Charge shirtless
Feel like playing as a commando in a game inspired by vintage run-and-gun video games? The Sadler brothers got you covered with Contra: The Board Game. Their 1-4 player cooperative hand management and dice rolling game will be available for pre-order from the Blacklist Games website on July 30.
Contra takes place in the 27th century. You are a member of the Contra Task Force, fighting against the alien terrorist organization Red Falcon Army. Armed with weapons, you will charge ahead and blow enemies up, ultimately looking to take out their boss.
To start the game, you first select your commando team, each one with their own deck of cards. You also choose the enemy deck you will go up against (four enemies in total), as well as the stage deck: one of four hostile environments.
On their turn, commandos move and attack. Cards from your hand can be used to perform more movement and more attacks, but if you run out of cards you will be defenseless. Heroes will get to use advantage tokens, to boost their mobility, accuracy and subtlety. Enemies counter-attack via cards and dice rolls. When you are dealt damage, you lose one of your lives, and if all your lives are lost, the game is lost too. Cards drawn from the stage deck at the end of the round will make things even harder, and another way to lose is if the stage deck runs out.
Contra is based on the modular deck system employed by the designers in most of their previous games (e.g. Street Masters, Brook City, Altar Quest). This allows you to pick a different deck each time you play, and makes the game quite replayable.