Creature Comforts

In Creature Comforts, your family of forest animals works hard to prepare your home for the coming winter.

The village of Maple Valley sits in a bountiful countryside that provides all the ingredients you’ll need to fashion a wide variety of comforting amenities. The busy Market is a good place to get things you need, the Owl’s Nest has all sorts of inspiration for ways to fill your home with warmth, and the Workshop is open to build useful improvements of all sorts.

What will you gather, cook, knit, and craft to make your den as snug and cozy as it can possibly be?

Overview

Creature Comforts plays over eight rounds called months. The gameboard features a variety of locations that provide differing benefits (such as gaining resources, Comfort cards, or Improvement cards). To gain a location’s benefit, you’ll need to send a worker there, hoping to later assign the dice needed to make the visit a success. Each player rolls two private Family dice before sending their workers out (so everyone will have a little advance knowledge of their own potential). Once all workers are placed, the four shared Village dice are rolled to set them for the month, and turns begin.

On your turn, you assign dice from your unique dice pool (2 Family and 4 Village) to your workers so they can do stuff. You’ll use the resources you gather to craft useful Improvements and valuable Comforts, trying especially to fashion items that work together to improve your score. The family that crafts the coziest collection of Comforts before the first snowfall wins the game!

Credits

GAME DESIGN: ROBERTA TAYLOR
ILLUSTRATION: SHAWNA JC TENNEY
GRAPHICS, RULEBOOK: JOSHUA CAPPEL
GAME DEVELOPMENT: KTBG
COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: SEAN JACQUEMAIN
PROJECT MANAGEMENT: HELAINA CAPPEL

Published with love by KTBG
www.kidstablebg.com
©2021 All rights reserved

Roberta thanks: Wynne and Ben, who I love to the moon and back. Craig, who insists on believing in me even when I don’t. The Game Artisans of Canada, Fallcon Gaming Society, Mike Kolross, Rob Bartel, Paul Saxberg, Patrick Dorsey, Rick Apperson, and everyone who came out to local playtesting events.

KTBG thanks: Aubrey Cappel, Jory Cappel, Ruth Cappel, Bebo, Jonathan H. Liu, Alex Radcliffe, Rikki Radcliffe, Jeremy Howard, Brian Gray and the Brian’s Got Game family, Nicole Hoye, Devon Norris, Sara Meadows and the Tantrum House family, Anna-Maria Jackson Phelps, Eric Buscemi, Sarah Shah, Alison Parkllan, Aaron Bradley, Ken Grazier, Daniel Burrell, Mandi Hutchinson, and Kat Rider for all of their incredible support throughout our Creature Comforts journey. A very BIG thank you to Angelica Lazary, Billy Chandler, and Jon-Paul Decosse for being such a huge part of this journey. We’d also like to thank our incredibly supportive Kickstarter backers, without whom none of this would be possible.

Components

• 1 GAME BOARD (featuring The Valley, Hilltop, The River, The Market, The Inn, The Workshop, and The Owl’s Nest)

• 16 VALLEY CARDS: Eight Forest and eight Meadow. There are three Spring, three Summer, and two Fall cards for both Forest and Meadow.

• 72 COMFORT CARDS: Crafting delightful Comforts for the winter is where most of your score will come from! Cards show Score, Crafting Cost, Name, Type, and Bonus scoring.

• 15 TRAVELER CARDS: Displays Traveler benefits and Traveler’s power.

• 5 HOME BOARDS: Features Cottage slots, Family dice slots, and Family symbol. The back side of each Home board has a score track that you will use at the end of the game.

• 20 WORKERS: 4 each for Rabbit, Porcupine, Raccoon, Fox, and Squirrel.

• 20 COTTAGES

• 10 FAMILY DICE: 2 dice in each player color.

• 1 RIVER DIAL
• 1 HILLTOP TILE

• 34 IMPROVEMENT CARDS: Build Improvements for special powers and scoring opportunities! Shows Score, Build Cost, Name, Glade spot, and Power.

