The 7th Continent
The 7th Continent is a cooperative exploration and survival board game with mechanics inspired by the adventure books where "you are the hero”.
On your own or in a team of up to 4 players, set off on an epic adventure and attempt to lift the curses that were placed upon you during your first expedition to the continent.
Progress at your own pace through this mysterious land, building the board piece by piece with numbered Terrain and Event cards.
If you want to live through the many dangers of the 7th Continent and lift your curse, you will have to use all your survival skills: craft items, hunt and fish to get food, learn how to benefit from your environment, spend experience points to acquire new abilities, etc.
Unlike other board games, The 7th Continent will take you through many, MANY hours of adventure as you explore the continent to lift your curse… or die trying! To make this manageable, the game includes a simple yet effective save system that allows you to quickly interrupt the game at any time and have it ready for your next session, just like in a video game.
User Reviews (3)
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I was very happy with this game for the first 2 sessions playing the Voracious Goddess curse scenario.
By the third session, my interest and excitement had worn off completely. Playing the next 7 sessions to finish the scenario was torture, even though we unwittingly cheated for the first 5 games until we realised what we misinterpreted what we were doing to shuffle discards back into the deck.
We also misunderstood a key card, or rather, didn’t realise we’d found an object that would’ve given us more information, so we spent 2 extra sessions wandering around looking for something we already had.
But had we interpreted the rules correctly to begin with, then proceeded towards the finish properly, playing the first scenario would still have been about 5 sessions, or 12 hours, too long.
The exploration is fun the first time through. But having to put everything away and respawn island tiles every session is tedious and the opposite of fun.
The character you start with gets no better with any of his/her available skills than they were to start with. You will pick up more advanced skills as you play, but these are not specific to any character. In fact, the longer you play, the less your character’s unique abilities matter.
There’s no real strategy; you make decisions based on the chances the group will succeed or not based on what skills or objects they’ve got in the moment.
Perhaps with repeat play, knowing where each island tile is and what’s on them, the decisions about building skills for characters could matter more?
I played this game in a group of 4, and perhaps it would play faster and be less tedious as a solo game. But the thought of setting it all up and organising cards on my own…feels more like work than play for me.
There were 3 more curses in the base game, plus we Kickstarted the second edition so we have expansion scenarios being delivered in March.
I never want to play this game again and I’ll consider those hours of my life I get back to be blessed. I would prefer to play Robinson Crusoe, die horribly of bee stings within 2 hours, and get on with my life.
Traded this for Gloomhaven.
WHO THIS GAME IS FOR:
• Solo (or 2) players who want to take their time (days and weeks and months of it) immersed in the story and world, agonising over every card draw.
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• Solo or 2 players who want to play a video adventure exploration game with cardboard and don’t mind having to fiddle with setup and tear down
• People with big tables to play on, perhaps even to leave the game state as is between sessions. This really helps minimize some of the tedium of reopening locations and speeds up the game while making it easier (by not having to turn over explore tiles again for spaces you’ve already seen before).
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WHO THIS GAME ISN’T FOR:
• Groups of 3 or more who want to make strategic decisions that will matter.
• People who are averse to sorting and filing hundreds of cards over and over and over again.
• People who hope this will be like Myst. (Puzzles include Spot The Difference or Find The Hidden Number. So, really, there are no puzzles.)
The 7th Continent embraces the core mechanic of Choose Your Own Adventure Book and implements it within board game format. In this game, players will work together to lift the curse haunting them. Without the restriction of turn order, players will take actions to explore, craft items, take actions in the unknown island. The island is formed from cards placed on the table, started by one card as the initial card that players begin their adventure. What makes the game unique is that there are surrounding fog around the revealed area, these fog will determine which event or encounter players will face when they explore the area. The map of the island is fixed, but not the environment. It uses the same principles that when you explore an area, you already know the area, but the environment or surroundings might be different from the last time you were there. This element provides unpredictable events that the players will encounter throughout the game. Don’t get me wrong, games like T.I.M.E Stories have their story unplayable once solved, this also similar but of course the second time you play it, it will be a different experience. You know what to do, you know how and where to go in order to lift the curse. But the next time you do that, things will be different, you might encounter something that wasn’t there, new events and others.
The game actions were wrapped in a simple classic draw and push your luck, where players will draw cards from a draw deck to determine whether their actions are a success or not, while maintain the draw deck as their life.
One curse offers you hours and hours of game time, you can save the game, but once you die, you need to restart from the start. The saving system provides players the ability to stop and start the game in different occasions. Not to mention the inventory system has a unique way that players can tinker with. They can combine item cards to be more powerful or diverse in usability. Player’s inventory is limited which also creates challenges for players to decide how they want to build their inventory.
The game is suitably designed for solo mode, but also good for 2-3 players game. The maximum player count (4) will leave the game to be longer than expected and more players would decrease the thematic immersion substantially.
The base game comes with 3 curses, but you can always get more with the expansion packs. The game has great visual tone, dark, serious and grim. Perfect with the theme of ones trying to lift the curse that threatening their lives. The characters are presented in miniatures, but be wary that these miniatures are really complementary components of a story adventure game with cards as its core components, so the miniatures are no the highlight of the components, they’re smaller that the average and lack of detail.
With more than thousand of cards, you will find sleeving this game to be very expensive and my advice, no need to sleeve the cards (especially those that placed on the table).
Were you a fan of the TV show LOST? Have you ever wondered how you would do if you woke up on a deserted island knowing something was terribly wrong but unsure of what exactly it was, equally unsure of where you are, and still worse, how to get home? Then rip off some jungle vines and lash together your survivalist skills in this awesome and unpredictable game The 7th Continent by #seriouspoulp. I recently received my copy from Kickstarter, I don’t think it’s out in general publication yet, but if you are a gamer who loves adventures then you should reserve a copy today from your local supplier. This game enhances the mystery of island exploration with a fun “fog of war” mechanic that keeps benefits and conflicts hidden until you commit to exploring a region. Each explorer on your team adds a new level of team play, will you venture together for safety in numbers? Or run off to cover more territory. Careful though, you quickly learn you are cursed and if you don’t solve it before your deck of actions run out you risk destruction. You have to keep your wits about you and delve into the beautiful geographic art on the cards, can you find the hidden clues to lead you? Or will you wander aimlessly? This game has been great for me and Elena, it’s fun with just two players which is great news for people who can’t find a large enough gaming group to commit to a game like this. It does seem to be on the longer side. We have played two rounds now and haven’t finished our first game yet. But don’t worry! You don’t need to reserve your tabletop for just this game. The creators have a great “save point” system in place that lets you pause and clean up your game and come right back where you left off with minimal hassle. This is awesome for people with busy lives and kids that don’t have huge blocks of time to dedicate to an epic adventure. It also has a fun way to allow new explorers to jump in mid-game or bow out if the party wants to keep going after they leave. The thrill of play and exploration has been great. I look forward to seeing how it ramps up as we come closer to the end, but I know that I don’t need to wait to give this title a hearty endorsement.