Adulthood Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Set Up the Game
• Overview
• Parts of Your Board
• Player Turns
• The Center Board
  • Scoring Board
  • Market Board
• Card Types
• Card Effects and Actions
  • Cost to Play Bar
  • Cards with Actions
  • Promotions and Marriage
  • Cards without Actions
• End of Game and Scoring
• Adulthood (Solo Mode)
  • New: Achievements
  • Gameplay
  • End of Solo Game
• Icon Guide
• Credits

Components

• 4 Player Boards (one backed with a solo-mode board)
• Scoring Board
• Market Board (backed with solo-mode Market and Scoring board)
• 8 Wooden Score Markers
• 1 Reference Tent Card
• 33 Time tokens
• 139 Cards (including 16 cards used only for Solo play)
• 12 Grown-Up, Promoted, & Married markers
• 32 Money tokens, 32 Energy tokens, & 16 Negative Impact/Unhappiness tokens

Set Up the Game

1. Set the Market Board/Scoring Board in the center of the table.
2. Set the Money tokens (money), Energy tokens (energy), Negative Impact and Happiness tokens, and 1 Time meeple (time) within easy reach of all players. Place the Grown-Up, Promoted, and Married Markers nearby as well.
3. Shuffle Adulthood, Values, Life Event, Partner, and Career decks separately, and then place them at the top of the Scoring Board.
4. Give each player: a. A Player Board b. 8 time meeples c. 1 energy token and 1 money token d. 2 Career cards e. 2 Facedown Values (which they may not look at), and one additional Value to be added to their hand (which they may look at but keep hidden from other players) f. 2 Score Markers in their player board's color
5. Each player places one of their score markers on the Impact Track (impact) on the Scoring Track, and the other marker on the Happiness Track (happy) on the other end of the Scoring Track.
6. Each player reviews their Career cards and discards one.
7. Place 5 cards from the Adulthood Deck face up on the open spots on the Market Board.
8. The oldest player goes first.

Overview

In Adulthood, players choose how to spend their time and resources to maximize their Impact and Happiness. The game ends when someone's Impact and Happiness cross over. Then each player scores their combined totals plus any points from cards.

Each turn, players place all their time (time) on different action spots, receive the benefits of that time, and then gain and play cards, while also balancing their money (money) and energy (energy) and working towards their hidden Values.

Parts of Your Board

Player Boards have eight action spots, two in Career, two in Community, two in Leisure, and two in Wellness. Each of the upper spots may be covered by cards throughout the game, replacing those action spots with new ones. The lower action spots are never covered. Players may activate both the upper and lower action spots in a category in the same turn as long as they can afford both.

1. Career a. Upper action: Spend 4 time to earn 1 money. This action represents part-time and minimum wage work, and may get replaced by a Career card. b. Lower action: Interview. Spend 1 time to draw a new Career card, or get Promoted if you're Grown Up.

2. Community a. Upper action: Spend 2 time to move ahead one space on the Impact track. This action may get replaced with a Community card. b. Lower action: Donate. Spend 3 money to move ahead one space on the Impact track.

3. Leisure a. Upper action: Spend 2 time to move ahead one space on the Happiness track. This represents enjoying yourself and having a good time, and may get replaced with a Leisure card. b. Lower action: Date. Spend 1 time and 1 money to add a Partner card to your hand, or get Married if you're Grown Up.

4. Wellness a. Upper action: Spend 2 time to gain one energy. This represents exercising and staying active, and may get replaced with a Wellness card. b. Lower action: Meditate. Spend 1 energy to put one of your facedown Values cards in your hand, or discard a Values card from your hand to draw a new Values card, facedown.

Player Turns

Each player, on their turn, executes the following steps in order:

1. Place your Time, Money, and Energy (this step can be done before your turn). Important: You cannot take any new actions after step 1. All actions need to be paid for in Time, Money, and Energy before step 2. a. Place your time meeples, money tokens, and energy tokens across your visible action spots. b. Note that energy tokens can also be used as extra time meeples. c. At the start of the game, you'll have eight action spots where you can spend your time and resources, but throughout the game you'll upgrade some of those spots by acquiring cards. d. You can only use each action spot once per turn, but may use both spots in a category in the same turn.

2. Spend your Time, Money, and Energy a. In any order you choose, activate each of your action spots to receive the rewards listed on the action spots you activated. b. Leave the Time and Resources on the action spots where you placed them until the end of your turn. c. Keep in mind that on your first turn, you must do this before playing the Career card in your hand.

