Robinson Crusoe - How to Play

A faithful solitaire recreation of Scenario 1, Castaways. This tutorial covers everything you need for your first game. Nothing here needs to be typed - the entire game is played by clicking buttons and tiles.

How to Begin

Launch the game from your Tronsoft Games library. On the first screen, Choose your Castaway. For a first game, pick the Cook - he is the most forgiving, because his Hooch invention heals wounds at night.

Castaway	Difficulty	Why
Cook	★	Self-healing; the steadiest start.
Carpenter	★★	Cheaper builds, but no self-heal.
Explorer	★★★	Only 12 HP and lives on the edge.

Controls

Click a button to choose an action, confirm a choice, or advance a phase.
Click a tile on the island when the game asks you to pick an explore or gather target, or to move camp at night.
Assign pawns in the Planning modal by selecting an action, then choosing which pawns (your character, Friday, the Dog) to commit.
There are no keyboard commands and no text entry.

Turn Order

Every round runs through eight phases in this fixed order:

Event - reveal a card (from round 2). Adventure cards drop a token on an action type, then slide into the Threat field.
Morale - your solo morale bonus applies; spend or gain Determination.
Production - your camp tile yields its resources automatically.
Woodpile - add wood to the current stage (one stage per round).
Planning - assign every pawn to an action.
Resolution - actions resolve in order: Threat, Hunt, Build, Gather, Explore, Camp, Rest.
Weather - clouds are checked against your roof; shortfalls become wounds.
Night - everyone eats, you may move camp, and unstored food rots.

Movement & Exploration

Your camp sits on one island space. Actions reach explored tiles within a distance of 2 (each extra step needs one more pawn). Explore flips new tiles, revealing terrain, resources, discovery tokens, and beasts. You must reveal at least one Mountains tile before you can build the Fire, so explore early and often.

Actions

Action	What it does
Build	Shelter, Roof, Palisade, Weapon, or an Invention.
Gather	Collect wood or food from an explored source tile.
Explore	Reveal a new tile adjacent to explored land.
Hunt	(2 pawns, needs a beast in the deck) Fight for food and fur.
Threat	Answer a card in the threat field for a reward.
Rest	Heal one wound.
Camp	Gain Determination / arrange the camp.

One pawn vs. two. A single pawn rolls three dice: it may succeed, but it can also wound you or trigger a random adventure. Two pawns guarantee success with no dice. Use two pawns for anything you cannot afford to fail - especially the Shelter and the Fire.

Scoring / Winning Conditions

There is no score - only survival and rescue. You win if, during rounds 10, 11, or 12, you have both:

the Fire invention built, and
the five-stage woodpile complete (15 wood: stages of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5).

Losing Conditions

You lose immediately if your main character dies, or if the twelfth round ends without the signal fire ready. Friday can die without ending the game, but you lose his pawn. The Dog cannot die.

The Weather Clock

Weather escalates as the game goes on. Plan your roof and stores around these thresholds:

Round	Weather dice
1-3	None.
4-8	Rain.
9-10	Rain + Winter.
11-12	Rain + Winter + Animals.

Each uncovered cloud costs food and wood; if your stores run short, the shortfall becomes wounds. A Roof of level 2 by round 4 is the single most important early goal.

Saving and Restarting

This game does not save between sessions - each launch is a fresh game, and a run is short enough to finish in one sitting. To start over at any time, finish the game (or reload it from the library) and choose a castaway again. The New Game button on the end screen returns you to castaway selection.

Your first five rounds, in order: Round 1 - grab the Food Crates and explore twice. Round 2 - build the Shelter with two pawns. Rounds 3-4 - raise the Roof to 2 before the rain. Build the Fire the moment you find Mountains. Then turn everything into wood and start feeding the pile.

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island - Tronsoft Games recreation. Expect to lose your first few games; a 15-30% win rate is authentic to the real solo Castaways experience.