Hello, and welcome to installment 872,198 in our series of Training For Anything. The series that prepares you to deal with whatever life may throw at you. This episode: surviving the apocalypse. To proceed, please select the type of apocalypse that you are experiencing:

You have selected “Giant Monster”. Giant monster? Really?! (INCREDULOUSLY) How did you manage to let THAT happen? Eh, no matter. What’s important is that we here at Training For Anything have developed an instructional system specifically for this end-of-the-world scenario. At this time, please locate the copy of Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse from your cataclysm preparedness kit. If you don’t yet have Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse in your cataclysm preparedness kit, you’re in luck, as you can still preorder one through the Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse Kickstarter through August 30th, 2015. After that time, well… good luck to you.

The first thing you’ll note is that we’ve made this training material portable, so you can take it along with you as you fight for survival against your fellow man, your attention completely consumed by hunting for precious, precious shelter and resources. (CHUCKLES) Heh, Mondays. With that in mind, let’s start the training process.

In Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse, you and another survivor will train to withstand your monster-based armageddon. To get started, first set up the training field by assigning each opponent a color. Then, give them the dice in that color and set the five corresponding meeples in front of them, four lying down and one standing up.

Stand the monster meeple up between the players, with the green die next to it, with the six facing up.

Next, place the open tiny mint tin on the side of the training area. This will serve as your fallout shelter during the training exercise.

Finally, place the two white cubes near the monster. These represent crates containing precious supplies that you will need to obtain in order to survive. We’ll return to how these are used in a moment.

The object of the training exercise is confirm your survival before your opponent does. You will achieve this by getting at least four of your meeples and a supply crate into the safety of the fallout shelter and sealing it up, before your opponent can do the same. Accomplish this, and you have affirmed your survival and won the training exercise.

But, beware. Because, due to governmental budget reductions, the fallout shelter is only big enough to hold a maximum of seven meeples. So, you’re going to have to work fast to get your meeples safely secured within the shelter before your opponent. And the dice are going to be the key to accomplishing that, and several other sneaky options at your disposal. Here’s how it works.

Opponents will roll their dice simultaneously, repeatedly, in real time. You will find that taking turns is a concept that has no place during the apocalypse. So, roll your dice quickly and as often as possible, because every time you roll a seven, you can take one of the following actions.

Stand one of your meeples up onto its feet. Only standing meeples may move into the fallout shelter.

Move one of your standing meeples into the fallout shelter.

If you have at least one of your meeples in the fallout shelter, you may kick one of your opponent’s meeples out of it, standing them up outside the fallout shelter.

If you have at least two of your meeples in the fallout shelter, you may pair them up as a Recon Team and send the pair out to retrieve supplies, placing them next to one of the crates.

Additionally, a Recon Team that was previously assigned to a supply crate may bring it back to the fallout shelter, as long as they are both standing up.

Knock down one of your opponent’s standing meeples that is not in the fallout shelter. Recon Team members may be knocked down. This slows them down, but does not remove them from the Recon Team.

If at least four of your meeples are in the fallout shelter with a supply crate, regardless of which opponent brought in the supply crate, you may seal the fallout shelter, successfully completing the training exercise, and ensuring your opponent’s doom.

Seems simple enough, right? Well, that’s because I didn’t tell you everything. Surviving this apocalypse is going to be a little more tricky, because we still have that monster out there to contend with.

As soon as the first supply crate is placed in the fallout shelter, the monster will realize that you mean business, and will activate. Once activated, the monster’s green dice will spin down a number each time doubles matching the number on it are rolled. For example, rolling two sixes will spin the monster die down from six to five. Then, rolling two fives will spin it down from five to four, and so on, towards catastrophe.

When double ones are rolled while the monster die is set to one, then you have lost to the apocalypse and the monster eats everyone both outside and inside the fallout shelter. Which is a shame, unless you’re secretly rooting for the monster while you record this video.

But wait, if any of your meeples are willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, they may do so when double ones are rolled. In that case, a meeple may buy everyone else a little more time by allowing the monster to eat him instead. If so, that meeple is permanently removed, and the training exercise continues… until double ones are rolled again in the future, at which time either another meeple will need to sacrifice himself in the same way, lest the training exercise end in insatiable monster devouring failure. (SLOW SATISFIED SMILE)

And that’s how you perform the basic version of the Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse training exercise. There’s also a “manhole cover” expansion included which will allow your meeples to reopen a closed fallout shelter, and options for increasing the operation’s difficulty… just in case the end of the world wasn’t already challenging enough for you.

Once again, you can increase your odds of survival by backing the Mint Tin Mini Apocalypse Kickstarter campaign before it ends on August 30, 2015. After that, contact the publisher, SubQuark Games at subquark.com for more information.

Until then, I’ve been Chaz Marler, helping you Train For Anything. Because now, if you ever find yourself being devoured by a giant, ravenous green monster during the end of days, you can take some small comfort in knowing that at least you practiced for it. Good night.