The 7th Continent: An ambitious Choose Your Own Adventure-inspired board game | Hacker News Reader

The 7th Continent: An ambitious Choose Your Own Adventure-inspired board game

arstechnica.com

99 pointsTomte35 comments

Ambitious is definitely the right word for this game. I've put about 7 hours in to it so far and can definitely say I've not played anything quite like it. It's huge, full of unique art and writing, and has managed to surprise me quite a few times.

I can see it getting repetitive, particularly as there's not a huge amount of storytelling - and from what I've heard, some people aren't enjoying the need to replay hours of content when you die - but so far, I'm impressed.

The second printing (+ expansion) Kickstarter is live at the moment (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1926712971/the-7th-cont...) which seems like it's adding a lot more content. I'm in, but whether I'll still be interested in playing more when it ships in October 2018 is another question...

Is it available from a more traditional online retailer (I'd rather avoid Kickstarter)?

I've heard that it may never come out to retail due to the production quality. It would be too expensive to make and sell retail.

Your best bet is to find someone selling it second hand. There will be plenty of people who backed the kickstarter and then decided they no longer want the game.

With tabletop games kickstarter is effectively an outsourced preorder system. The game is finished but they can judge how large this print run needs to be and collect money for it early, you are basically guaranteed a product. This assumes your reason for avoiding kickstarter is that you'll get scammed or not receive a product do to incompetence (which has happened to me with videogames and hardware products). Otherwise its likely you'll have to wait until late 2018 or early 2019 to buy this game or try to find a copy of the first run of the base game somewhere.

We can never say never, but very low probability to be in retail ever. The high cost of +1,200 cards doesn't leave room for a retailer's margin.

More generally, Kickstarter and retail become more and more independent due to that factor. Monolith, Mythic Games, Cool minis or not, Serious Poulp are all now building Kickstarter only products.

> Will The 7th Continent be available after this campaign?

> Given the high production cost of the game, The 7th Continent will not be sold in the “traditional” retail circuit. As we have said on the main page “This is your last chance…to get cursed!”, therefore, please assume that this is one, if not the final chance you’ll have to acquire the game as it is now.

As with many games of this type, epic gameplay comes with complexity, a learning curve and long play sessions. Anyone know of boardgames that deliver something big from a minimal set of rules and items? I wouldn't mind exploring a dungeon in 10-15 minutes with a random stranger on a train.

"Belying the imposing double-sided and icon-laden player aids, the gameplay of The 7th Continent is so straightforward that you could start a new player off with almost no explanation. Do an action, draw some cards, see what happens next."

And the mechanism of being able to save a game solves the long play time problem assuming you could continue to play other times with the same person(s).

You're probably better off asking & browsing on http://boardgamegeek.com/ . You can filter by playtime, mechanics.

We play 7 Wonders with a lot of new players. "Play a card every round" isn't too hard to explain. Just make sure you're using the vanilla wonders not the ones with complex bonuses. More than once new players could win their first game.

There's a Duel version for random strangers on trains and such.

I played 7 Wonders Duel and it is not that simple. Maybe the mechanics, but you have to have at least an idea of what strategy and tactics to use for it to be any fun

No experience yet with the Duel variety. Regular 7 Wonders would be one age of explanation, then the second age without explaining and finally some explanation around the Guild cards again by the third age. The second game would be without explanation.

It seems this one would be what you would want - you simply draw a card and perform the action it says. Discover the game as you go - sounds simple enough to me.

For the use case of playing on a train, if it is literal, you should play a board game that doesn't need a board.

A great one IMO is "Hive". It is abstract, so no story or narrative, but it is easy to learn the moves, very portable, easy to play on any surface and can be very deep in its strategy.

Check out Forbidden Desert, it seems complicated at first, but one person who knows the rules is enough to get everyone going right away.

but not something for "10-15 minutes with a random stranger on a train". From memory games of it take more like an hour, and you need a reasonable-sized flat surface to arrange tiles and other components on.

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/1660694

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/136063/forbidden-desert

I haven't played this, but given the title, you might want to look at Five Minute Dungeon.

