Spend the day at the pottery studio, gathering your materials and choosing a kiln to fire your pieces.
What Is Sunrise at the Studio?
Sunrise at the Studio is a card-drafting game for 1 to 4 players, ages 14 and up, and takes about 20 minutes to play. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $25 for a copy of the game. This campaign is for the Nature Games Trio, so it also includes options for the solo game Snowfall over Mountains and the pocket edition of Floriferous. My review today is specifically for Sunrise at the Studio, but you can read more about Floriferous here (note that this is a review of the full-sized version of Floriferous, but the pocket-sized version uses smaller, redesigned cards to fit the whole game into a tiny box). Although the box says 14 and up, I do think you could teach this to kids as young as 10 as long as they have some gaming experience.
Sunrise at the Studio was designed by Steven Finn and published by Pencil First Games, with illustrations by Laura Bevon.
New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.
Sunrise at the Studio Components
Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality. Kickstarter backers will also get the Potter Specialties mini-expansion included.
Here’s what comes in the box:
- 4 Studio mats
- Wastebasket mat
- 30 Project cards
- 4 Starting Project cards
- 3 Day cards
- 6 Studio Challenge cards
- Cup of Coffee card
- 36 Advantage cards
- 48 Resource cards
- 12 Large tiles (3 per player color)
- 12 Small tiles (3 per player color)
- 60 Resource cubes
- Friend mat (solo mode)
- 4 Friend cards (solo mode)
- 6 Coffee Bean/Damage cards (solo mode)
The studio mats and the wastebasket mats are large cardstock mats, and are mostly there to provide specific places to put cards: discarded cards go into the wastebasket, and cards that you pass to players (or keep for yourself) are put on each player’s studio mat. The studio mat also stores your extra resource cubes, tracks which “work style” you choose, and has some reminder icons. (The back of the mat has just the work styles spaces without the reminder icons so you can admire the artwork.)
The project cards are full-sized cards: both sides depict a finished pottery piece like a mug or a bowl or a vase; one side also has some small spaces below the piece to place the resources required to complete it. There are additional icons on both sides for the type of pottery and point value, as well as an initiative number.
Resource cards are small cards, and depict clay, a glaze type, or a kiln type. Some offer a choice between two things. Advantage cards are also small, and there are a range of these that include immediate one-time-use effects and cards that give end-game bonuses if you complete them.
The tiles look like ceramic tiles, with nice patterns printed on them. The resource cubes are small wooden cubes with a little stripe across one face—we realized that they represent cardboard boxes (the icon used for a wild resource). It’s kind of funny because one of the resource types is the kiln, which presumably wouldn’t fit in a small cardboard box, but it does make the cubes a little more interesting than just plain cubes.
How to Play Sunrise at the Studio
You can download a copy of the rulebook here. The game does have a solo mode, but I’ll be focusing on the standard game for this review.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to score the most points by completing projects and studio challenges over the course of three “days.”
Setup
Everyone starts with a player mat, the tiles of their color, 15 resource cubes, plus one randomly dealt starting project. In the central area, place the wastebasket, the cup of coffee, and the day cards (with the “1” showing). Shuffle the project cards and lay out 3 next to the deck so there are 4 projects visible. Randomly draw 3 of the studio challenge cards to use, and return the rest to the box. Make a deck of resource cards based on the player count and shuffle it, and also shuffle the deck of advantage cards.
Gameplay
The game takes 3 “days,” and each day has 3 rounds: sunrise, midday, and sunset.
At the beginning of the day, each player is dealt 12 resource cards, which are placed in a stack below their player mat.
Each round, you draw four resource cards from your own stack, and then pick one of three work styles at the bottom of your player mat. The work styles determine how many cards you keep or pass.
The three work styles are:
- Efficient: Keep 3 resource cards, pass 1 to the left
- Measured: Keep 2 resource cards, pass 1 left and 1 right
- Wasteful: Keep 1 resource card, discard 2, pass 1 right
Place cards you’re passing onto the other player mats, and cards you’re keeping on your own player mat. Each work style will be used once per day—after passing cards, mark the work style with a large tile, indicating that it has been used.
After everyone has finished passing cards, pick up all the cards on your player mat. Everyone can use their cards to work on their projects. Resource cards show clay, glaze, and kilns, which may match those required on your projects. For each resource you spend on a project, discard the card and place a cube on the project in the corresponding space. For each resource you cannot spend, discard the card and put a cube on your player mat in your reserve. You may spend 2 cubes from the reserve as a wild resource for a project.
You must spend all of your cards during this phase, either toward completing projects or into your reserve—you may not keep any cards.
Then, check to see if any players have completed projects by completely filling in a project card. If so, players will gain bonuses in completion order, which is indicated by the number at the top left of the project card. Remove all the cubes from the card and flip it over to the completed side. Then choose one of the following bonuses:
- Take 2 projects. (You may choose any of the 4 face-up projects including the top of the deck.)
