Thiefdom solo rules
One book to rule them all: week June 12 - June 18
In Thiefdom you will try to steal as much gold and goods as thievenly possible. The game features The Mico artwork as well as some elements of stealth. You’re thieves after all.
Summed up
Game lasts 6 rounds. Goal is to accumulate as many victory points as you can.
The map is a three by two tiles grid. In solo your efforts to collect points are hindered by both "neutral townsfolk" (guards, nobles and carriage) as well as a "blocking AI" (simulating rival thieves). Before you start a game, item draft is simulated and you'll be able to buy max two of the three items you get from it and assign them to your thieves. You are the first player (as per compass).
A round has three phases divided between night and day. Night consists of planning and action phases, day is administration phase. During planning you determine the order of your thieves activation. After each of your thieves, one patrol card will be revealed, moving some of the townsfolk and one of the "rival thieves". The townsfolk move to unoccupied lanterns in the direction determined by an eight sided die roll. Guards have unlimited range for line of sight and will arrest any thief they spot. Everything the thief is carrying is lost and you get a penalty of two points. This roll is also used for placement of a rival thief. If you step in a location occupied by a rival thief, you lose a point.
Each thief has three actions, but once per round you can assign an additional action to one of your thieves. These can be:
Move - up to three spaces, entering a house/location ends movement
Use a location - perform action specified on the location space you occupy
Steal - from townsfolk once per night
Use a card action - either equipment card or guest card that has an action printed
In the day phase you flip the compass (making you play second), reset planning and move round markers. For each thief in the alleyway, you receive a point.
As a clarification, you can both steal and buy things in the game. You check your score against the provided table.
My thoughts are revealed
Rulebook
Rulebook is obviously a work in progress, but I didn’t encounter many issues regarding understanding how the game works. However some things are mentioned at a later stage in the rules and make talking about them sooner a bit out of place.
Overall
I’m a fan of stealth elements in games. This looks like a puzzle with random guard movement you have to avoid. From what I read in the rules, it’s a neat game, doesn’t have complex rules, most components are using iconography and randomness of certain elements ensures the puzzle is not the same every time you play. Overall I think it’s worth a look.
Thiefdom has launched on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 5 more days.
I enjoy stealth mechanics in games. Great rules write up, Dragonka. This game seems comical and fun for the right buyer.
This post was obviously written last week. I was not able to post it earlier unfortunately because of health issues. My apologies to Hana, the designers and you - our readers. Thiefdom is still on Kickstarter, however, so do check it out.