Alien Petshop Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
  • Each player does the following
  • Setup for the Galactic market
  • Optional Episodes
• Overview
  • Goal of the game
  • Key ideas (from the overview page)
  • Icon key
• Shop Powers
• Order of Play
  • Buy Phase
  • Worker Phase
  • Mutation Phase
  • Sell Phase
  • End of the Round
• End of the Game
• Scoring Bonus Cards
• Special Turn Order Rule
• Card Clarifications

Components

• 35 Normal Pet Cards
• 16 Super Pets Cards
• 4 Starter Pets Cards
• 5 Award Cards
• 5 Episode Cards
• 4 Shop Boards (double-sided)
• 1 Mutation Board
• 32 Habitat Cards
• 4 Reference Cards
• 9 Secret Goal Cards
• Trait tokens: 10 Speaks tokens, 10 Multi-Eyed tokens, 10 Tentacled tokens, 10 Cute tokens
• 3 Stardust tokens, 3 Slime tokens, 3 Trubble tokens, 3 Fire tokens
• 4 Fifty Credit tokens
• 1 First Player Marker
• 4 Space Credit cubes
• 20 Worker dice

Setup

There are 2 ways to play Alien Petshop: easy and normal. They are very similar. Easy mode has simpler rules for younger or inexperienced players. Follow the setup below. For easy mode, look for the easy-mode symbol. Decide now as a group if you will play a normal or easy mode game.

Each player does the following

1. Choose a Shop Board. There is a different shop on each side, so check both sides. Each shop has a unique Shop Power. Place your shop in front of you.
   • Easy mode: shops with the easy-mode symbol in the upper left are easier to play.
2. Place a Space Credit cube on the "3" space of your shop's numbered track. This is where you track your space credits (money).
3. Place 2 worker dice in your Break Room.
4. Choose a starter pet card. Place it hazard side up in any of the 6 displays of your shop.
   • Easy mode: flip the starter pet over to the easy-mode side.
5. Easy mode: return the bonus cards to the box. For a normal game, have one player shuffle all bonus cards and deal 1 facedown to each player. Peek at your card and return it facedown in front of you. Set undealt bonus cards aside. Bonus cards score Victory Points (star) when the game ends.
6. Take a reference card.

Read your shop's Shop Power out loud before the first round.

Setup for the Galactic market

Match the layout below as you set up the Galactic market.

1. Line up all 5 award cards faceup.
2. Set undealt Bonus cards in a deck near the awards.
3. Shuffle the Normal Pets and Super-Pets into separate, facedown decks.
4. Deal 1 Super-Pet and 4 Normal Pets faceup.
5. Separate the habitat cards by type into 4 stacks.
6. Pile the worker dice to form a supply.
7. Separate the trait tokens into 4 stacks and place them onto the mutation board.
8. For easy mode, return the slime, fire, stardust, and trubble tokens to the box. For normal play, separate the hazard tokens and 50 credit tokens into piles.
9. The player who most recently visited a real petshop places the first player marker near their shop. (Or choose the first player however you like.)
10. Return leftover shop boards, credit cubes, and starter pets to the box.

Setup is complete!

Optional Episodes

Episode cards offer optional and fun rule changes for experienced Petshoppers. To use them, do this additional setup:

1. Draw a random Episode card and place it near the awards.
2. Read the Episode aloud.
3. Return the other Episodes to the box.

The text of the individual Episode cards is printed as small artwork in the source and is not transcribed here.

Overview

Over 5 rounds, players compete to run the best Alien Petshop. Visit the Galactic market each round to buy a pet, hire a worker, and/or buy a habitat. Take care of your pets so they spawn offspring to sell. Earn awards by gathering or mutating pets to have shared traits (Speaks, Tentacled, Multi-Eyed, Cute, or Hazardous). Manage your worker dice and the chaos of alien pets to build an award-winning shop!

Goal of the game

Have the most shop value after 5 rounds. Your shop value is your Space Credits plus your Victory Points.

