About the game

How to Play

Lead your student on a journey to earn five animal cards while your master maintains your lineage marker and cultivates chi. Once you have all five animal cards and your lineage marker, you can move your student and master to the center octagon. The first player to do so has successfully passed on their martial arts lineage, and wins the game!

Structure of Play

Wu Wei: Journey of the Changing Path is played in a series of rounds. In each round, players take turns in clockwise order, beginning with the starting player. As the seasons change, a gathering will be triggered every winter, during which turn order is reassigned. The game continues in this way until one player wins.

Multiple Scenarios

As you leap into the world of Wu Wei, you’ll need to choose a game mode. For your first game, INITIATE LEVEL is highly recommended. The MASTER LEVEL adds two challenging complications and is considered the standard level of play. Advanced players may want to try EMPEROR LEVEL, which allows for an extra player who takes on the role of the emperor.

Solo Play Mode

In the solo play mode, there are three successive stages: Evolving Traditions, Warring States, and Emerging Empire. You can attempt any of these as a single session, and there are options for fine-tuning the difficulty level (Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced) within each stage.

You can also attempt a solo campaign, in which you must overcome all three stages, in progressive order. There are additional rules in play — including carryover effects between stages — when you attempt the campaign.

Details

Game Design and Development

Justin Waggle

Character Paintings and Box Art

Matthew Waggle

Animals, Elements, and Terrains

Yan Li

Solo Campaign Development

Mike Mullins

Rulebook Editing

Dustin Schwartz

Components

Rulebook, 1 Game Board, 3 Tracker Boards, 36 Punchboard Octagons (24 Terrains, 3 Center, 8 Walls), 40 Wood Tiles (2 Yin-Yang, 4 Directional, 5 Temples, 5 Palaces, 20 Towns, 4 Towers), 25 Animal Cards (mini), 6 Player Aid Cards (poker size), 3 Status Trackers (plastic), 1 Gathering Marker (wood), 14 Player Pieces (20mm 6-sided dice), 5 Lineage Markers (20mm 4-sided dice), 180 Chi Tokens (plastic), 5 cloth bags for chi tokens, Custom Box Insert (plastic)