Last Resort Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• General Setup
• Player Setup
• Gameplay Overview
• Prestige
• How to Play
  • Advertise Phase
    • Gaining Malfunctions
  • Check Out Phase
    • Clearing Berths
  • Build Phase
    • Tile Cost
    • Building Restrictions
    • Improvement Requirements
    • Tile Prestige
  • Arrivals Phase
    • Ejecting Tourists
• Extra Malfunctions
• End of Year Phase
• End of the Game

Components

• 1 Main Board
• 4 Player Boards (double-sided)
• 16 Prestige Trackers (4 per player colour)
• 1 Round Tracker
• 1 Bag
• 120 Astro-tourists (30 in each colour: Red, Pink, Blue, Green)
• 50 Cash Tokens (36x 1, 8x 5, 16x 10, 8x 50)
• 16 Advert Cards (one of each per player colour, shown on the back)
• 4 Trend Cards
• 9 Berth Tiles (same on both sides)
• 24 Attraction Tiles (unique fronts, 8 of each back for Years 1, 2 and 3)
• 24 Amenity Tiles (unique fronts, 8 of each back for Years 1, 2 and 3)
• 18 Malfunction Tiles (unique fronts, matching backs)
• 11 Improvement Tiles (unique fronts, matching backs)
• 9 Evil A.I. Cards (for Solo Play)

General Setup

1. Put the Main Board in the centre of the table. Place the Round Tracker on the 1st space of the round track.
2. Shuffle a face-down pile of Trends. Flip the top card.
3. Sort the Berth, Attraction, Amenity, Malfunction and Improvement tiles by their backs, and form 9 shuffled, face-down piles (there should be 3 piles each of Amenity and Attraction tiles, according to the numbers on their backs).
4. Place the piles of Berth and Malfunction tiles by their slots around the Main Board. If there are fewer than 4 players, return 2 Berth tiles per absent player to the box.
5. Draw 1 tile per player from the Amenity Year 1, Attraction Year 1, and Improvement piles, and place them by their slots around the Main Board. Return unused Improvement tiles to the box.
6. Form a bank with the various cash tokens.

Pictured: An example of a two-player setup.

Player Setup

7. Each player chooses a colour and takes:
   • 4 Prestige Trackers
   • 1 Player Board (with the 'A' side face-up)
   • 4 Advert Cards
   • 10◊ in cash
8. Each player places a Malfunction tile face-down on the space on their player board marked with a ❗ icon. Keep the other Malfunctions in a face-down pile nearby.
9. Each player places their 4 Prestige markers on each of the corresponding Prestige Tracks, on the spaces marked with their player icon. You start with the Prestige indicated on the Orientation tile on your player board! In this case, Blue has 3 Relaxation, 2 Inspiration, 0 Entertainment and 1 Thrill!
10. Each player takes tourist meeples in the colours matching their starting spaces and fills them accordingly. Fill 'Any Colour' spaces with the absent tourist colour on your station. Above: The 'Any Colour' spaces on Blue's station are filled with Red tourists.
11. Put the unused meeples in the bag. Shake to randomise.

Gameplay Overview

The centre of the main board is called the Round Tracker. Moving clockwise around the board, this track includes every phase of the game.

The game takes place over 3 Years. Each Year contains 3 Seasons, and ends with an End of Year phase. After the third End of Year phase, the game ends. After some End Game scoring, the winner is the player with the most cash!

The spaces on the Round Tracker show the 3 preparation phases: Advertise Phase, Check Out Phase and Build Phase. The Arrivals Phases are the spaces where each phase has a different trending Prestige type, and a different number of arrivals. The End of Year Phase is the space where bonus Prestige is awarded, trends change, and new tiles become available.

1. Advertise Phase. In the Advertise phase, players decide which of their four Advert cards to play. These cards decide what actions are available to them over the next three phases! The icons in the lower-left hand corner of each Advert card show what additional effects need to be resolved in the Advertise phase, if any!

2. Check Out Phase. In this phase, players give their guests the bill, allowing them to clear certain tiles of tourists, in exchange for cash! The lower-middle of each Advert card shows which tiles can be cleared this round.

3. Build Phase. In the Build phase, players get the opportunity to buy whichever type of tile is shown in the lower-right hand corner of their Advert card: whether it's an Amenity, Attraction, Berth or Improvement! Purchased tiles are added to your station, where they can provide more space for guests, and maybe even increase your ranking in the four Prestige areas: Relaxation, Thrills, Entertainment and Inspiration!