Key ideas (from the overview page)

• Buy pets each round: spend Space Credits to buy a pet from the market and your profits will grow.
• Roll 'em: your worker dice care for your pets. First roll any hazards, then assign dice to pets. Meet or beat a pet's Care Score to make it spawn offspring.
• Pets with a Care Score of '0' spawn without workers.
• Offspring sell automatically in the Sell Phase.
• Resolve ALL your hazard effects.
• Awards: award cards are worth Victory Points. Having 2 or more of a trait, and more than anyone else, can earn an award. Steal awards by getting more of a trait.
• Workers can mutate pets to add traits.
• Other ways of getting VPs: buy pets that have VPs (all have 1 or more VPs; most have a special power), buy special habitats, collect pets with attributes to earn VPs, and fulfill your Bonus Card. Many pets have 2 traits. Super-Pets are great for VPs.

Icon key

• Speaks, Tentacled, Multi-Eyed, Cute, Hazardous: the five trait icons.
• Worker: worker die.
• Mutation / Trait: trait token.
• Space Credit: money.
• Victory Point: star.
• Hazard: warning-triangle icon.

Shop Powers

Each shop board has a unique Shop Power, read aloud before the first round. Powers shown in the setup illustrations of this edition:

• Nom's Petgalley: Claim and place 1 free trait token every mutation phase.
• Alien-Aid: You may buy a pet from the discard pile.
• Petfleet: the power text is printed too small in this source to read reliably and is not transcribed here.

The remaining shop boards' powers are printed on the other sides of the boards and are not reproduced in this source's text layer.

Order of Play

Gameplay happens in rounds. During the round, take turns clockwise starting with the first player. Each round has these 4 phases:

1. Buy Phase: take turns in the market.
2. Worker Phase: roll and assign workers simultaneously.
3. Mutation Phase: take turns claiming mutations.
4. Sell Phase: calculate sales simultaneously.

Buy Phase

Starting with the first player, players take turns visiting the Galactic market. You may buy 1 pet, 1 habitat, and/or hire 1 worker in any order. Deduct Space Credits on your tracker as you buy.

Buy a Pet

1. Pay its value in Space Credits.
2. Place the pet in one of your displays with no pets or tokens. If this is a Super-Pet with a When Bought power, resolve it now.
3. Replace the missing pet card, drawing from the same deck. Don't replenish after the last player each round.
4. Check awards. If you have 2 or more of the same trait in your shop and more than everyone else, claim the matching award card.

Buy a Habitat

5. Pay its cost in Space Credits.
6. Tuck the habitat under a pet with the effect showing. Each pet display can only hold 1 habitat card.

Hire a Worker

7. Pay its cost in Space Credits shown on your shop board (the worker cost).
8. Claim the worker from the supply and place it in your Break Room.

Your shop can have up to 6 pets and 5 workers.

Hint: since pets earn profit, consider buying a pet every round and make sure you have enough workers to care for them.

• You may place a habitat in an empty display to save it for later.
• You may rearrange your habitats and pets during the Buy Phase.
• Habitats only affect the pets placed on them.

After you complete your purchases, the next player has their Buy Phase.

Worker Phase

Do this phase simultaneously, in the order below. Roll and assign your worker dice!

1. Roll all worker dice.
2. Re-roll worker dice (optional): you may spend 1 Space Credit to re-roll any or all workers together. You may pay repeatedly for multiple re-rolls.
3. Resolve hazard rolls. Hazard effects are triggered by your hazard rolls (the warning-triangle face). Pets with the Hazardous trait have hazard effects. Resolve each effect, but only once a round even if you roll multiple hazards. See Card Clarifications for rules for specific hazards.
4. Assign workers to ACTIONS in any order. Each worker can do 1 ACTION per round. Unassigned workers stay in the Break Room. Actions are resolved later, in the Mutation and Sell Phases.

The 4 worker actions are:

• A. Care for pets: workers care for the pets they are placed on. Meet or beat a pet's Care Score by adding 1 or more worker rolls. If you do, that pet spawns offspring. Offspring earn Space Credits in the Sell Phase. Pets with a Care Score of '0' spawn without workers!
• B. Sell goods: up to 1 worker of any value (even a hazard face) placed on your Sell Goods space earns 1 Space Credit during the Sell Phase.
• C. Add a mutation: a worker of any value (even a hazard face) placed on an Add Mutation space lets you add 1 trait token to a pet's empty space during the Mutation Phase. Remove a stardust token with a worker roll of 1+.
• D. Remove a token: place a worker roll of 1+ onto a token to remove that token during the Sell Phase. In easy mode, these tokens are not used.