• 4 IMPROVEMENT TOKENS: 2 Wheelbarrows and 2 Almanacs. Some Improvements come with special tokens!
• 20 COINS

• 21 LESSON LEARNED TOKENS
• 20 STORIES

• 114 GOODS TOKENS: These six resources are called Goods. Stories, Coins, and Lesson Learned tokens are not Goods. Whenever you see a symbol, it means “any Good”.
  • 20 Wood
  • 20 Stone
  • 20 Fruit
  • 18 Mushrooms
  • 18 Yarn
  • 18 Grain

• THE WORM: Starting player token.
• 4 VILLAGE DICE: White shared dice.
• 12 MULTIPLIER PLANKS: If you run out of resources in the supply, use these to make change until more resources are freed up. A plank with one resource on it counts as three or five of that resource, depending on which side of the plank you use.

Resource & Dice Symbols

What is this?

You’ll notice this symbol on a lot of things. It’s everywhere. This symbol means “any Good”. Remember that Coins, Stories, and Lessons Learned are not Goods. Wood, Stone, Fruit, Mushrooms, Yarn, and Grain are Goods.

• : This means “two matching Goods”.
• : This means “two different Goods”.

General Setup

1. Place the game board on the table. Set the River dial in its place at a random rotation, (so that dividing lines on the dial line up with the three gaps in the surrounding plank). Place the Hilltop tile in its spot.
2. Create the Valley card stacks face down (Forest stack and Meadow stack):
   • Each stack should have the Spring cards on the bottom, the Summer cards on top of those, and the Fall cards on top of those.
   • Within each season the card order should be random.
   • When the stacks are ready, flip the whole stack over so that only the current card (which will be Spring for both) is visible.
   • Set the stacks in their appropriate places on the board.
   • For a short game (good for beginners or younger players), remove one random Spring and one random Summer card from both the Forest and Meadow stacks. The game will then last only six months instead of eight.
3. Create supply piles of all six Goods (Wood, Stone, Grain, Mushrooms, Yarn, Fruit), and supply piles of Coins, Stories, and Lessons Learned (which are not Goods; you may want to separate the supply piles of Goods and non-Goods as a reminder).
4. Create a shuffled facedown deck of Comfort cards. Deal four Comforts face up into the slots of the Owl’s Nest.
5. Create a shuffled facedown stack of Improvement cards. Deal one Improvement face up into each ladder slot. Keep the four Improvement tokens (Wheelbarrows and Almanacs) nearby.
6. Shuffle the Traveler deck face down, and place it in the Inn.
7. Choose a player to start as the Early Bird (this is what we call the starting player; it will rotate each month). Give the Early Bird the Worm token and the four Village dice. Check the chart on the opposite page to see if anyone starts with a bonus Coin.

Player Setup

(Each player does this)

1. Choose your Family, and take the Home board, four Workers, four Cottages, and two Family dice of your colour.
2. Place your four Cottages on the slots on your Home board.
3. Draw three Comfort cards from the deck. Choose two to keep in your hand (Comforts in your hand are kept secret from other players), and discard the third into a shared face-up discard pile near the deck.

Now you are ready to begin!

Starting Bonus Coins

Depending on the number of players and the length of your game, some players may not get the chance to be the Early Bird as often. Check the chart and give the numbered players each 1 Coin from the supply!

• 2 PLAYERS: Normal Game (8 Months): — | Short Game (6 Months): —
• 3 PLAYERS: Normal Game (8 Months): Player 3 | Short Game (6 Months): —
• 4 PLAYERS: Normal Game (8 Months): — | Short Game (6 Months): Players 3, 4
• 5 PLAYERS: Normal Game (8 Months): Players 4, 5 | Short Game (6 Months): Players 2, 3, 4, 5

Each month plays out in these steps, played in order:

Step 1: New Traveler

Flip the top Traveler card in the Inn face up; this is the Traveler that is visiting Maple Valley this month! Each Traveler has a power that will either affect all of the players for the month, or one that will happen when the card says. Each Traveler also shows a variety of benefits that players can access by sending a worker to visit later in the round.