Tiny Epic * (there are several games in the series) might be good. Although it does not meet your time requirements, it has few pieces and is portable.

The random stranger part is tough though. Even simple games take minutes to explain (Hive is an example another user gave, which is a great portable game, but it would take about 5ish minutes to explain the rules). It is also likely that you'll win any competitive games against a new player.

Much as I want to promote board games, if you are looking for portable fast games, the app store is probably going to serve you better.

Honestly, chess fits your description perfectly. Easy to learn the rules, rich gameplay, and easy to play on the go.

Can't say that it delivers big, but the game Jaipur[1] can be fun. It is a two player game, takes about 20 mins and the rules are simple enough to be explained in under two minutes. As for the items - it uses cards and coins and shouldn't be too hard to handle on a train.

[1]: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/54043/jaipur

I've not come across anything that I would call 'epic' from a minimal set of rules, but some of my favourites that you can throw in your bag, teach in 2 minutes and play in 15:

Welcome to the Dungeon/Dungeon of Mandom - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/150312/welcome-dungeon

Love Letter - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/129622/love-letter

Hanabi - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/98778/hanabi

No Thanks - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/12942/no-thanks

Archaeology - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191300/archaeology-new-e...

Linko/Abluxxen - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/153065/linko

If you're looking for a "dungeon crawler" that plays quickly, check out: Dungeon Roll https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/138788/dungeon-roll

Dungeon Dice https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/136192/dungeon-dice

5-minute Dungeon https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/207830/5-minute-dung...

Pathfinder: The Card Game (although a bit long) https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/133038/pathfinder-advent...

Shadowscape https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/200359/shadowscape

Dungeon Twister https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/144525/dungeon-twister-c...

Thanks for your, and everyone else's, replies, I'll check them all out!

Seconding Dungeon Roll. It can be played solo, but it's a lot of fun with 2-3 people. (With more, it gets rather boring for anyone not either playing or running the dungeon.)

I've not played The 7th Continent, but from the description, it sounds rather similar in style to the video game Sunless Sea (and the currently-in-beta sequel, Sunless Skies) - exploration-driven, deeply unforgiving survival and resource management, although 7th Continent sounds more art focused as opposed to Sunless Sea's writing-centric approach.

If 7th Continent is anywhere near as enjoyable, I may have to give it a try - if it manages to recapture the feelings from first time you happen across the deadly elysium of Aestival, or the creeping dread as your crippled ship burns through your last barrel of fuel in the deep Eastern Unterzee, it will be well worth the $80.

Compared to sunless sea, the 7th continent is less text driven and has more environmental narration through illustrations. The 7th continent has puzzles like Myst and emergent story telling ("We killed my poisonous frog companion and spread its venom on our arrows. We had a good hunt and offered some of the food we caught to the Gods of Frogs in memory of Froggy.").

I enjoyed both, and they may address the same crowd, but in very different ways.

> It’s 1907, you’re an explorer, and you feel like crap. Several weeks ago, you were part of an expedition to the 7th continent, a mysterious and newly discovered land off the coast of Antarctica.

This confused me until I remembered that some countries count either North+South America, or else Europe and Asia, as a single continent, for a total of six. Not a great choice of name for the English-language release.

Every country considers Europe and Asia a single continent. (Because they literally are.)

Zealandia is the 7th continent. Shouldn't they have called the game The 8th Continent?

> Every country considers Europe and Asia a single continent.

I'm afraid not. "Continent" is a surprisingly poorly-defined concept. https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Continent

I’m definitely feeling some #fomo with this game. It sounds great, but is it really worth the $80/$130+ investment to me? I’m not sure.

I hear you. 7th Continent was 64 on BGG when I checked yesterday. Now 59.

I'm tempted to go all in.

If you look at it from an investment point of view, it was very easy to sell at full price after the first Kickstarter so... Try the print n play version!

I recently released an audio-based choose-your-own-adventure inspired game for playing in the car called Road Trip Adventures. If 7th Continent appeals to you then you should check it out!

https://playroadtripadventures.com

fun game! i love the audio aspect. how hard would it be to use volume buttons to rotate through and select actions? so no reading required?

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