4. Arrivals Phase. After the preparation phases, Arrivals come to visit your station! Each Arrivals Phase shows which Trend (A, B or C) will be used this round, and an amount of Tourists that will arrive, according to the number of players. The indicated number of tourists are drawn from the bag, and placed on the board. Each tourist's colour dictates what they want from their holiday, and which spots they can occupy. Inviting guests to your station means they can be checked out in a future round to make cash, but if you don't have space for a tourist, you may need to eject them into space, and lose Prestige in their area!

End of Year Phase. In the End of Year phase, the Trend card is discarded for a new one, and new tiles become available to build! Players can also get bonus Prestige if any of their Viewing Platforms (the cheapest spots on their station to build on) are left uncovered! After the third and final End of Year phase, bonus cash is given to the players with the highest rank in each of the four Prestige types, before a winner (the player with the most cash) is declared!

Prestige

There are 4 Prestige types: Thrill, Entertain, Relax and Inspire.

A player cannot pass 20 on a Prestige track. Instead, for each additional Prestige symbol of that type they gain 1◊ instead.

When gaining Prestige, if the space you would move to on the Prestige track is occupied, place your piece behind the piece(s) that are already on that space. The inverse is true if you lose Prestige: your piece remains ahead of any that are already on the space behind.

Never stack trackers! In the correct example, the trackers are placed so that Orange has the edge on Thrills, whether Blue just moved up or Orange just moved down. In the incorrect example, the trackers are stacked: we cannot tell whether Blue just went down a space (maintaining their edge) or just went up (in which case Orange would still be ahead).

How to Play

Advertise Phase

Each player chooses one of their four Advert cards to play. Any of the four cards can be chosen, but the Improvements Advert may only be played once per year (you will redraw it in the End of Year Phase).

Once you've chosen your card, play it face-down. Once everyone has chosen, they're all revealed simultaneously.

If any player selects the same Advert as another, they each immediately add 1 Malfunction to their station, unless they're playing the Berths card.

Gaining Malfunctions

When a player gains a Malfunction tile, it's placed face-down on the cheapest available station space directly linked to an existing tile. If multiple qualify, the player picks one.

Players cannot remove Malfunctions that would leave any tile unconnected from the rest. The station must always have its tiles contiguously connected.

The illustrated fronts of the Malfunction tiles are introduced by the Something's Gone Wrong rules module on page 7 of the rulebook. We recommend playing without this module for your first game!

Example: Gaining a Malfunction. Blue has to place a Malfunction. Their station has 3 legal spaces to put the Malfunction. They all cost 8, so Blue is free to choose between them. It cannot be placed on any other spaces.

Check Out Phase

Each player simultaneously clears the tiles indicated on their played Advert card of tourists (returning them to the bag), and takes the cash printed on the cleared spaces from the bank.

Note: Throughout the game, cash is represented by ◊, the symbol for Quantum Universal Intergalactic Denomination, or QUID for short!

When all tiles of a certain type are cleared, no tourists can be left behind on these tiles.

Orientation and Cryopod rooms count as tiles for all purposes. Orientation counts as an Attraction or an Amenity tile, while Cryopods count as Berth tiles. There are Berth, Amenity and Attraction icons on these tiles as a reminder.

Clearing Berths

Berths are cheap to build, but they need to be full in order to make a profit! Berths with any empty spaces make 0◊ when cleared. Berths with all 3 spaces filled gain 3◊.

Cryopods are cleared whenever you clear all your Berths, but do not need to be full to make money.

Example: Checking Out Guests. (1) Blue plays the Amenity Advert, and chooses to clear their Attractions. (2) Astrocat Café is an Attraction, but it has no tourists on it. (3) Holoplex has one tourist, which they return to the bag for 4◊. (4) On Orientation (which counts as both an Amenity and Attraction tile for all purposes) there are two tourists, who Blue returns to the bag for 1◊ and 2◊ respectively.

Example: Clearing Berths. In the above example, Blue could have cleared all their Berths. (1) They have one full Berth, which would make 3◊. (2) Their second Berth is not full, so it would make nothing. (3) Their Cryopods (which counts as a Berth, but does not have the same restriction) has 1 tourist, and would make 1◊. So they choose to clear their Attractions instead.

Build Phase

In the Build phase, players may buy the type of tile indicated on their Advert card and add it to their station, if they can. The player:

• Selects an available face-up tile of that type
• Pays the cost (if any)
• Places it in a valid space on their station
• Gains the Prestige listed on it (if any)
• Replaces the tile with a new one from the relevant deck (unless it is empty, in which case skip this step)

Breaking Ties: If multiple players wish to purchase the same type of tile, each player completes their purchase (in full!) in order from the player with the least to most money (before the purchase). If a tie persists, priority is given to the player with the highest position on the track for the Prestige type not printed on the visible Trend card.

