Rob Daviau co-designed Pandemic Legacy, a board game we named one of the best of 2015. For those who need a refresher, Pandemic Legacy plays out over an entire year as your try to rid the world of viruses. As the game progresses, the board and rules change, so the game you play with your friends is entirely unique. It kicks so much ass. Now Daviau has released details on his new upcoming game, one that’s even more ambitious.
According to Polygon, the former Hasbro designer will soon be releasing a new game, SeaFall: A Legacy Game. Although it appears to be a seafaring game, you’re not just sailing the briny seas. You’re making landfall and exploring—and exploiting—native territory. It’s “like Indiana Jones but in the 16th century,” Daviau said.
More than that, the game has a twist: It has elements of a choose-your-own-adventure game. SeaFall comes with a book, which has a whopping 430 entries. Making your way to a point on the board leads you to an entry in the book.
Daviau gave an example of one of the book’s entries. “We pulled up upon the shore and spied in the hills what we thought to be gold. However, it turned out to be an ambush from some of the natives who knew that we were searching for gold in the area. We lost many of our crew, and my only question now is whether I go out to seek revenge or wait for another day since I’m down by many of my crew.”
But it’s also a “legacy” game, which means as with Pandemic Legacy (a spin-off of the original Pandemic), the game changes as it’s being played.
In addition, players are given eight “enmity” tokens—and only eight. This is your currency for declaring war or attacking people. That means you have a mere eight opportunities to strike out at other non-player factions. As Daviau said, “[W]hen your eight tokens run out, you’re done. It’s basically saying no, you’ve reached your jerk limit.” Tokens you don’t use stick around and become like a visual history of what happened in the game.
Daviau says he “put his heart and soul” into SeaFall, which supposedly has twice the content of Pandemic Legacy. He also put in a whopping three-and-a-half years of work. “It took me less time to get my bachelor’s degree than it did to make this game,” Daviau told Polygon, “and I took summers off for that.”
You mateys and scurvy dogs can expect to play SeaFall some time in August 2016.
Excited? Eager to blast your best friends with cannons? Let us know in the comments.
Via Polygon.