- Draw 1 advantage card and 1 project.
- Draw 3 advantage cards and keep 1 of them.
You must have at least one project in progress, so if you have none, you must choose an option that gives you at least 1 more project, except on the very last round of the game.
After taking your bonus, check if you have met any of the studio challenges. If so, mark it with one of your small tiles. The first player to achieve a studio challenge gets the higher score, and all other players who complete it get the lower score.
Each day consists of 3 rounds—you’ll have no more resource cards in your stack, and all three work styles will be taken. Reset for the next day: shuffle and deal out the resource cards again, clear your large tiles off your player mat, and flip to the next day card.
Advantage cards come in various types: some are worth points at the end of the game for meeting the criteria (a little bit like the studio challenges), some are showpiece projects you can complete for extra points (but no completion bonus), and some just have coffee beans on them. You may also discard an advantage card before you reveal it to put one cube into your reserve.
Game End
The game ends after the three full days. Award the cup of coffee to the player with the most coffee beans. If there’s a tie, nobody gets the coffee.
Score as follows:
- Points for completed projects
- -1 point for each incomplete project
- 1 point per resource on an incomplete project
- Points for studio challenges
- Points for completed end-game goals (on advantage cards)
- Points for completed showpieces (on advantage cards)
- 1 point per resource on an incomplete showpiece
- 1 point for every 2 resources in your reserve
- 3 points for the cup of coffee
The highest score wins, with ties going to the player with the lowest number on a completed project.
Why You Should Play Sunrise at the Studio
Pencil First adds to its excellent line of small-box games with cozy themes: craft pottery in Sunrise at the Studio using a very clever card-drafting system, or puzzle your way through Snowfall over Mountains in a solo hiking game. And, of course, the new pocket-sized version of Floriferous. Although most of these games are competitive (and can even be quite cutthroat!), the themes are more light-hearted and often incorporate other hobbies like painting and collecting knickknacks rather than anything violent or combative, making them a nice option for players looking for something that isn’t more simulated battles.
Sunrise at the Studio is a short game—just 9 rounds of picking and passing cards and using them to complete your various projects. The particular way that you pick and pass cards is my favorite part of the game, and it’s cleverly done. Over the course of each day, you’ll end up drawing 12 cards total, keeping six of them for yourself, giving four away to other players, and discarding two to the wastebasket. But the order in which you pick your work styles is important. If you use the “efficient” style at sunrise, you may find at midday that there are three cards you really wish you could keep. Or perhaps you’re wasteful early in the day, dumping a couple cards to the wastebasket—you might regret it if you don’t draw cards that you like better later on.
And, of course, since each style involves passing some cards to your neighbors, you do have to keep an eye on what they’re looking for. It’s kind of amusing given the setting, but the basic strategy is to pass cards that your neighbors don’t want: “Here, I got you this lovely glaze that’s completely wrong for your current project.” Cards are never entirely wasted—they just add resources to your reserves, so each one is basically half a wild resource—but ideally you’ll get something that you can use immediately. There are definitely occasions where everything in your neighbor’s hand is something that you want, and they may just get stuck giving you something useful.
Of course, you can set yourself up for more of those moments by taking more project cards. If you have a diverse set of needs, then you can use anything that gets passed to you! The downside is that you lose points for incomplete projects, and taking projects means skipping out on the advantage cards, which are aptly named. Figuring out the balance of projects and advantage cards is another important factor. They can be worth extra points or give you that extra coffee bean to put you in the lead.
Speaking of coffee, many of the games in this line have some sort of end-game bonus that isn’t completely related: Herbaceous introduced us to the herb biscuit for planting a particular set of herbs. Gathering the most rocks in Floriferous gives you the cup of tea. And now, while you’re busy making pottery in the studio, apparently you’re also collecting individual coffee beans for the perfect cup of coffee. It’s a bit silly, but it gives you another thing to watch for when you’re selecting projects.
While I didn’t try the solo mode for Sunrise at the Studio, I did read over the rules and the description made me laugh: your friend wants you to teach them pottery, so you’re trying to work on your projects while your friend distracts you, putters through their own projects, and even occasionally damages your stuff!
The rest of Sunrise at the Studio feels pretty straightforward: spend resources to complete projects, race the other players to match the studio challenges for bonus points, try not to have incomplete projects at the end of the game. There’s a part of me that wants to see the card-drafting mechanic paired with something a bit more involved, because I like the concept a lot but the game is fairly light for my tastes. That said, it’s been an easy one to teach and I’ve enjoyed handing people lumps of clay they can’t use (and groaning when they do the same to me).
If you enjoy casual games—and particularly if you’ve liked the other games in this series like Herbaceous and Floriferous—then it’s definitely worth taking a closer look at Sunrise at the Studio. Stay tuned for more about Snowfall over Mountains soon.
For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Sunrise at the Studio Kickstarter page!
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
