Plaid Hat Games Waters: A Crossroads Game, PH2900

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There are a wide variety of crew cards (40 total) but each player starts with the same crew members, and your hands will slowly diverge over the course of the game. There’s plenty to pay attention to, but not so much going on that you’ll suffer choice paralysis. Libertalia is simple enough to work as a kidsboard game, but strategic enough to be fun and provide plenty of replayability.

This is one of those pieces of art that could not exist without others paving the way. Each little piece draws from a predecessor, including the Crossroad events from Dead of Winter and storybook exploration from Stuffed Fables, to form this very refined and stylish vision.The less obvious, but just as important, feature the app provides is that we can (and usually do) write multiple entries for each event, especially for events that trigger from the location book. If the event can trigger in multiple scenarios, we wrote even more for it. The app keeps a log of what entries you’ve accessed, and whenever it can, it throws something new at you rather than repeating itself. The app gives us the ability to write more and you the ability to access more of what we write. Final Score: 4.5 Stars – A highly thematic and engaging story-driven game that will entertain bigger groups. Burying Treasure: Some location actions allow a player to bury ( discard) treasure filling in a star for each treasure buried. Give each player a pencil and a player sheet, making sure each sheet has a different title. Each player invents a name for their pirate and writes it on their player sheet. Assign each of the following roles/responsibilities to the players. Each player must have at least 1 role. If playing with fewer than 7 players, some players will need to take on multiple roles.

In a moment of communal synergy - or perhaps childish humour - you give your creaking wooden ship a name. Now you belong to something greater. This game is magical. It’s layered in a way that feels seamless. While the application-enhanced portion of play is clearly influenced by Fantasy Flight’s second edition of Mansions of Madness, this is far more hands-off. It allows you to focus on the table and those you share it with. The story, not the vehicle, takes centre stage.” See what Matt and Wheels discovered at Gen Con 2022 in our daily round-up videos During the planning phase, the players will choose the actions that they want to complete for the round. The players must choose these actions in the allotted amount of time that they are given. If the timer runs out before the players choose their action, then the discontentment on the ship raises by one space.

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The gorgeous location book provides over 30 lush locations to explore! Allowing players to traverse through a wealth of intriguing locales, each with unique, scenario-specific content. In our glowing review, Charlie said Forgotten Waters was “not only a great board game, it’s possibly the best tabletop release of 2020”. There is hope. The game’s first DLC expansion was released just days ago. In addition to an all-new scenario it includes over 100 story scripts spread across the five existing scenarios. This means they will be freshened up a bit and offer new surprises. This is great news. So your lot moves into a new space on the board and it’s a little island with a number. Everything in this game has a number. You take that digit and punch it into the Forgotten Waters companion app. Yes, Luddites must walk the plank and ignore this game entirely if that’s a dealbreaker as this electronic aspect is required. Collect the Lookout board and create a supply of threat tokens nearby it. Find the objective card indicated in the scenario setup and place it on the objective card slot.

Note: If playing with 3 players, no player may choose the masked pirate (orange) as their pirate standee. Gameplay involves you deciding which (numbered) tiles to sail into. These trigger the Crossroad options. The game also comes with a book with different locations, corresponding to your decisions. Each one has worker placement spots, which entice players to explore or speak to the captain. But also you have to consider things like: how will you feed the crew? Collect the First Mate board and place the crew and discontent markers on the values indicated in the scenario setup. As of writing, there are five missions to undertake. Each taking around four hours give or take and depending on your crew. What is very clever though, is that you can save your progress at the half-way point of each mission and the app and added sheets make easy work of recording where you are in your adventure. We played our missions in two-hour spurts and found the time-frame perfect. This game is magical. It’s layered in a way that feels seamless. While the application-enhanced portion of play is clearly influenced by Fantasy Flight’s second edition of Mansions of Madness, this is far more hands-off. It allows you to focus on the table and those you share it with. The story, not the vehicle, takes centre stage.One reason the app is relatively simple is that we developed the game for 2 years expecting it to be 100% analog. The box would have included a sand timer, plus a bunch of event books. This presented a couple problems. If the game has a big fan response, I would love to modify the tool we used to write the JSON files that feed the app. This is a “wait and see” feature, though. WHY AN APP? Ever since publisher Plaid Hat Games released Dead of Winter in 2014, I’ve been curious to see where they could take their Crossroads system. It was a clever mechanic that helped bring players into the narrative of the game with events tailored to things happening during the game. Their second iteration of it, Gen7, turned out to be a flop in eyes of our BGQ reviewer. But now, the crossroads system has not only taken off into a new and interesting direction, but it’s been excellently wrapped into a pirate theme (one of my favorites). Since becoming an indie publisher once again, Plaid Hat has announced several upcoming board games, including a new edition of Summoner Wars, a new board game from Mice and Mystics designer Jerry Hawthorne and a possible revival of expandable card game Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn.

Say hello to Forgotten Waters, a cooperative game of wooden sailing ships and adventure on the open seas. So, strap on your peg leg, eye patch, and cutlass as get ready to shiver our timbers. Gameplay Overview: The mandatory companion app provides randomised events, all narrated by a strong voice cast. Image: Plaid Hat Games Forgotten Waters blends a physical board, spiral-bound storybook, companion app and individual player sheets. Image: Plaid Hat Games The end goal is to become a legendary figure of the Caribbean and accrue 10 glory points, but these can be gained in all sorts of ways, such as completing missions, performing daring combat feats, claiming booty, and pulling off the deal of the century.Gaining Skills: Each time a player fills in a skill box that contains a they also fill in a star on their constellation. And that’s really what Forgotten Waters is: immersive storytelling. There are so many disparate parts that seemingly are in conflict. You move from board to storybook to your character sheet. You level up skills and shade stars in your personal constellation, and then plug those Mad Libs into your ongoing tale. By sheer explanation it sounds disjointed - as if none of it should work. But it does. Oh, it does.