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The 7th Continent
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- Michael Barnes
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- Mountebank
- HYPOCRITE
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- Kickstarter? Shit sandwich.
That may be a bit harsh, but it's likely going to be close to the case. I'm seeing more and more these interesting, possibly innovative designs that are Kickstarters that wind up a boondoggle because there isn't the professional level development or shepherding from concept to product that these kinds of things really need.
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In the end I'll just wait for 35% off MSRP + free shipping from an online store.
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Hopefully I'm wrong and I can play it in a year or two. In the meantime I should get around to the several gamebooks I already own.
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- Sagrilarus
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- D20
- Pull the Goalie
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S.
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iguanaDitty wrote: It's a neat concept but the severe icon salad plus the somewhat convoluted explanations that are out there already make me think this could easily be a mess. Plus there's apparently some gameplay involving spotting tiny hidden numbers in various images; while I love the similarity to gamebooks that had hidden sections you could only find by adding obscure numbers together or whatever, in practice I think I will hate the implementation.
This was my feeling, exactly. Seems like it might be interesting, but also seems convoluted and confusing, and as Barnes says, probably lacks the development that so many Kickstarters need. I'll wait to see reviews of the delivered product.
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A cool concept like this might have been worth the investment from a moderately sized niche crowd of interested buyers who are willing to put up with some of the inevitable jank and Frenglish that would come with this Fighting Fantasy simulator.
Now it's mostly just a 600% over-funded investment bomb keyed to the KS-fueled Cult of The Future, where "early birds" and exclusives create demand based on nothing other than the fear of missing out on the next big thing, and the potential rancor of disappointed backers & armchair designers is commensurate with this heightened cocktail of fear mixed with expectation. It's an overwrought and agonized way to create stuff like this.
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It's making me reconsider dropping my early bird.
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- Legomancer
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- D10
- Dave Lartigue
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As to long podcasts, I love Joe Rogans 3+ hour podcasts. It really lets him get into interesting discussions with his guests, a refreshing change from the sound bite driven media we have on t.v. and radio.
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I Kickstarted 7th Continent and have one 2-player game in now... and I'm super happy with it. I don't think it needs a bunch of repeated plays to see what's on offer and have an opinion on it, so here's my 3.5-hour single-play writeup:
You can get everything you need to know about the gameplay from the rulebook and videos that are already out there. Basically it boils down to staring the game on a card in a lost continent and a Clue to the Curse that haunts your dreams since your last expedition to the continent. From there you'll take actions available on the cards that make up the board -- exploring, searching, hunting, etc -- until you've resolved the Curse. The items you get can drastically change your tactics as you play. Having a Raft and Paddle, for example, will have you taking risks across water you otherwise wouldn't take. Having good hunting gear makes a big difference in how you approach things you find on the continent. The card artwork is fantastic and has gameplay elements built into it, so you need to pay attention to the terrain you're on.
The turn order is weird; there isn't one. A player just takes an action. When they're done any player can take an action, including the same player. Group decides. Other players in the same area can help, or not. Repeat until dead or victorious. You can split the party and have one group take all the actions while the other just sits there, you can stay together and always help the same player take all the actions, or whatever you think is going to work best. It's really open-ended that way and it worked great with two players, but I don't know how well it would work with more players or an alpha player, but alpha players suck anyway and I've never felt that was a game design problem.
The continent offers a lot to do, but action resolution is always the same. You decide how many action cards to draw for their symbols, and then you see if you drew enough to hit a target number. You can modify the difficulty with items or by expending more effort. Most actions will let you draw a number or more cards, so why not draw as many cards as possible? Because when the action deck runs out you are at risk of dying with every card draw. Once the pile is exhausted you have to shuffle and draw from the discards. If you draw a curse card while doing this you lose the game. Period. No backsies. Hunting and things will let you put cards back in the action deck, which freezes the discard pile drawing situation until you run out of action cards again, which you probably will. The entire game is a balancing act of trying to take (and succeed at) actions that matter and will help you while avoiding wasting action cards on things that are of middling benefit.
The game is slightly scripted by the Curse/Clue cards you choose to play. The exploration part and the unveiling board give lots of replayability, but
The game can be a little bit fiddly, which should be evident as you will need to find (and sometimes put back) numbered cards in a 1000+ card deck. The game comes with dividers to keep this manageable, but there's still a bit of "Hold on, let me find that card!" that interrupts the suspense from time to time.
I really dig adventure games that have a goal but are open-ended on how you get there. The 7th Continent is that type of game. Once you know how to solve a Curse the replayability might take a hit, but the game is really more about the journey. There are ways to adjust the difficulty, play with multiple Curses, and other things you can add/remove to switch things up though, so there are ways to spice things up.
The 7th Continent sits somewhere between Robinson Crusoe and Tales of the Arabian Nights. It'll present challenges and create a solid story of exploration, survival, and either victory or untimely demise. It can take a long time to play, but the Save Game system implemented actually works. Serious Poulp is launching another Kickstarter last week of September, and if there are any new Curses or other expansion material I'm getting all of it.
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