The 7th Continent

The Kickstarter is ready to go.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/1926712971/...ard=false&ref=direct

I put in for it. It's only a six month lead on it. And it looks really good.

It is really good, perhaps the best exploration game ever made. Has a very solid Myst/Lost feeling to it.

My only concern is that I can see this being a game that reaches a tipping point when you get burned out and get fed up. It's very fiddly constantly removing cards from the box and re-organizing them. That's not a problem thus far as every new area is exciting, but when the shine wears off it will feel very laborious. I don't think I'm close to hitting that yet with only 7 hours into the game.

It does look kind of cool but I'm trying to understand the game genre. Like, I'm seeing what you're saying here but... what is the core mechanic? Flip a card every exploration and roll a die? Solve a puzzle? I'm confused.

Charlie, I know you love T.I.M.E Stories; I personally found T.I.M.E Stories to be unsalvageably bad, bending over backwards to try to replicate out of cards what is sooooooooooo much easier to do in a computer game; even then, even with as many cards as the scenarios used, each scenario was still a tiny fraction of the size of an computer adventure game even from the 80s. The problem was then exacerbated by things like the dismally boring combat mechanics, that you basically just put up with for the sake of the story.

So my question is: is it likely that I'd feel the same way about this? That they're trying SO hard to replicate a computer game using cardboard, and that physical limitations make that essentially infeasible? When people say they're excited by the "story": is this like the "story" in T.I.M.E Stories, which, in both of the first two cases, was completely hackneyed? I'm very wary ANY time someone praises the "story" in a board game; I don't think board games are remotely good at that kind of pre-structured thing.

I do have a lot of fun with both the Arkham Horror Card Game and Mansions of Madness 2E, both of which are "story-based", but the stories in those are more player-generated, like the time someone had the great idea of setting fire to the mansion to kill the monsters...only to then find out that we had to go back through the (now burning) mansion to get out the front door: that's not us discovering a story that someone has already written. We love Tales of the Arabian Nights, too...but only because those stories are so HILARIOUSLY bizarre, far from the run-of-the-mill stuff in most adventure games.

(there were a couple of clever things in the Asylum scenario of T.I.M.E Stories, admittedly; Marcy Case, not so much, and Asylum still wasn't worth the price of admission)

I suspect that when it comes to games, strong stories have less replay value. I'm more interested in games that give the illusion of a story that players can easily choose to buy into during play.

Gary Sax wrote: It does look kind of cool but I'm trying to understand the game genre. Like, I'm seeing what you're saying here but... what is the core mechanic? Flip a card every exploration and roll a die? Solve a puzzle? I'm confused.

It's a very simple game but one that's kind of odd to explain without showing an example.

So you start out on a big square card 80mmx80mm. It shows some countryside, maybe a cliff. Cards in the game will have a little arrow and number on some or all of the edges showing cards which can be placed adjacent to them (to continue building the map). You can move off and explore these cards and keep moving. There's some additional minor mechanisms in first encountering a fog event card that's randomized before you can actually place the adjacent piece of terrain, which adds some varaibility.

What gets interesting is that some areas have multiple copies of the card in the box. So if the adjacent area is card 127, there could be three copies of 127 in the box. You shuffle and randomly place one. Sometimes you may go back through an area in a later play and you'll notice an area has changed, this helps make the world feel a touch more alive and minimizes the boredom of retreading ground. Typically, you don't need to go back through areas in a single play of this like TIME stories, so it's a bit different.

The core mechanic to do things in the game is a simple push your luck skill check. Actions available are on items you have, on spots on the card you are on, and sometimes on other various cards such as events. An action will say you need X successes and need to draw N+ cards. So, to successfully cross the steam geysers without getting burned you need 1 success and need to draw 0+ cards. You could choose to draw 0, in which case you're automatically damaged and need to take card 555 from the box (which you probably don't know what that is, just that it's likely bad), or you can decide to draw cards. You need to state how many you're drawing ahead of time and commit to it.

After you draw the cards you check for sucesses, if you succeed the action may tell you to reveal a new card. Sometimes you change the actual terrain card you are on after a success, such as maybe discovering a hidden hut in the woods. This is very neat.

After drawing cards you then get to keep one of the cards flipped to add to a player's hand. These can be used for special effects or to build items like a shovel, snow shoes, or panpipes. Sometimes stuff like a freaky mask or amulet. Crafting requires more skill checks.

The trick is that the action deck you're drawing from is also your life force/energy. When it runs out, you start drawing from a shuffled discard pile and if you draw a curse card (several cards seeded in the deck) you instantly loose.

Now, you can return cards from your discard pile to your draw deck by hunting and eating food. So the game is simultaneously about exploring this weird place and survival. Kind of neat and prods interesting decisions without much overhead. The rulebook doesn't even mention the hunt rules, they're simply on each space that you hunt at. The game's like that where it's very simple to get into but complexity is added over time as you find things.

The worst part of the game is going to the box and pulling out cards for everything. As you step onto a new piece of terrain you need to go to the box and find the adjacent cards. If you successfully hunt you need to draw animal cards. Then you draw meat cards. Then you put cards back, all in this pretty well organized box. It's worth the annoyance while everything is fresh but I'm betting money at some point it will become annoying when going back through an area.


Dragonstout - that's tough. This game is actually not a story game as I'd call it. There's not a coherent narrative with beats, rather you have a goal - the first curse wants you to get to an idol on the continent - but how you get there and what you do is a little bit in your power. It's not a flavor text heavy thing, except for bits here and there which just describe geographically what's going on.

