Chai: Tea for 2 is live (Clashing Cups)
Update: Chai: Tea for 2 is live on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 31 days. You may pledge either for the Deluxe or the Tea Master edition that comes in a wooden box. A PnP tier is also available.
Our preview post below was published on April 29.
Steeped Games expands its tea-themed line with the 1-2 player dice placement game Chai: Tea for 2 in which you play as a tea merchant. It will launch on Kickstarter on May 4, and you can expect an abundance of tea-inspired puns from the designers, if you follow oolong.
At the start of a round, the player who has the 1st player coin moves the tea assistant meeple up to 3 spaces on the harvest markers, and both players receive the tea resources shown on the marker the meeple landed on. Players also receive extra tea tokens or extra movement tokens up to the number shown on the harvest marker. At the end of this phase, the harvest marker is transferred to the opposite side of the central Harvest board.
Then, both players roll their dice (tea workers) simultaneously, and take turns placing the dice on the various building boards in order to take actions. Workers placed on the Harvest board will give the player tea tokens. Workers on the Market board will give a tea plantation card. Once a tea plantation card is taken by a player, it is placed on their personal plantation board and its action is performed immediately. Workers placed on the Palace board will allow the player to move or swap plantation cards, or take the 1st player coin.
Workers placed on the Harbour board are assigned to ship cards which are reserved for the End of the Year phase. A player can displace their opponent's dice from a ship by placing their own higher numbered dice. Finally, workers on the Production board create tea token movement on the player's plantation board that will be resolved at the End of the Year.
Once all dice workers have been placed, the year ends. Reserved ship cards are taken onto the players' boards. Tea tokens that are ready to ship are then loaded onto the cards, and the ships set sail for the scoring area. Tea movement tokens are used on the plantation to move tea tokens further. If a player has fulfilled enough shipments to reach the end game goal, the game ends and players proceed to scoring.
In the solo mode, you will be playing against a merchant AI with its own deck of cards. The AI does not get a plantation board, but you will roll its dice workers and place them onto action spots according to its card instructions.