Read the Traveler’s power to the group. If the Traveler’s power says “Immediately”, then you should immediately follow the instructions on the card.

The Canada Lynx’s power says that all players in turn order must immediately give a gift of two different Goods from the supply to the player on their left. Do it!

Step 2: Family Dice

All players roll their own two Family dice and place them in the Family dice slots on their own Home board. Do not disturb their values; these are now set for the month.

Step 3: Placement

All players do this at the same time. Place your workers into any locations you wish. Only one of your own workers may be in each location, but workers from multiple players may share a location. It doesn’t matter who places when, and you are free to change your mind and move your workers around until you are satisfied.

Each location describes the dice criteria that are required for resolution. As you are placing, understand that on your turn (Step 5), you will need to assign dice to your workers in order to resolve them. At this point, you have only your Family dice as a hint about what dice will be available to you; the Village dice (which all players will share) have not yet been rolled.

See the Locations section for placement and resolution details for each location.

In most locations, turn order doesn’t matter; all players will be able to get the benefits whether or not someone went there earlier. However in the Owl’s Nest and the Workshop, it’s possible that a player going earlier in turn order this month might claim a Comfort or Improvement that you want. Keep this in mind if you are later in turn order.

When a location has this symbol in it, it means that the value of the die you assign there doesn’t matter.

Step 4: Village Dice

Once all players have finished placing their workers, the Early Bird rolls the four Village dice and places them without altering their values onto the Hilltop. All players should be careful to not disturb or alter these dice, as their values are now set for the month.

Step 5: Player Turns

Starting with the Early Bird and proceeding clockwise, each player takes their turn. On your turn:

1. Place your two Family dice (without altering them) on the Hilltop with the four Village dice. These six dice are now the pool of dice available for you to assign.
2. Assign dice from Hilltop to locations where you have workers, to satisfy their location requirements. Place the assigned dice in the locations.
   • The assigned dice in locations may be any combination of Family and Village dice.
   • You may also assign Family dice to Glades, if any have been built (see Glades).
   • You are free to move the dice around until you are satisfied that you’ve gotten the best possible results.
   • Tip: It’s wise to wait to resolve all of your workers until you’re happy with how all of your dice are placed; this will keep you from changing your mind late and having to backtrack messily.

Lesson Learned Tokens

If you have any, you may spend Lesson Learned tokens to modify dice values. Each token you spend acts as +1 or -1 to the die you are modifying. Place the token beside the modified die with the + or – side showing as appropriate; do not actually adjust the die itself, just treat it as if it were the modified number. You may apply multiple Lesson Learned tokens to a single die if you wish. You may not make a die higher than 6 or lower than 1, and you may not make a 6 into a 1 or vice versa.

3. Resolve each location/Glade where you assigned dice, one at a time in any order you like. As you resolve, take your worker and any Family dice assigned there back to your Home (leave Village dice in the locations for now). See Locations for details about how each location is resolved.
4. Unresolved Workers: It is possible that you will be unable to resolve one or more workers because of how the dice turned out; you also may choose to not resolve any workers you wish. Once you are finished resolving all workers that you are willing and able to, bring any unresolved workers Home and take one Lesson Learned token from the supply for each one. Notice that since this step is after the resolution step, you may not spend Lesson Learned tokens you gain in this step to modify this month’s dice.

5. Craft Comforts: At this point you may craft any number of Comforts from your hand. Each Comfort’s crafting cost shows the resources (some combination of Goods, Coins, and Stories) that you must spend; return those resources to the supply, and place the Comfort card face up near your Home.
   • Some Comforts work well with others… try to craft things that go together!
   • Some Comforts have a type symbol in the top right corner; certain Improvements refer to those types.
   • Some Comforts indicate that they will score bonus VP at the end of the game for particular resources “stored here”. You may freely move resources between your Home and these cards during the game however you like; resources aren’t committed to a card until final scoring.

