Kickstart Your Week! Morocco, World’s Fair and the 7th Continent
The 7th Continent
A skull stares out at us from a dark cover of cracked, black leather. Except we look closer, and see hands, attached to arms that form its cheek bones; the cranium recalls the closed jaws of a man trap. And the closer you look, the stranger the shapes that suggest themselves to your roving eyes… The cover is a mystery that draws us in, setting the scene for an enigma unlike anything you’ve ever experienced.
Within is a set of square tiles. You’ll start on number 001, your landing site on the 7th Continent. You have a wonderful illustration of the terrain, and a set of directions, that tell you to draw a certain tile, possibly indicating the skills you may need to safely navigate that route. From here, it is up to you to explore the land, overcome the puzzles and challenges that face you, and lift the curse that has brought you here in the first place!
What a journey you will face! Each single tile presents you with an array of decisions and challenges, yet there are literally hundreds of tiles included in the game, with more being added every day as stretch goals continue to fall. The story to this game will carry you through hours and hours of gameplay, requiring numerous sessions to complete, assuming you are able to survive at all! This multi-session story has required another innovation: a save game feature that allows you to pack up the cards and later unpack them in a matter of seconds.
Yes this is a single story, the challenges you face on a second play through shall undoubtedly be the same as your first, and yet the choices you make will have real down stream effects, permanently affecting the game. Future playthroughs could have you exploring these alternative narratives, or playing with different adventurers (with their different skill sets) or struggling to lift different curses. Nevertheless, the length of the story is in of itself worthy of the cost to experience it, in this writer’s humble opinion at least.
Discover the 7th Continent before October 27th.
Morocco
Stroll down to the Jemaa el-Fnaa, the great marketplace at the heart of Marrakhesh, Morocco, and feast your eyes on the wonders in store. The brightly coloured fabrics of the Rug Merchants, the exotic smells from the Food Sellers (the food, not the sellers!) and Snake Charmers with the edge of ever present danger. It is for your money that they are there, and they’ve fought long and hard for the best spots!
In Morocco, the new game from design partnership Ben Pinchback and Matt Riddle, you’ll get to experience the dirty underhand tactics these market sellers must use to pinch the best stalls in the market. Join the heads of the 5 families as they try and spot the best stalls from atop the tall towers overlooking the market (a resource gathering phase), and from where they send their various family members and associates to grab said stalls, in a market that changes each time you play.
To control a market stall you’ll need to have a majority of the 4 spaces filled with your associates. Placing an associate requires spending 2 specific resources, determined from its position in the market. You collect these resources by moving the marker atop the tower to a position on the segmented circle, with each segment corresponding to a resource. When placed, you gain the two resources either side of the marker, but everyone else gets the resource you placed on. You therefore face the challenge of finding the resources most valuable to you, without giving away what your opponents need! And of course, this resource gathering is just the icing atop your usual, stressful, area control game!
The market closes on October 21st.
World’s Fair 1893
Come one, come all! To the greatest exhibition of modern exceptionalism from around the globe! Featuring tremendous works in science, wonders of technology and masterpieces from all disciplines of the Arts! An astonishing Ferris Wheel of size never before seen sits at the centre, of this, the World’s Fair! We just need one more thing… someone to choose the exhibits!
Perhaps that someone can be you! If you can gather enough of your supporters in a particular region of the board, ah, I mean, exhibition, you will be better placed to influence the make up of the Fair. But you can also gather influence by picking up the right cards, from the region you sent your supporter too, or by meeting with influential backers of your plans. As players collect those influential cards, the Ferris wheel moves around towards a scoring round, in which a player’s influence is tallied. That’s right, Ladies and Gentlemen, the world’s first card driven Ferris wheel!
Earn tokens in the scoring round for each region you control, plus points for approving exhibits in that region. Don’t neglect regions, as collecting sets of these tokens over the course of the game will earn you a nice bonus at the end. As with all the best area control games, you want to control all the areas at once and collect all the cards. Finding the right choices in this nest of impeccable architecture and outlandish exhibits is the grand challenge, as the Ferris Wheel spins inexorably towards the end of the fair…
The Fair closes October 28th.
Best of the Rest
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[/one_third][two_third]Albion’s Legacy – A cooperative adventure set in a modular land of Arthurian legend. Explore the realms of Albion, fight enemies and don’t let the Flame of Hope be extinguished. This kickstarter is to help release a 2nd Edition, with improved components and some updated rules. Ends 21st.[/two_third][/row]
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[/one_third][two_third]In A Bind Junior – A game even 4 year olds can play? That’s something a bit unusual! A game of simply doing what ever the card you draw tells you, like “touching your neck”, or “holding the card to your elbow”, except you have to keep doing everything your previous cards tell you to do! Last player still holding on to everything wins! This game will certainly get the whole family in a bind! Ends 25th.[/two_third][/row]
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[/one_third][two_third]Folklore: The Affliction – A minis based fantasy role playing/dungeon crawling game, with some overworld map exploration thrown in for good measure. It is aiming to be an RPG in a box, so features a story driven campaign spread over multiple adventures. While characters may die, they get to fight on as ghosts, which is a cool twist! Expect the world of “Folklore” to be expanded in future with a proper RPG and even a series of novels planned. Ends Oct 27th.[/two_third][/row]
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[/one_third][two_third]Pass the Buck: A Game of Corporate Responsibility Management – A bluffing and memory game of trying to get everyone else to do your work for you, a painfully satirical look at life on the corporate ladder. Everyone is trying to rid themselves of tasks in order to be promoted, but anyone can pass tasks to players who work in the right department. Of course, departments are secret and you don’t need to be honest when someone tries to pass you a card. Ends Oct 28th.[/two_third][/row]
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[/one_third][two_third]Wizard School – A cooperative card game set in a high school for wizards, that is less Hogwarts and more high school plus monsters. You must collaborate to deal with a graduation challenge, while keeping roaming monsters in check and keeping your school work up to scratch. This Kickstarter is doing ludicrously well, and demonstrates the value of having a big following before you launch! Ends Oct 29th.[/two_third][/row]
We have used images from Board Game Geek users riddlen, BrunoS, randyhoyt, Moezilla, LynnVander, Bezman, zeeparkes, carolmertz, ericjgames and Cirixus.
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