How to Play

Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure

2-4 players 30-60 min 7.8 Board Game Geek Rating

In this deck-building adventure, players are thieves infiltrating a dragon's lair to steal artifacts. Build your deck with skill, sword, and boot cards to navigate dungeons, fight monsters, and move strategically. Making noise creates "clank" that angers the dragon, increasing danger. Victory requires successfully escaping with an artifact and accumulating the most points from stolen loot.

Published 2016

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Distribute player components

Each player receives 30 Clank! cubes of their color placed in a personal supply, a matching pawn, and a starting deck containing 6 Burgle cards, 2 Stumble cards, 1 Sidestep card, and 1 Sneak card

Place artifacts

Position the seven artifacts (valued 5-30) face-up on their matching numbered spaces on the board

Set up Major Secrets

Shuffle Major Secret tokens face-down and place one randomly on each Major Secret space; return extras to the box unseen

Set up Minor Secrets

Shuffle Minor Secret tokens face-down and place one randomly on each Minor Secret space (two per Minor Secret room)

Stock the Market area

Place two Master Keys, two Backpacks, and three Crowns (valued 10, 9, and 8) in the Market area

Place Monkey Idols

Position the three Monkey Idol tokens in the Shrine room

Set Mastery tokens

Place Mastery tokens in the upper left corner of the board, one per player

Prepare the bank

Place gold coins (values 1 and 5) beside the game board

Position the Dragon marker

Place the black Dragon marker on the Rage Track based on player count:

Fill the Dragon Bag

Place all 24 black dragon cubes in the bag and set it beside the board

Arrange the Reserve

Place the Goblin monster card and stacks of Mercenary, Explore, and Secret Tome cards beside the board

Create the Dungeon Row

Shuffle the Dungeon Deck and reveal six cards; replace any cards with Dragon Attack symbols, then shuffle replaced cards back into the deck

Position player pawns

Each player places their pawn outside the dungeon at the top of the board, shuffles their deck, and draws five cards

Determine first player

The sneakiest player goes first, or choose randomly; play proceeds clockwise

Place initial Clank

First player places 3 Clank! cubes in the Clank! area, second player places 2, third player places 1, fourth player places 0

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Play all cards

Play all five cards from your hand in any order you choose, generating resources: Skill (blue), Swords (red), and Boots (yellow)

Acquire new cards

Spend Skill to purchase cards with blue banners from the Dungeon Row or yellow-bannered cards from the Reserve; place acquired cards in your discard pile

Use Devices

Spend Skill on purple-bannered Device cards to execute their text immediately, then place them in the Dungeon discard pile (not your deck)

Fight monsters

Spend Swords to defeat red-bannered Monster cards in the Dungeon Row; earn the Defeat reward, then place the monster in the Dungeon discard pile

Move through tunnels

Spend one Boot to move through a tunnel to an adjacent room

Pick up tokens

When entering a room, you may take one token present (Minor Secret, Major Secret, Monkey Idol, or Artifact)

Buy from Market

If in a Market room, spend 7 gold to purchase one Market item

Generate Clank

When a card gives you Clank!, move that many cubes from your supply to the Clank! area; negative Clank! removes your cubes from the Clank! area