Remember! Sets of traits can earn you awards with Victory Points!

After everyone has assigned their workers, the Mutation Phase begins.

Mutation Phase

In player order, resolve your Add Mutation workers.

1. Claim mutations. For each worker you have on an Add Mutation space, claim a trait token from the supply. Place it on a pet's empty space. Each space holds 1 trait token.
   • A pet can have duplicate traits. Trait tokens cannot be removed once added.
   • You may place your tokens more decoratively, provided all traits remain visible.
   • If the supply runs out of a trait token, you cannot add that trait to your pets.
2. Check awards. If you have 2 or more of a trait in your shop, and more than anyone else, claim the matching award card.

Sell Phase

Do this phase simultaneously. Tally your sales. Add the Space Credits you gain on your Space Credit tracker.

New to Alien Petshop? Try figuring sales in turn order until everyone gets it.

• A. Gain each pet's value in Space Credits if it spawned.
• B. Gain 1 Space Credit if you have a worker on the Sell Goods action.

End of the Round

1. Pass the 1st player marker clockwise to the next player.
2. Discard the pets in the market.
3. Deal 4 normal pet cards and 1 Super-Pet to the market. If a pet deck is empty, do not recycle the pet discard pile.
4. Return all your workers to the Break Room.

End of the Game

When the 5th round is over, it is time to see who has the most shop value and wins Alien Petshop. In turn order, each player should:

1. Reveal and score your bonus card. In easy mode, skip this step.
2. Add up your VPs on your pets, habitats, awards, and bonuses.
3. Add this VP total to your final Space Credits on the credit tracker. Take a 50 Credit token if your score passes 50 and continue along the track.

Example: 10 Space Credits plus 9 VPs equals a score of 19.

Highest total wins! If there is a tie, most VPs breaks the tie.

Scoring Bonus Cards

Bonus cards score VPs based on pet attributes. Count your pets that have the attribute icon shown on your bonus card. Match this number to the different reward ranges on the card.

The 8 attribute icons are shown on the bonus cards and the reference page (the source prints them as glyphs: Y, P, G, B and four further symbols).

The reward ranges on the bonus card artwork are not legible in the source text layer; the example bonus cards are shown in the source with a worked example: a player with 1 or 2 Pink pets earns 2 VPs from this Bonus Card.

Special Turn Order Rule

The order of assigning workers can affect your strategy as you react to other players' moves. Any player can request the worker phase be done in turn order when it begins.

Card Clarifications

Star Pony, Trubbles, Slimeoids, and Dragonling. Whenever you roll a hazard:

1. Claim from the supply 1 token matching the pet's hazard effect. Place this token on one of your displays with no pets or tokens. If you run out of tokens or if you have no empty displays, the hazard effect does nothing.
2. Hazard tokens remain until removed. To discard a token, assign a worker with a roll of 1 or more onto the token.

Mallow, Pricklepod, and Xon. Whenever you roll a hazard:

1. You must immediately assign a worker on this pet.

Chomper, Skeez, Yeet, and Spectopod. (The source spells the last name as printed in its text layer.) Whenever you roll a hazard:

1. Immediately lose 1 Space Credit. If you have no Space Credits, this effect does nothing.

Bamf, Deathvine, Rotaderp, Wumpus, and Zeeg. Whenever you roll a hazard:

1. Discard all workers placed on this pet to the supply when the round ends.

Consider not assigning workers on these pets if you roll a hazard. The pet won't spawn without a worker, but you'll keep the worker.

Breeding Chamber. Lower the Care Score of the pet on the Breeding Chamber by 2. Pets with Care Scores reduced below 1 do not need workers to spawn.

Mutator. You can place Mutator in an empty display, saving it for later. Whenever you place it under a pet, immediately add 1 trait token to the pet. That pet and Mutator cannot be moved to another display.