I think you'd have a better shot at enjoying this game but I still think you'd get annoyed with managing the card system as it'd be vastly improved electronically.

A big reason why I like these games that would perform better structurally as a video game is because of the shared narrative and social experience with a group. The chances that I'm going to get to play a point and click cooperative game with my group is nill, but we can all "ooh" and "aah" over the TIME Stories meta story taking a big leap or finding that really weird thing on the 7th Continent.

charlest wrote: The core mechanic to do things in the game is a simple push your luck skill check. Actions available are on items you have, on spots on the card you are on, and sometimes on other various cards such as events. An action will say you need X successes and need to draw N+ cards. So, to successfully cross the steam geysers without getting burned you need 1 success and need to draw 0+ cards. You could choose to draw 0, in which case you're automatically damaged and need to take card 555 from the box (which you probably don't know what that is, just that it's likely bad), or you can decide to draw cards. You need to state how many you're drawing ahead of time and commit to it.

After you draw the cards you check for sucesses, if you succeed the action may tell you to reveal a new card. Sometimes you change the actual terrain card you are on after a success, such as maybe discovering a hidden hut in the woods. This is very neat.

After drawing cards you then get to keep one of the cards flipped to add to a player's hand. These can be used for special effects or to build items like a shovel, snow shoes, or panpipes. Sometimes stuff like a freaky mask or amulet. Crafting requires more skill checks.

The trick is that the action deck you're drawing from is also your life force/energy. When it runs out, you start drawing from a shuffled discard pile and if you draw a curse card (several cards seeded in the deck) you instantly loose.

Now, you can return cards from your discard pile to your draw deck by hunting and eating food. So the game is simultaneously about exploring this weird place and survival. Kind of neat and prods interesting decisions without much overhead. The rulebook doesn't even mention the hunt rules, they're simply on each space that you hunt at. The game's like that where it's very simple to get into but complexity is added over time as you find things.

So is there any skill to this? Beyond having an idea of what is in your deck? Can you customize your deck/character to be good at certain things and then specifically try to go places where you'll encounter the things you're good at?

The game sounds really interesting but I don't get the feeling there's much strategy in the card play in the way there is in say, Mage Knight or Gloomhaven, and if that's the case I'm not sure if the amount of organizational overhead is going to be worth it for me.

Also, it's 1-4 players and you can "save" progress. Can you start with 1 character and then add others later if more people want to join the campaign?

Thank you for that, it is so helpful and I appreciate you writing so much on it!

This sounds like something I would quite like; basically the fun item acquisition and then use mechanic from Robinson. Since there are multiple versions of each card, it does sound like there is *some* replay value re: slightly branching storyline and paths.

Stonecutter---pretty sure you can. There are rules for if your character dies which I think are called "adding a character" to the ongoing game.

You can add someone mid game, and you absolutely need to save. They recommend saving every 1-2 hours of play. Saving wipes the board (except for the card you're on) which effectively replenishes hunting spots.

There's not a lot of skill to this game. It's mostly mitigating luck and hand/item management. Hand size is tight as well as a limitation on the number of items you have. It's not in the same ballpark as Mage Knight as it's 90% about exploring the continent.

Also - one thing that may piss people off (but I enjoy it). Some tiles have little hidden numbers on them. If you're standing on the card and find a hidden number, you can reveal it from the box. The game comes with a little magnifying glass to help with this although I haven't really needed it and can spot the numbers without it.

charlest wrote: There's not a lot of skill to this game. It's mostly mitigating luck and hand/item management. Hand size is tight as well as a limitation on the number of items you have. It's not in the same ballpark as Mage Knight as it's 90% about exploring the continent.

So, more like Robinson, then?

charlest wrote: Also - one thing that may piss people off (but I enjoy it). Some tiles have little hidden numbers on them. If you're standing on the card and find a hidden number, you can reveal it from the box. The game comes with a little magnifying glass to help with this although I haven't really needed it and can spot the numbers without it.

That sounds kinda cool, actually. I've also heard there are other little visual cues/clues on the tiles that can give you hints as to what to do? How much does that factor in, if at all?

Also, what's the deal with the expansions, is it a Time Stories situation where they change the entire game, or...?

There are other visual cues like little footprints near a hunting number. They factor in to a small degree, the hidden numbers are much more important.

Expansions add new curses. Each time you play you choose a curse and go about solving it. They each have their own resolutions which in and of themselves are sometimes a mystery. The first, for instance, has a map and we're kind of following a rough direction it's telling us to go. We don't know how to lift the curse when we get there yet.

The expansion curses also seem to have you going into new areas of the continent via the locations they add. I believe it's possible to wander to these locations without actually trying to solve one of the new curses, but we've kept close to the intended path of the current curse we're playing as I don't want to waste a lot of time just wandering around. I'd rather explore those areas in future plays rather than try and see the whole continent in one.

Also - it's not exactly like Robinson. It is a little, but it's not nearly as brutal or deep. This is mechanically a lighter affair with the focus on the game being exploring the geography and mythology of the island. Crafting is about on par with Robinson but the costs and barriers to create items or gain food are much smaller.

My experience thus far is that if you don't take large risks it's not a terribly dangerous game and it's not easy to lose. Caveat being we haven't even completed the first curse yet.

You know, I think you and I have pretty similar gaming tastes.

You should come to Gen Con some year so we can play some of these awesome games together (like Sidereal).