Arigatō

Here is a general overview of how to play the game:

Setup

• Place the two calendar tiles next to each other in ascending numerical order, and put the day marker on day 1 (p. 5). Place all objective tokens, item tokens, and favor tokens in a general supply (p. 5, 10).
• Shuffle all artisan cards to form a face-down draw pile in the middle of the table, and set up a shared discard pile (p. 10).
• Each player receives a village board, a palace gate board, 4 offering tokens, and a personal supply next to their village to hold any items they gain (p. 5).
• For the first round, each player draws 5 artisan cards to create their starting hand (p. 9).

How a Round Works

The game is played over 12 rounds, with all players carrying out three phases simultaneously (p. 6):

• 1 – Dawn (Assigning roles): Refill your hand by drawing 3 cards from the draw pile and picking up the 2 traveler cards passed to you by the player on your right (p. 9). Secretly assign a role to each of the 5 artisans in your hand: place 1 Resident face down in an empty village workshop, pass 2 Travelers face down to the village on your left, and keep 2 Craftsmen in your hand (p. 6, 9, 11).
• 2 – Day (Managing your village and offerings): Reveal your resident artisan and your craftsman cards, discarding the craftsmen to gain the items they produce (p. 8). Trigger card effects, manage your personal supply, and optionally carry out village actions as many times as you like, such as preparing offerings by discarding required items or sending artisans with offerings to your palace gate (p. 2, 8).
• 3 – Dusk (End of the round): Check whether you successfully fulfilled the objective of the day to take an objective token, and trigger any end-of-round card effects marked with a specific icon (p. 13). Finally, check your personal supply and discard down to a maximum of 7 items if you have more (p. 13).

How the Game Ends

• The final round begins when the day marker reaches day 12 on the calendar, featuring a modified dawn phase where players assign 1 resident and 4 craftsmen (and 0 travelers) (p. 3, 11).
• Once the final round is completed, players count their favor points to determine the winner (p. 3).
• The player with the most favor points wins the game, and tied players share the victory (p. 3).