Being properly prepared for a battle is essential!
Setting up the tiles can be random or you can make sure key cards like a clue are well protected. You could also make a maze. For this game, we wanted as many cards as we could in a small play area so we created a simple gird design. We shuffled the cards before placing them face down. Some cards are double-sided like some hazards, islands, and space stations. In this game we did not have any.
We are using Pokemon cards for the characters and adversaries. Most card games we play use Star Trek or Transformer trading cards.
The player picks two top Pokemon from cards they have collected. The adversaries deck is rejected or repeat Pokemon cards. This makes sure the player is seldom outmatched in attacks. Players can not have more than three main characters at once.
To make turns faster, we make sure all the cards, dice, and items are together. Nothing breaks the mood worse than hunting for a 1D4 die. You want to make sure that nothing pulls you out of the Pokemon world when play begins.
It also helps to keep the board neat during gameplay.
Keeping track of hit points and gold is important but also keep track of moves in case someone lands on a time travel card.
If you have more then one character then you have to make the statistics clear for both characters. We recommend having two characters in case one of them is knocked out, the other character can flee during an attack.
This game did not have a game master so we flipped over the cards ourselves. We did the attacks based on the strength of our characters rather than using the dice play mechanics.
The game is all done! We found all five clue cards after nearly turning over every card! One of the players got very low on health in the game but she encountered several merchants and was able to buy enough health to get back to full health.
Sometimes you find all the clues very quickly sometimes you have to turn over almost all the cards.
May the dice be in your favor!