1. Each player takes the personal Invention card listed on the right-hand side of their character sheet and places it, Invention-side up, next to the right edge of their character sheet.

2. Take the 9 default Invention cards and lay them out, Invention side up, on the Available Inventions area of the board, in any order. The default Invention cards are:

• Map

• Pot

• Fire

• Knife

• Shovel

• Bricks

• Rope

• Dam

• Medicine

3. Shuffle together all remaining Invention cards, including the Inventions of unused characters. Place them next to the board to form the Invention deck.

4. Draw the top 5 cards from the Invention deck and place them, Invention side up, next to the default Invention cards on the board.

5. Take the 8 Starting Equipment cards, draw 2 at random, and place them next to the board. They are available to all players, but can only be used twice each. Place 2 white markers on each card, in the respective spaces (one for each use). Put the remaining Starting Equipment to one side.

If you want to make the game easier, draw more Starting Equipment cards. If you want to make it harder, draw fewer or none.

Scenario variants

• In Scenario 4 (Volcano Island), you start with the Shovel and Knife already built: flip them to the Item side.

• In Scenario 5 (Cannibal Island), you always start with Rum and Pipe & Tobacco instead of 2 random Starting Equipment cards.

• Scenario 6 (Family Robinson) uses 9 starting Invention cards instead of 5.