to burn through a deck very quickly, why is that significant?
Essentially the encounter deck is another resource that needs to be managed. In most games, my instinct would be to gather as much food/wood/stone/resource as possible but in Paleo you sometimes have to fight that urge. You have to ask the question, what resource do I really need?
For example; near the end of a day I had 3 cards left, 2 in my deck and a forest encounter. Turning the card over, I had the option to discard 2 cards for 3 wood, 1 card for one wood or help another tribe. The others didn't need help from me, so I was free to collect wood but collecting 3 wood would send my tribe to bed. Because we knew the top 2 cards on everyone's deck, I knew that another player potentially had a mammoth hunt coming and would probably need help. We didn't need the wood for now so I chose to ignore my card and I also ignored my other 2 encounter cards just so my tribe would be around for 3 more turns to help other tribes if needed. Realising this gave me an appreciation of the game's subtleties.

As well as managing encounters, players will need to ensure they generate enough resources to pass the night as well manage discoveries and crafting.
Creating a few tools gives the game a good sense of progress as it increases the capabilities of a tribe significantly. You can almost feel a the game transition from scrabbling to survive encounters to being able to go on mammoth hunts, it's quite gratifying to complete encounters that had to be ignored earlier in the game.

Like all good games, collectively there were always meaningful decisions to make. Before long we learnt that we needed to communication and coordinate on which encounter cards to keep and when they were then revealed we frequently had to coordinate on which encounters to complete, rarely did all players manage to individually complete their encounters.
For example; if all players for some reason chose mammoth hunt encounters, it would be most likely that all bar one would be ignored. Mammoth hunts generally required a lot of strength thus cooperation but also gave significant rewards, including on occasion victory tokens. Coordination is vital and it feels like players coordinating.

As a result I liked Paleo quite a lot, it's a game I'd happily play again.