The game mechanics is confusing

[EnlightenedThing]

Wish they could add a small symbol indicator board because it is very confusing for newbies to grasp.

[shemgarphill]

You can click near the bottom-left corner while playing to bring up the player aid, which has all the symbols explained for you.

[FDHenneberg]

Apart from that, I recommend the official How to play video by Meeple University on YouTube. I agree that not everything in this game is straightforward (directed a the rules, not at the implementation). But I guess that’s because some aspects of the mechanisms seem to be fresh and quirky to me, and that’s a good thing! It’s just one of the games I can’t learn by just using the tutorial, no matter how good it is (and it’s still useful for learning the look and feel, which is what tutorials are for).

[Interrobang]

I'm definitely having confusion about the symbols, and it's reminding me so much of when I first encountered Race for the Galaxy and was gobsmacked until I played about 15 times, and then it all became automatic. I suspect the same thing will happen with Spirited.

For now, though, I'm checking that reference card pretty much every turn, just to make sure that the little paw symbol means what I think it means.

[BeanzMcGee]

Yup! The symbols are really throwing me. Idk why, but glad to see I'm not the only one.

[CharlieFlowers]

I would say 5hat is quite common in garphill games. All of the west kingdom and south tigris trust the players to learn the symbols in order to be very efficient with the card design. I Don ink it will take more than 1 or 2 games to get used to them.

[Interrobang]

And after a few more plays, that's my experience, particularly because the vast majority of the time you're really just thinking "paw=take a card to hand" and "tent=put a card in your Camp." The others come up rarely.

[FDHenneberg]

Yeah, it’s absolutely doable, everyone who isn’t put off by other things should definitely invest the time needed to grasp the rules
while playing, one or two games are sufficient to do
that.

I feel it's not so much the symbols but the terms used. Instead of taken into your hand (which is symbolized by the paw quite nicely), cards are rallied. Instead of collecting a set from the row of cards, you scout from your road. Instead of completing a set, you march (also aptly symbolized by the trumpet). Instead of getting a bonus tile for having one card of each type, you build a wonder. That would work nicely if the theme made sense and helped explaining the terms, but it doesn't, at least not to me. I see why they did it, but overall, Echoes of Time (which is different in many ways, but also has three places for your cards) did a better job at that (not saying the theme is good or important in EoT,also not saying that games like these can be really thematic at all). Whatever, Spirited is still easy to learn compared to more complex games, it offers more strategic possibilities than one thinks, and luck is a bit less important than you'd think with all that focus on push your luck and the override mechanism.