6. Turn Wrap-up: Finally, take your Family dice back into your Home (if they’re not already there), and carefully return all Village dice back to the Hilltop (without altering their values) for the next player to use. Discard any spent Lesson Learned tokens on the board back to the supply.

   If you have more than three Comfort cards in your hand at the end of your turn, you must discard Comforts (whichever ones you want) into the Comfort discard pile until you have only three. Note that it is okay to have more than three Comfort cards in hand during your turn.

   Then play passes to the next player clockwise; if you were the last player for the month, proceed to Upkeep.

The Valley

The Valley is a series of four locations that will change every month; two Forest and two Meadow. Wood and Mushrooms can be found in the Forest. Grain and Yarn can be found in the Meadow. Fruit, Coins, and Stories can be found in both.

Each Valley location displays the dice requirements for a successful visit. All resources gained from the Valley are taken from the supply.

Notice that one type of Good is unavailable in each season! The Valley doesn’t produce any Grain in Spring, Mushrooms in Summer, or Yarn in Fall. There is a sign on the board to remind you.

Some Types of Valley Dice Requirements You’ll Encounter

• : Three dice that show consecutive numbers.
• : Any number of dice, that add up to eleven or higher.
• : Two dice that add up to five or lower.
• : One die; a six.
• : Two dice that are the same number.
• : Two dice; a three and a four.
• : Two dice that add up to exactly eight.
• : Three dice that are all even numbers.
• : One die that is three or under.

The River

The River has three locations where you can obtain Stone and Coins from the supply. The dice requirements for each location will change each month as the River dial spins.

1. Assign one die matching one of the three dice currently showing in this location’s section, to gain one Stone.
2. Assign one die matching one of the two dice currently showing in this location’s section, to gain two Stone.
3. Assign one die matching the one die currently showing in this location’s section, to gain one Stone and one Coin.

The Owl’s Nest

This is where you get new Comfort cards into your hand. (You can’t craft a Comfort unless you hold its card.) There are two locations here:

• Location 1: Assign one die of any value, then take one visible card of your choice. Then slide everything to the right of the empty slot one slot left, and deal a new Comfort from the deck face up into the empty rightmost slot.
• Location 2: Assign one die, then draw one or two Comfort cards blindly from the deck depending on your assigned die’s value as displayed.

If the Comforts deck ever runs out, shuffle the discard pile to form a new deck.

The Workshop

Assign one die, then build one Improvement. Improvements give you persistent advantages or some sort of scoring opportunity, as described on the card. There is one location here; the value of your assigned die tells you how high up the Workshop ladder you can reach at the highest.

To build a reachable Improvement, you must have at least one Cottage remaining on your Home board, and you must be able to immediately pay the resource cost that is displayed on the Improvement. Spend those resources into the supply and take the Improvement. Immediately slide any Improvements in higher slots down a notch, and reveal the top card from the deck into the top slot.

• You may not build more than one of the same Improvement.
• Some Improvements (the Almanac and the Wheelbarrow) indicate that you get a special token when they are built; take the token from the supply into your Home.

Most Improvements are placed near your Home board. Some Improvements are Glades that you place by the gameboard above the Valley (see Glades on page 12 for details). In either case, take the lowest Cottage remaining on your Home board and place it on your new Improvement. You only have four Cottages, so build wisely!

The Inn

Each month a different random Traveler will be present in the Inn. When you send a worker to the Inn, the die you assign will determine what benefit you gain from the options along the right side of the Traveler card.

• When a benefit displays a green arrow with a multiplier on it, this means that you may perform that interaction up to that many times. If the green arrow has a ? symbol on it, that means you may perform that interaction up to a number of times equal to your die’s value. If no multiplier is shown, you may only perform the interaction once.
• Resources spent at the Inn return to the supply. Resources gained at the Inn come from the supply.

