Survive a Deadly Snowfall, Destroy Harrow County, and Travel with Lewis and Clark

12 months ago 43

by W. Eric Martin • In early 2024, Pendragon Game Studio will launch a crowdfunding campaign for The Eternaut, a design by Mauro Chiabotto that adapts the famed comic of the same name by Héctor Germán Oesterheld. Here's an...

by W. Eric Martin

• In early 2024, Pendragon Game Studio will launch a crowdfunding campaign for The Eternaut, a design by Mauro Chiabotto that adapts the famed comic of the same name by Héctor Germán Oesterheld.


Here's an overview of this 1-4 player game:
A deadly snowfall is killing everyone it touches, but not everyone has fallen victim to this mysterious threat. Four people have survived in a workshop, and now they're venturing into the world at the start of a survival adventure in which they must face menaces far more dangerous than the deadly snowflakes.

The Eternaut is a story-driven co-operative survival board game set in Buenos Aires that uses simple game mechanisms to create a survival experience with strong narrative elements. You must build a team, gather items, fight enemies, resolve objectives, and decide how to proceed with your unique story.

The game gives players maximum freedom, allowing them to interact as they please with the surroundings. Inspired by the point-and-click games from decades past, in The Eternaut the player-characters can talk about a variety of topics; interact with items like doors, shelves and vehicles; and even combine apparently useless items in new, stronger items.

• In October 2022, Off the Page Games crowdfunded the publication of Harrow County: The Game of Gothic Conflict, a design by Jay Cormier and Shad Miller that adapts the Harrow County comic series from the mid-2010s by Cullen Bunn and Tyler Crook.


Copies of Harrow County are expected to reach backers in Q1 2024, and here's what to expect from this 1-3 player game:
A witch named Hester was hung, burned, and buried under a tree. Some time later, the family of Hester come to Harrow County to destroy it, but standing in their way is eighteen-year-old Emmy who mysteriously has powers of her own.

In the asymmetric combat game Harrow County: The Game of Gothic Conflict, players can play as one of the Protectors, trying to rescue townsfolk, or as one of the family, trying to destroy Harrow County. You can instead play as a third faction that originates from the surprise return of Emmy's twin sister, Kammi, who wants to rule Harrow County. Players activate mason jars to move their haints (undead creatures) around the hex-based board as they try to accomplish their missions. Combat is resolved using a never-before-seen cube tower that's built into the actual box.

Demo game at Gen Con 2022
Finally, a third player can enter the game: Hester, the dead witch buried under the tree. She controls the roots of the tree and using the cube tower, Hester can infect haints on her roots, which causes a snake to be placed into its ear. That player can still control this haint, but now so can Hester. If Hester comes back to life, then she needs to eat the other legends to gain all her power back to win.

In short, Harrow County is a thematic, tactical game of territory control and enemy elimination to determine the fate of Harrow County.

• With the Harrow County crowdfunding project nearing completion, Jay Cormier of Off the Page Games has started teasing the company's next release: Corps of Discovery: A Game Set in the World of Manifest Destiny, which will be co-designed by Cormier and Sen-Foong Lim.


This 1-4 player game adapts the Manifest Destiny comic series by Chris Dingess and Matthew Roberts and takes place on an alternate history Earth:
Lewis and Clark are tasked not only with exploring America, but with ridding the land of numerous invasive monsters that have appeared.

Corps of Discovery is a co-operative game in which players each take the role of one of the crew on the expedition and set out to explore the land. The game board allows for different maps to be inserted into it, so you have many adventures ahead of you.

In addition to finding and killing monsters, you must also complete numerous daily challenges that require specific resources that you can find on the board. You have to use logic and deduction to reason out where the resources you need are located. Ally yourselves with Sacajawea and the indigenous people of the area to help you on your quest.

The game comes with two chapters: Fauna and Flora. Each has new mechanisms, a different goal, and new components to give each chapter a different feel. Four expansions will be released separately, with each having more varied ways to play the game! One chapter has you chasing a flying beast called the Vameter around the board, shooting it with your crew. Another has one player secretly acting as a traitor while under the influence of a ghost named Maldonado. The loyalists are trying to save their crew while the traitor is trying to kill them off. And finally, if you want a challenge, the Fog chapter mixes up the rules on how you find terrain, which adds a new level of deduction to the game.


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