3. Play cards from your hand and take a card from the market (done in any order) a. You may draft one card from the Market Board. If you take the left-most card, you also gain one energy. If you take any of the three right-most cards, you must pay the required cost. For example, if you take the right-most card from the market, you must pay one energy and one money. b. Play any number of Adulthood, Partner, and Career cards from your hand, paying the cost indicated on the card and immediately resolving any effects. If they have any action spots, you cannot use those new spots until your next turn.

   • If it is an Experience card, immediately complete the effects, and then put it in a stack to the side of your board so only the name and icon are visible, making an Experience card stack. At the end of the game, you count as having the icons of every card in that stack.
   • If it is a Resource or Trait, place it to the side of your board.
   • If it is a Career, Community, Leisure, or Wellness card, place it over the matching action spot on your board. If you already have a card in that slot, move the older card aside to the Experience card stack.
   • If it is a Partner card, place it to the side of your board. If you already have a Partner, move the older card to the Experience card stack.
   • Note that because you may execute 3A and 3B in any order, you may play a card drafted this turn from the market.

4. Reset your Board and the market a. Return any spent time tokens from your board to your Time supply. b. Return any spent energy and money tokens from your board to the general supply. c. Slide all the cards in the market to the left to fill any empty slots, then fill any empty slots with cards from the Adulthood deck. d. Move any Life Events acquired during your last turn to your Experience card stack so that their story symbol is visible.

The Center Board

The Center Board consists of both the Scoring Board and the Market Board.

Scoring Board

The Scoring Board records players' Impact and Happiness, and will adjust throughout the game. Every time a player gains a happy icon, they move their Happiness score marker one step left on the yellow Happiness track. Every time they gain an impact icon, they move their Impact score marker one step right on the blue Impact track. As soon as one player's score markers cross paths, you continue play to finish the round, and then the game is over (see End of Game on pg. 10). Players will never move backwards on any track until the end of the game.

One space on each track is marked with a Grown-Up icon. As soon as a player crosses that location, they'll be Grown Up; they take the Grown Up marker (the beige arrow) and can now complete effects that require them to be Grown Up. Players only need to pass one Grown-Up symbol to be Grown Up.

Certain spaces are also marked with a Life Event icon. Whenever a player passes one of those locations, they take a Life Event card and resolve it at the end of their turn. They may gain more than one Life Event in one turn.

Market Board

The Market Board holds five Adulthood cards, ordered from left to right. During their turn, each player can take one Adulthood card from the market, gaining an additional energy if they take the left-most card, or paying the listed cost if they take on any of the three right-most cards.

Card Types

There are many types of cards in the game, each with different effects and anatomy.

Career — Career cards represent the bulk of your time, and the main way to get money. You can only have one Career card at a time; if you get a new one, set the old Career in your Experiences stack. They have two different action spots, one used before Promotion, and one you can only use after you're Promoted. You cannot use the first action spot on a Career card after you have been Promoted.

Partners — Partner cards represent the people you spend time with and date, or even get Married to. You can only have one Partner active at a time (unless you have the Open Relationship trait!), so if you get a new one, discard the previous Partner. Like Careers, each Partner has two action slots, one for when you play it, and the second for after you get Married. Partner cards also have a heart icon that matches a "hole" icon on a Values card. Get both and you'll score 4 extra points at game end!

Values — Values cards tell you your deeply-held values and motivations, and will provide guidance on what cards to add to your life by giving you extra points at the end of the game. You start the game with one Value in your hand, and two face down. Values cards remain secret from everyone else the entire game, and may be added to your hand and exchanged through Meditation.

Life Event — Life events happen to you throughout your life and shake up your plans. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad, but opportunity exists within all of them, even if it's just a chance to meditate. Some Life Events are instantaneous effects, and some affect the next round. If they do, they'll be marked with a symbol.

Adulthood Deck: Community, Wellness, and Leisure cards (like Career cards) replace the basic slots on your board, and give you new ways to spend your time, or offer other passive effects. Community cards often provide impact, Leisure cards happy, and Wellness cards energy. You can only have one of each of these card types at a time. If you play a new one, you must move the card that was there to your Experiences stack.

Resources and Traits are things you have or characteristics about you that give you some sort of benefit. They stay to the side of your board, with the whole card visible. Some give you new ways to spend time, and others give you passive abilities. You can have any number of Resources and Traits.