The Market

Assign one die of any value, then make trades with the supply. You may make as many trades as you wish in any order you like, as long as you have the Goods or Coins to continue. There are three types of trades:

• Trade one Coin for any one Good.
• Trade two matching Goods for any one Good.
• Trade any three Goods for one Coin.

Glades

Certain Improvements when they are built become Glades above the game board. Workers may not be sent to Glades during the Placement phase, but players may assign available Family dice (not Village dice) to Glades on their turn (one per Glade at most), without needing to have sent a worker.

Each Glade card describes how it is resolved. Often the owner of the Improvement gains some sort of benefit when someone else assigns a die there.

Each Glade has a spot on it similar to a location, but it’s shaped differently. It has symbols on top to remind you that no workers may be placed there, and that only Family dice may be assigned.

Step 6: Upkeep

Some Travelers have a power that activates at the End of the Month. If that’s true for the current Traveler, carry it out now.

Discard the top Forest and Meadow cards on the Valley stacks from the game, revealing the new ones for the upcoming month and progressing further through the seasons. If there are no new ones to reveal, you will see that the first snowfall of the winter has arrived, and the game is over… proceed to Scoring immediately and skip the rest of Upkeep. Otherwise, proceed with the following steps:

1. Rotate the River dial one notch clockwise.
2. Discard the leftmost Comfort from the Owl’s Nest, slide the other three cards one slot left, and deal a new Comfort from the deck face up into the empty rightmost slot.
   Discard the Improvement in the bottom ladder slot from the Workshop, then slide the five remaining Improvements down a slot and deal a new Improvement from the deck face up into the top slot.
3. Discard the Traveler from the Inn.
4. The Early Bird passes the Worm clockwise. That player is the new Early Bird. The Early Bird takes the Village dice to roll later.

Start the new month with Step 1: New Traveler.

Final Crafting & Scoring Setup

When the game ends, first all players may freely craft any Comforts from their hand if they have the resources to do so. Then all players tally up their scores to see who built the most comfortable home for the long winter ahead!

Flip your Home board over, and use the score track to tally your points.

• Use any token from the game as a scoring marker.
• If you had any Cottages remaining on your Home board, replace them on the topmost Cottage slots on the Home board back.
• If you exceed 50 points, lap around back to the beginning of the track and continue counting. Place a marker on the +50 space to remind yourself that you lapped the track.

Points Breakdown

Points are earned in a variety of ways:

• COMFORT CARDS: Each one shows a value. Many of them also describe some sort of bonus scoring.
  • Some Comforts allow you to store resources on the card for bonus scoring. You can move resources around between your Comforts and your Home to make sure you have the best score now, but each resource may only be used to score one card. Resources stored on Comforts are not considered “leftover resources” for scoring below.
• IMPROVEMENTS: Each one shows a value. Some of them also describe some sort of bonus scoring.
• COTTAGE SLOTS: Score the revealed values in the empty Cottage slots of your home board. Scores still covered by cottages are not earned.
• LEFTOVER RESOURCES:
  • = 2
  • = 1
  • = 1 (any 3 leftover Goods)

The player with the highest score has built the coziest, most well-stocked winter home, and wins the game! In the event of a tie, all tied players win and it’s an even better win than winning alone.

Creature Comforts plays very smoothly as a 1-player game, without any rules changes! The only thing you need to do is remove these items from the game:

• From the Travelers deck, remove the Canada Lynx, the Common Loon, and the Moose.
• From the Improvements deck, remove both copies of the Barrel Sauna, Guest Cottage, Herb Garden, Spinning Wheel, and Writing Desk. Then remove one copy of each other Improvement, so that there are no duplicates in the deck.

Play the game as normal, then check your end results against these four questions. Each answer will give you a word. String the four words together to discover your title. For example, you might end up as a Snugly Prepared Critter of the Fields!

