Game Objective: Leave Your Mark in the Stone Age!

Get ready for a Stone Age adventure in Paleo, a cooperative game where you and your friends control a group of people, including warriors, inventors, and scouts, all working together to survive and build a human legacy! The main objective is simple yet challenging: complete the cave painting on the night board.

To do this, your tribe needs to collect 5 victory tokens and add them to the corresponding spaces on the night board. As soon as the fifth victory token is placed, you celebrate the completion of the painting and all players immediately win the game!

But beware! The Stone Age is dangerous. You must avoid collecting too many skull tokens. If the tribe accumulates the 5th skull token on the night board, all players immediately lose the game. In a rare tie where the 5th skull token and the 5th victory token are collected in the same action, victory is yours! So, join forces, explore, create, and leave your mark in history!

Preparation (Setup): Setting Up Your Primitive Camp

Let's set up the table and prepare your tribe for the journey! Most steps are standard, but some details change depending on the modules you choose (for the first game, use only Level 1 modules).

1. Position the Boards: In the center of the play area, place the 3 boards: Base Camp, Night, and Wilderness.
2. Food Stock: Place 5 food tokens in the storage area of the Base Camp board.
3. Workbench: Position the Workbench near the Base Camp board. Remember to assemble it before the first game, if you haven't already.
4. Essential Tools: Separate the tool tokens by type. Place 5 torches, 5 stone axes, and 5 spears in the corresponding spaces on the Workbench. The remaining tool tokens go in front of the workbench.
5. Cemetery: Place the Cemetery next to the Workbench.
6. Support Decks: Take the People (2), Dreams (3), and Ideas (4) card sets. Shuffle each set separately and place them as 3 face-down decks in the corresponding spaces on the Base Camp board.
7. Exploration Decks: Take the set of base cards (1) and add all cards from the modules you will be using in this game (for the first game, only Level 1 cards). Shuffle all these cards together.
   • Deal all cards from this deck face-down, as evenly as possible, to each player. Do not look at the front of the cards! The cards dealt to each player form that player's individual deck. (Don't worry if the distribution isn't perfectly even, it doesn't affect game balance).
8. Progress and Danger Tokens: Place the skull tokens and victory tokens near the Night board.
9. Your Starting Tribe: Each player draws 2 people cards from the deck on the Base Camp board and places them face-up in front of them. These 2 people form their individual group. Finally, each player takes the tool tokens shown on their people cards, placing them next to their group.
10. Resources and Wounds: Place the resource tokens (food, wood, stone) and wound tokens near the boards, forming a general supply.

Important for 4 players: For the first game, if there are 4 players, 2 players should control a single group together, totaling a maximum of 3 groups. Play with 4 groups only when most players are familiar with the game.

The Game Turn: Surviving Day and Night

The game is divided into multiple rounds, each with a day phase and a night phase. You work together to explore, gather, and overcome challenges.

Day Phase: Exploring the Unknown

The day phase consists of multiple rounds, where all players act simultaneously.