Tile Cost

The cost of a tile is printed on the right hand side of its face. If it is an Amenity or an Attraction tile, the player must also pay the cost of the space on their station that they place the tile on.

Example: Blue has 10◊. They want a VRcade tile that costs 3◊. There are two valid spaces that cost 8◊ and 5◊ respectively. Building a VRcade tile on the 8◊ space would cost a total of 11◊, while the 5◊ space would cost only 8◊.

Space costs do not need to be paid for Berths (which will always cost 3, regardless of where they're built) or Improvements (which instead have additional requirements of their own). There's a reminder of this on your player board.

A player cannot buy a tile if they do not have enough cash.

Building Restrictions

New tiles must be built in unoccupied spaces (i.e. containing no tiles) directly linked to an existing tile on their station.

Improvement Requirements

Each tile adds an icon of its type to your station. There are three such icons: Amenity, Attraction, and Berth. You start with 1 of each: one Amenity and one Attraction on your Orientation, and one Berth on your Cryopods.

To purchase an Improvement you must have at least 2 of each icon on your station. Improvements cost 0◊ to purchase.

Tile Prestige

Building new tiles on your station is the main way to increase your Prestige. The Prestige gained from a tile is indicated by the lights along its top edge, always in the same order: Relaxation, Inspiration, Entertainment and Thrills. In the example on the right, the Swim-Sim Pool provides 2 Relaxation, 2 Inspiration, 1 Entertainment and 1 Thrills Prestige.

Arrivals Phase

Each Arrivals Phase also has a variable amount of tourists who will arrive, based on the player count. In the example, there will be:

• 11 tourists in a 1 or 2 player game
• 16 tourists in a 3 player game
• 22 tourists in a 4 player game

Draw the indicated number of tourists for the player count from the bag, and place them in the 'Arrivals Lounge' in the centre of the main board.

Each Arrivals Phase refers to one of the three Trends on the currently-visible Trend card: A, B or C. In the example, the corresponding trend is Relaxation.

In descending order on the corresponding Prestige track, players must pick tourists, 1 at a time, from the available pool. When the lowest player on that Prestige track draws, start again at the top, repeating until all the tourists have been selected.

Continuing from the above example, in the first Arrivals phase Blue would go first and Pink would go last. Yellow and Green are both on 3, but Yellow is ahead, so would go first in this case. This order would repeat until all tourists are selected.

When the player selects the tourist, it must be placed onto an empty tourist space on their station that matches their colour. Some spaces can hold multiple colours (but still only 1 tourist). Berth spaces can hold any colour, as long as it is not the same as a tourist already on that Berth.

Blue picks a red tourist (Thrill). It can be placed on their VRcade Thrill space or their Orientation tile 'Any Colour' space. The Astrocat Café will only accept Entertain tourists, and the Berth already has a red tourist.

Ejecting Tourists

The vastness of space is infinite, but your station is not. Tourists that cannot be placed in your station are ejected into space. The Tourism Board frowns upon this. Take a penalty of 1 point from your Prestige score in the ejected tourist's colour. Return the tourist to the bag.

If you are at 0 Prestige on this track, the penalty does nothing.

After placing the tourist in the previous example, Blue has to place 2 more Thrill tourists. The second would be ejected. Blue would lose 1 Thrill Prestige. The tourist is returned to the bag.

Extra Malfunctions

Two-player game only. In a 2 player game, both players gain 1 Malfunction after the 2nd and 5th Arrivals Phases. There's a reminder at the start of the following Advertise phases on the board. To help you remember, you can add a Prestige marker of an unused player colour to these spaces, and remove them when the Malfunctions are gained.

End of Year Phase

1. Each player gains 1 Prestige in each symbol track for each Viewing Platform (right) that is visible on their station.

   At the end of Year 3, skip the next steps.

2. Each player returns all of their Adverts to their hand.

3. Return the visible Trend card to the box, and flip the next top card on the stack face-up.

4. Clear any face up tiles from the year and replace them with an equal amount of tiles from the next year stack of the same colour.

End of the Game

At the end of the 3rd year, the game ends. Then:

• Each player clears all tiles on their station, gaining the cash as normal for clearing the tiles.
• The highest player on each Prestige track gains 10◊.
• 3-4 Players Only: The 2nd highest player gains 6◊.
• 4 Players Only: The 3rd highest player gains 3◊.

If players share a space on the Prestige track, the player whose piece is further ahead breaks the tie. The player with the most cash wins the game! In the case of a tie, use these tiebreaks:

• Most total Prestige
• Further ahead on the most Prestige tracks
• Fewest Malfunctions