Experiences are instant effects that you experience in your life. When you play an experience, gain the listed effects instantly, then move the card to your Experiences stack.

Card Effects and Actions

Every turn, you may play any or all of the cards in your hand, assuming you have the money and energy to play them.

Cost to Play Bar

Regardless of card type, most cards in Adulthood have a cost to play them. This cost is always presented in a green bar, and if the card does not have this green bar, it is free to play. In the example here, the Crafting card costs one money and one energy to play.

If a card has the Grown Up icon in the green cost to play bar, you may not play it until you've passed the Grown Up spot on one of the scoring tracks. If the card has a white and black Life icon in the green bar, you may not play it unless you already have one of those icons present on your board or tableau (all the cards you've played). So, should you wish to play the Family Time card to the Leisure slot on your player board, you may not do so until you have a Grown Up token AND a Family icon already in your tableau (in addition to paying an energy).

For most cards in the Adulthood deck, the cost to play bar is featured in the center of the card, directly above the ability text of the card. For Career and Partner cards, the cost to play bar is to the center left of the card, but still directly above the ability text. Values cards do not have a cost to play as they are never played into your tableau, but are instead added to your hand using the Meditate action on your player board.

There are a few cards in the game that require you to "have played resources elsewhere." Those cards have a white box sitting on the cost to play bar with resources in it. That simply means that you may play that card IF you've committed those resources on the specified action or card to activate that action. In the example, the player's 3 time on Wellness satisfies the cost to play, "Marathon."

Cards with Actions

Career, Community, Leisure and Wellness cards are all placed on top of their matching slot on your player board. All of these cards have actions on them. An action in Adulthood is always presented as a series of icons on the left side of an arrow pointing to a series of icons on the right side of the arrow. This simply means "Pay the icons on the left side of the arrow to get the icons on the right."

If those icons are Time icons, you must devote that many time meeples to the action to use it. If they are Energy or Money icons, you must pay that many energy and money tokens to the action. Remember that energy tokens may be used in place of time meeples if needed.

For example, once you've played Mall Walkers onto your Community action slot, you have access to its action. During your turn, you may now devote two time meeples to this action to get one energy and advance one spot on the Impact track.

Once resolved, Experiences may be stacked so that all you see is the Life icon in the upper right hand corner.

If a card has an icon or icons present in the ability area without an action arrow, that simply means "gain these resources." For example, when you play Overseas Vacation, you immediately get one energy and advance your marker three spots on the Happiness track. You'll then file that card with your other Experiences to keep track of its luxury icon.

Some cards grant sad or negative tokens. Should an action, Experience, Life Event or other card give you one or more of these icons, gain that number of tokens from the pool. These tokens subtract from your final Happiness and Impact scores at the end of the game.

Promotions and Marriage

Both Careers and Partners have two tiers of actions available to you. The actions under the green cost to play bar on Careers and Partners are available to you the turn after you play the card. Should you wish to access the (usually better) actions on the right side of the card, you'll need to get Promoted or Married. The costs to do so are listed under the purple "cost to upgrade" bar on each card.

Partner cards (and some Traits and Resources) also have actions, but are played next to your player board, not on it. These new action spots can be helpful, but your time is still finite!

Cards without Actions

Experiences and most Traits and Resource cards don't have actions on them. Instead, these cards either modify your existing actions, provide an ongoing benefit, or (in the case of Experiences) provide a one time benefit.

Traits and Resources are played next to your player board with their abilities visible, reminding you about what they do. These abilities may affect how you play cards, give you extra time, or even give you extra Life icons. If a card gives you extra Life icons, count those both during and at the end of the game.

To get Promoted in a Career, you must use the Interview action on your player board, committing one time meeple and gaining the Promoted token. Many Careers have an additional Life icon requirement listed in the purple cost to upgrade bar. If you don't already have those icons in your Life, you may not get Promoted.

Note that you CAN count the icon on that Career card if it helps meet the requirements for Promotion. As an Actor you only need one more Fame card to get Promoted!

To get Married to your partner, you must use the Date action on your player board, committing one time meeple and paying one money to gain the Married token. Many Partners have an additional Life icon requirement listed in the purple cost to upgrade bar. If you don't already have those icons in your Life, you may not get Married. Note that you'll lose your Married or Promoted token if you replace your Partner or Career card!

Once you've upgraded, you may now only access the actions on the right side of your Career or Partner card.