1. Choose a Card:
   • Look at the backs of the top 3 cards of your deck and choose 1 of them to place face-down in front of you. You can only look at the backs of the cards; you cannot look at the front.
   • Then, return the other 2 cards to the top of your deck in the order of your choice.
   • Tip: The backs of the cards give hints about what can be found. Backs with forest, river, and mountain indicate useful resources. Backs of people, dreams, and ideas will always bring something good.
2. Revealing Cards: As soon as each player has chosen a card, reveal all chosen cards simultaneously.
3. Resolving Cards:
   • Each player chooses 1 option on their card and resolves it. Players decide, as a group, the order in which cards are resolved.
   • Action Cards (blue back): You must choose exactly 1 of the following options:
     • Resolve 1 of the actions and gain the rewards: To do this, you must meet the requirements (total skills of your group) and pay the costs (discard cards from your deck, pay resources or tool tokens). Caution: If you discard cards with red backs to pay costs, you will suffer 1 wound for each red card discarded.
     • Help another player: You add all the skills and advantages of your group to the other player's group to help them resolve their card. You can suffer wounds instead of the other group and share the rewards of the action. You cannot discard cards from your deck when helping.
     • Ignore the card: If you cannot or do not want to resolve an action, you can ignore the card, discarding it face-up.
   • Danger Cards (red back or skull symbol): These cards always have at least one negative action and cannot be ignored. You must resolve an action, even if it is negative. If you cannot fully resolve a negative action, resolve as much as you can.
   • People Cards (green back): When a person joins your group, they can give a tool token. People have skills (Strength, Awareness, Craftsmanship) and health (hearts). If your group suffers wounds, you must choose a person to be wounded. If all hearts are occupied and there are still wounds, the person dies, and you place 1 skull token on the night board. If the last person in your group dies, draw a new person immediately.
   • Crafting: Some actions allow you to craft tools at the Workbench. You must meet the requirements and pay the necessary resources and tool tokens.
   • Dice: Some actions have unpredictable results. Roll the dice to determine additional skill requirements. If you cannot meet them, you must resolve a negative action or ignore the card (if there are no negative actions).
   • Rewards: These can be resources (food, wood, stone), tool tokens (torch, stone axe, spear, talisman, tent, raft), new people, dreams, ideas, or secrets.
   • Discarding Cards: Cards discarded face-down go to the face-down discard pile in the Wilderness (cannot be seen). Cards discarded face-up go to the face-up discard pile in the Wilderness (can be seen at any time).
4. End of Day Phase: Players continue choosing and resolving cards until all players' decks are empty. As soon as your deck is empty, you "go to sleep" and stop participating in the day phase. Other players continue until everyone has gone to sleep. Only then does the day phase end and the night phase begin.
   • Go to Sleep Early: Instead of revealing and resolving a card, you can discard the rest of your deck without effect and immediately go to sleep. This can be useful if you have many dangerous red-backed cards remaining.

Night Phase: Preparing for Tomorrow

Once all players are "sleeping," the night phase begins.

1. Feeding: Each player must feed all people in their group. For each person, pay 1 food token from the storage area to the supply. If there is not enough food, place 1 skull token on the night board for each unfed person. Unfed people do not die.
2. Mission Cards: Deal with any face-up mission cards (each module contains 1). As a group, choose and resolve 1 of the actions shown. As with danger cards, there is always a negative action option (often a skull). Mission cards remain in play after the action is resolved, unless the card indicates otherwise.
3. Night Action Cards: Cards in your group with the moon symbol must be dealt with in the same way as mission cards. These cards remain in play and will need to be dealt with again in the next night phase.
4. A New Day: Shuffle all cards from the discard piles (face-up and face-down) from the Wilderness together and deal them face-down, as evenly as possible, to the players. Do not look at the front of the cards! Once the cards are dealt, the night phase ends and the next day phase begins.

Continue resolving the day and night phases until players win or lose the game.

End of Game and Scoring

The game ends in two very clear ways:

• Victory: You win immediately if the tribe collects the 5th victory token and places it on the night board, completing the cave painting.
• Defeat: You lose immediately if the tribe collects the 5th skull token and places it on the night board.

Remember: in case of a tie (5th skull token and 5th victory token in the same action), victory is yours!

Tips for Winning: Primitive Strategies for Success

To survive and thrive in the Stone Age, here are some valuable tips:

1. Communication is Key: Paleo is a cooperative game! Openly discuss your strategies, the cards you are considering choosing, and how you can help each other. Share information about the backs of the cards you see and the resources you need. Coordination is vital, especially when dealing with dangers or trying to meet high skill requirements.
2. Deck Management and Risks: Keep an eye on cards with red backs in your decks. If you have many dangerous cards remaining and the day is ending, considering "going to sleep early" can be a good strategy to avoid suffering unnecessary wounds and accumulating skull tokens. Paying costs by discarding red-backed cards is risky, so evaluate if the reward is worth the danger.
3. Balance between Exploration and Camp: Remember what each type of card back generally offers. Forests, rivers, and mountains are great for gathering resources. But don't forget about camp cards (People, Dreams, Ideas), which can bring new skills, tools, and, crucially, new ideas for crafting, which are essential for progress and for dealing with more complex challenges.