Clank!

Prepare the table

Use the original base box, not Catacombs or In! Space!, with a chosen board side. Put artifacts on their numbered rooms; randomly omit two artifacts with two players or one with three. Randomly place one major secret on each matching space and two minor secrets per matching room, face down. Put three monkey idols in their room, market items in the market, and mastery tokens and gold nearby.

Bag the twenty-four black dragon cubes. Set rage to its first space for four players, second for three or third for two. Reveal six dungeon cards, replacing initial dragon-attack cards and shuffling those replacements back. Display the Explore, Mercenary and Secret Tome reserve piles and permanent Goblin.

Everyone takes thirty cubes, an entrance pawn and a starter deck of six Burgles, two Stumbles, Cautious Advance and Skillful Move. Shuffle and draw five. In clockwise turn order put three, two, one and zero cubes respectively in the board's Clank area.

Play a turn

On your turn play every hand card, in your chosen order, resolving its text. You may interleave spending resources with card plays. Skill buys cards into your discard; swords defeat red monsters for their printed reward; boots move through tunnels. Purple devices give their use effect immediately then go to the shared discard. The Goblin can be defeated repeatedly. Reserve cards remain available while their piles last. Follow Acquire text only when acquiring, Arrive text when revealed, and card-specific conditions.

A normal tunnel costs one boot, a double-foot tunnel two. Spend one sword per monster symbol or take that much damage from your supply; you cannot voluntarily take lethal tunnel damage. A lock requires a purchased key and arrows limit direction. Entering a crystal cave prevents further boot movement that turn. Teleport effects ignore tunnel restrictions but still enter the destination room. You may leave and reenter rooms, and share rooms with other pawns.

On entering a room you may take one token there. Secrets resolve using the box's reference; keep potions until used, resolve immediate resources now, and retain point tokens. You may normally hold one artifact and cannot exchange it. Artifacts and discovered dragon eggs advance rage one space. A backpack permits another artifact. In a market room, each item costs seven gold; keys and backpacks score five, crowns their printed value. Returning outside with an artifact grants a twenty-point mastery token.

Add positive Clank cubes to the board area. Negative Clank removes only cubes there, never from the bag; excess reduction can offset later Clank that same turn. At turn end discard played cards, lose unspent skill/swords/boots, and draw five, reshuffling your discard when necessary. Refill the dungeon row. Any new dragon symbol triggers one attack: put all board Clank in the bag, then draw the rage number plus one per Danger card currently in the row. Set black cubes aside; put colored cubes on their owners' health tracks. Undrawn cubes stay in the bag.

Finish and score

A full health track knocks you out. You can score only if you have an artifact and are above the marked Depths; deeper knockouts or artifactless players are out of contention. The first escaped or knocked-out player starts the countdown. On their next three scheduled turns advance it and attack with one, two, then three extra cubes; on their fourth, knock out everyone still inside. Later departed players do not run a second countdown, and their drawn cubes cause no damage.

When all players have left or been knocked out, eligible players add artifact values, other point tokens, unspent gold and all card points across their entire deck. Include mastery if earned. Highest score wins, breaking ties with the more valuable artifact. If nobody is eligible, the dragon wins.

Host the first game

Point to the Depths boundary and countdown before the first turn. A Reddit first-play report stretched to three hours after missing the knockout countdown and returning cubes from the bag; keep undrawn cubes bagged and start the countdown on either the first exit or knockout. Boots are optional to spend even though playing hand cards is compulsory.

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Ideas & Twists

Choose a variation together before you start.