1. Which Comfort type did you craft the most of? (If it’s a tie, choose the tied type you want.)
   • Clothing: Snugly
   • Food: Deliciously
   • Lighting: Glowingly
   • Outdoor: Frostily
2. How many Comforts did you craft?
   • 0-3: Frugal
   • 4-6: Prepared
   • 7-9: Well-stocked
   • 10+: Pampered
3. How many Improvements did you build?
   • 0-1: Critter
   • 2: Creature
   • 3: Denizen
   • 4: Protector
4. What was your final score?
   • 0-25: of your Den
   • 26-40: of the Fields
   • 41-55: of the Woods
   • 56-65: of the Village
   • 66-75: of Maple Valley
   • 76+: of Comfort!

The Entire Game Explained on One Simple Page

Setup

Lay out the game board, with the River Dial and Hilltop in place. Create Forest and Meadow Valley card stacks in their spots so when face up they are Spring/Summer/Fall from the top down. Make supply piles of all resource tokens. Shuffle the Comforts deck and deal four into the Owl’s Nest. Shuffle the Improvements deck and deal six into the Workshop’s ladder slots; Improvement tokens nearby. Shuffled Travelers deck face down in the Inn. Pick an Early Bird to get the Worm and the four Village dice.

Each player takes the Home board, workers, Cottages, and Family dice in their colour. Cottages onto Cottage slots. Each player draws three Comforts, keeps two, and discards one. Some players may get a bonus Coin to start; see the chart on page 5.

Gameplay

1. NEW TRAVELER: Flip the next Traveler in the Inn face up. Activate “Immediate” powers now.
2. FAMILY DICE: All players roll their own Family dice; values are set for the month.
3. PLACEMENT: All players at the same time place their workers into locations on the board.
4. VILLAGE DICE: Early Bird rolls the Village dice and places them on Hilltop.
5. PLAYER TURNS: Clockwise from Early Bird, players take turns. On your turn, in this order:
   1. Add your Family dice to Hilltop to form your dice pool.
   2. Assign dice from the pool to your workers’ locations, Family dice may also be assigned to Glades. Adjust dice with Lesson Learned tokens.
   3. Resolve locations and Glades where you have the correct dice assigned. Bring workers and Family dice home as they are resolved.
   4. Bring home unresolved workers and gain one Lesson Learned for each.
   5. Craft Comforts from your hand by spending the indicated resources.
   6. Return Village dice to Hilltop. Discard down to three Comforts in hand.
6. UPKEEP: “End of Month” Traveler powers activate. Discard both Valley cards (if it’s now Winter, the game ends; proceed to Scoring). Rotate River dial clockwise. Discard the leftmost Comfort from the Owl’s Nest and refresh. Discard the lowest Improvement from the Workshop and refresh. Discard the Traveler. Pass the Worm clockwise; new Early Bird takes Village dice. Begin a new round!

Locations

• THE VALLEY: Gain Wood, Fruit, Mushrooms, Grain, Yarn, Coins, and Stories as displayed, by meeting dice requirements as marked in your location.
• THE RIVER: Gain Stone and Coins as displayed, by meeting dice requirements of your location as marked on the dial.
• THE OWL’S NEST: Gain Comforts into your hand; one of your choice or up to two blindly, depending on your location and assigned die.
• THE WORKSHOP: Build one Improvement by spending resources as marked. Your die determines how high you can climb. Add one Cottage from your Home to your new Improvement; some Improvements become Glades.
• THE INN: Get Traveler’s benefits based on the die you assign.
• THE MARKET: Swap Goods and Coins with the supply as marked.
• GLADES: Assign Family dice only. Gain rewards as marked.

Scoring

Game ends when winter arrives. Tally your score on the back of your Home board. Get points from:

1. Your Comforts as marked, including bonus scoring as described.
2. Your Improvements as marked, including bonus scoring as described.
3. Your revealed Cottage slots as marked.
4. Your leftover resources; 2 for Stories, 1 for Coins, 1 for groups of three mixed Goods.

Highest score has the coziest home and wins the game! If it’s a tie, all tied players win together!