End of Game and Scoring

Once any player's Happiness and Impact score markers cross (both score markers are in or past boxes that share a border), the end of the game is triggered. Play continues until the end of the turn of the player before the first player (so that everyone ends the game having taken the same number of turns). Then, turn all Values cards face-up. Each player completes all these steps before a winner is declared:

1. For each negative or sad token you have, move back one space on the corresponding track.
2. Gain 1 happy for each matching Life Icons they have in sets above 2. (For example, if you have 3 Family Icons, you would gain 1 happy; if you had 4, you would gain 2 happy, etc.)
3. Gain 4 impact if you have a complete heart (you married a Partner who matches one of your Values).
4. Gain happy from each of your Values cards, in any order you choose.

If a player passes the end of a track, they can return to 0 and add 25 to their score. Whoever has the highest combined score (Happiness and Impact) wins! If there is a tie, the players share the victory.

Adulthood (Solo Mode)

Adulthood may be played solo. To do so, follow the regular setup steps, with a few changes:

1. Use the Solo side of the Market Board.
2. Use the Solo Player Board (on the back of one of the regular player boards).
3. Don't deal out Values.
4. Shuffle the Life Events and deal 8 facedown to a new Life Events deck. Return the rest of the Life Events to the box.
5. Set up the market with only three cards from the Adulthood deck.

New: Achievements

Shuffle and draw two Solo Achievement cards. Look at both, then keep one and discard the other. Each Achievement card has a challenge, with three levels of difficulty. Your goal is to complete them at any level, but ideally the highest.

Gameplay

Solo Mode is played similarly to regular Adulthood, with a few changes.

1. The market only contains three cards, and is emptied and replaced at the end of each round. The market is not restocked mid-round.
2. When buying a card from the market, the first card gained costs nothing. You may buy a second and third card, but the second costs 1 energy and 1 money to buy, and the third one costs 2 energy and 2 money.
3. Any cards that allow you to gain an extra card from the market allow you to gain the card for free. That card does not increase the cost of other cards gained this turn.
4. Do not draw a Life Event when passing the Life Event sections on the points track.
5. Meditation has a new effect, letting you discard and replace a card in the market.
6. At the end of each round, draw and enact a Life Event from the deck of 8 Life Events.

In Solo mode, life comes at you fast! As you race to complete your Achievement, it's usually good to gain as many cards as you can from the market.

End of Solo Game

The game ends after the last (eighth) Life Event is drawn. Gain no end-of-game points from hearts or sets of Life Icons. Do gain the negative points from Unhappiness/Negative Impact tokens.

You win if your Happiness and Impact scores are crossed at the end of the game and you completed at least one level of your chosen Achievement. If you won, record your final score with a marker in the box on the Achievement card you completed.

See if you can complete the top tier on every Achievement card!

Icon Guide

Status Markers: Grown-Up, Promoted, Married.

Scoring: Happiness (move one space left on Happiness track), Impact (move one space right on Impact track), Unhappiness (gain an Unhappiness token), Negative Impact (gain a Negative Impact token), the hole in your heart (several variations).

Resources: Time (commit a Time meeple or Energy token), Energy (pay or gain an Energy token), Money (pay or gain a Money token), effect carries over to next turn (found only on Life Events), what fills the hole in your heart (the cost to play a card, the cost to upgrade — promote or marry — a card).

Life Icons: Education, Fame, Family, Luxury, Service, Shady, Social, Creativity.

Credits

• Designer: Johnny O'Neal
• Development Lead: Hayden Dillard
• Illustration: Tim Brierley
• Graphic Design: Matt Paquette & Co.
• Sensitivity Consultant: Lydia Suen
• Playtesters: Ethan Reid (Playtesting Lead), Arraka, Anthony Lombardo, Antonio R, Bob Peavyhouse, Brittany Gump, Carston Work, Collin Lohnes, Dakota Heath, Dick Judge, Elian Schechtel, Evan Slagle, Giovanni Di Rauso, Jacob DeHoyos, John Mistretta, Jonathan Ferguson, Jonathan Gardiner, Josh McAleer, Leah Ester Harmony, Lukas Hawkins, Lux Violet, Matthew Howarth, Matthew Parkes, Maya Harvey, Melissa Fuchs, Melissa Grieve, Noah Bemont, Phillip Houk, Rodolfo De Curtis, Rivara Gemi, SmertDoggoBoi, Sparce, Wouter Peeters