Explore the high seas
Quests & Cannons: The Risen Islands is a 1-6 players adventure game in which you play as the captain of a ship, roaming the seas and finding islands filled with riches and perils in a Fantasy world. The campaign for the game will launch on Kickstarter on September 21.
The goal of the game is to gain 15 prosperity points within 15 rounds. You start by choosing a Kingdom to pledge allegiance to: there are the Porcs (pork orcs), the Dwunnies (bunny dwarves), and the Delves (duck elves). This will determine your starting spot and the place you will go back to between your expeditions. You also choose a champion: both your kingdom affiliation and your champion come with a specific ability you can use throughout the game, and have starting and max stats (sails, cannons, and cargo hold). Your personal ship board tracks your stat levels, your ammo (in the form of black dice), your coins, etc. Your character and ship are represented by a sail-shaped standee featuring your character art. In solo, you will play against a varying number of enemy ships (you decide how many).
The board consists of three kingdoms (one of which is yours) and three outposts at the edges of a hex grid that represents the archipelago. Islands, in the form of tokens, are spread onto the map. They start the game face down as they are unexplored. There are three card decks that you will draw from during the game: the Quest cards, the Loot cards, and the Map clue cards. Quest cards are drawn whenever you end your movement on an island and give you objectives that you must fulfill (e.g. bring resources at a specific location) in exchange for a reward. You can only have three active quests at the same time. Loot cards can be purchased in the three Trading posts featured on the board. Some give you one-off abilities, while others provide passive perks. Map clues send you on a treasure quest. Each Map clue asks you to reach a given location on the board, in which you will receive the next Map clue. Each time you complete a clue, you earn prosperity points. If you go back to your kingdom and return them, you earn one additional prosperity point for each. You can also repair your ship in your kingdom (for a fee), complete quests, etc. All of these can also be done in the three different outposts. In these outposts, you may also upgrade your ship for the right amount of coins and resources. Finally, you can trade resources and purchase Map clues in the trading posts.
On your turn, you get 3 action points to spend as you deem fit. You can move, gather, or attack. Moving usually allows you to move to one adjacent hex, but you can move further by exhausting one of your sails. If you reach an island, you explore it by turning over the token and earn one coin for the exploration deed. The gather action allows you to collect resources from an island you are on. However, you must have enough cargo holds to store them in your ship. You can also attack a ship if you stand in the same spot. When attacking, you roll as many six-sided dice as you have cannons (these get exhausted after the attack). You sum up the total value, and each multiple of 4 deals one hit to your opponent (if you roll 2, 5, and 6, for a total of 13, you deal 3 damage because 12=3x4). If you deal at least one damage, you receive one prosperity point, and if you sink it, you win 3 prosperity points and grab half of their coins. At the end of your turn, both your cannons and your sails get refreshed. However, the dice you rolled act like ammo and you don’t retrieve them once you have rolled them; to replenish your ammo supply, you will need to buy them in an outpost, trading post, or your kingdom.
Then, the enemy ships will take a turn. They are actually passive but will move to attack you if you sail within their range. When they attack, they have unlimited ammo. They have five hull points total, so you need to deal as much damage to sink them. If this occurs, they will simply respawn at the end of the round. Furthermore, on rounds 5 and 10, they will automatically move to randomly chosen locations on the board.