How to Play

Creature Comforts

1-5 players 45-45 min 7.4 Board Game Geek Rating

In Creature Comforts, forest animals prepare for winter by gathering supplies during Spring, Summer, and Fall. Players send family members to collect goods from various woodland locations, then use these resources to purchase comfort items for their dens. Failed attempts teach lessons for future rounds. Victory goes to whoever creates the coziest home.

Published 2022

Get Ready

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

Choose a family

Select one family and take the Player Board (Demeure), four Workers (Ouvriers), four Houses (Maisons), four colored village dice matching your family dice color, and two Family dice of that color

Place your houses

Put your four Houses on the designated spaces of your Player Board

Draw Comfort cards

Draw three Comfort cards, keep two in hand (cards remain hidden from other players), and discard the third face-up near the draw pile to create a discard pile

Set up the main board

Place the game board in the center of the table with all location spaces accessible

Prepare the resource supply

Organize the 114 Material tokens (Wood, Stone, Fruit, Mushrooms, String, Grain), 20 Coins, 21 Lesson Learned tokens, and 20 Story tokens near the board

Set up the village dice

Place the 4 white Village dice near the board where all players can see them

Prepare Improvement cards

Shuffle the 34 Improvement cards and place them as indicated

Distribute bonus coin for fairness

Check the player count table to determine if any player receives 1 extra Coin to balance first-player advantage

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Roll Family dice first

Each player rolls their two Family dice before sending Workers to get an idea of their potential

Send Workers to locations

Place your four Workers on various board locations, hoping to assign dice meeting activation requirements

Roll Village dice

Once all players have placed Workers, roll the four white Village dice to determine their values for the month

Set colored village dice

Match your 4 colored village dice to show the same values as the 4 white Village dice

Form your dice reserve

Combine your 4 colored village dice with your 2 Family dice to create your reserve of 6 dice

Assign dice to locations

Place dice from your reserve onto locations where your Workers are stationed, ensuring you meet each location's requirements

Use Lesson Learned tokens

Spend tokens to modify a die's value by +1 or -1 per token; place the token next to the modified die showing + or - face

Activate locations one at a time

Starting with the Early Bird (Lève-Tôt) and proceeding clockwise, each player activates ONE location or Clearing, then passes

Resolve Worker activations

When activating a location with proper dice, take the location's benefit, then return your Worker and assigned dice to your Player Board

Gain Lesson Learned for inactive Workers

For each Worker you cannot or choose not to activate, return them home and receive one Lesson Learned token

Craft Comforts

Pay the cost shown on Comfort cards (Materials, Coins, and/or Stories) by returning resources to the supply, then place crafted cards face-up near your Player Board

Return remaining dice

Retrieve any colored village dice from the board that weren't returned to your Player Board

Discard used Lesson tokens

Return all Lesson Learned tokens used this turn

Check hand limit

If holding more than three Comfort cards, discard down to three of your choice

Proceed to Update phase

Complete the month's update before starting the next round