Pawstitution is a game for four players. Each player runs a brothel, and the goal is to increase your brothel's reputation to 25 before anyone else.
Reputation is earned as you improve your brothel, hire new workers, and recruit heroes. In order to do all of those things, you need to collect resources.
Resources are earned by matching your sex workers with VIP clients, and by completing daily quest events.
As you play, you'll accumulate lucky cards that you can use to help yourself and hinder other players.
You'll also accumulate heat as the royal guard catches wind of your shady business, and they may raid your establishment and steal resources!
There are three ways to improve your brothel:
You can hire one worker in your brothel for each room you've built. Each worker has a gender and up to two fetishes that they specialize in.
Once you've hired a worker, you need to assign them to a VIP so they can start earning resources.
Each VIP has a yield number, which determines when they'll visit town. The closer to 7, the more often a VIP will visit.
At the start of every day, each player rolls two dice and adds them together. If the result matches a VIP's yield number, that VIP visits town.
(Additionally, if you roll a 7, you earn a lucky card. If you roll a 2 or a 12, you gain 1 heat.)
When a VIP visits town, they bring resources, and if you've assigned a worker to that VIP, you will get those resources.
Some VIPs only accept female workers, and others only accept male workers.
Some VIPs have fetishes. If you match a worker and a VIP who share a fetish, you will earn a lucky card when that VIP visits town.
There are six resources in Pawstitution. Each resource can be used in many different ways, and having a variety of resources is crucial.
If you have a large supply of one resource, you can trade it 3:1 for any other resource.
Some resources have specific purposes that you can keep in mind while strategizing:
There are many ways to accumulate heat, and only a few ways to remove it. Learning how to mitigate the risk of a raid is an important part of strategizing.
At the end of each day, if you have 1 or more heat, you will roll a die. If the result is equal to or lower than your heat, your establishment is raided, and you lose one random resource for each level of heat. Your heat then drops back down to 0, and you're safe... for a short time.
Each day, all four players are presented with a daily event at the top of the screen. Some events have immediate effects: players might earn or lose resources automatically, or accumulate heat.
Most events also have several ways that you can respond. Responding to an event usually requires you to spend some resources in order to gain other resources or rewards. Responding to an event is usually optional.
Lucky Cards are powerful tools that allow you to sway fortune in your favor. There are eight types of lucky cards, and each can be used for a one-time effect.
Many Lucky Cards have an effect that doesn't happen until the end of the turn. Those effects are all shuffled and resolved in random order once all players have finished their turns.
Lucky cards can be purchased with arcana, earned through events, or obtained by rolling a 7 at the start of the day.
Each brothel can recruit one of sixteen heroes, who will offer a unique service for the rest of the game.
Each time you level up your brothel, you are able to recruit one additional hero.