Impendium is live (Impending space doom)
Update: Impendium has launched on Kickstarter and the campaign will run for 31 days. You may pledge for Impendium and the Turmoil and Loyalty expansions, or combine it with Nova Lux plus all available expansions. The Architect of the Void pledge allows you to also become part of the development team for Aedifex, the sequel to Impendium.
Our preview post below was published on April 22.
Impendium is a 1-6 players worker placement and resource management game in which your goal is to achieve galactic supremacy while dealing with the constantly looming threat of the Harbingers of the Void. It will launch on Kickstarter on April 26.
The game includes five main components: your Ark (the pawn that represents your civilization), the colonies, your “workers”, the factions (that allow you to have more colonies and grant you special abilities that you can use every turn), the stars (that you can build and later colonize to obtain resources), and the Harbingers of the Void who want to swallow the universe into non-existence.
The game starts with the Federation Core and one adjacent star card on the table. You start with one faction card and three colonies that are placed onto the corresponding spaces of the star. Your Ark is placed wherever you wish.
Each round follows the same structure. First, you gather resources: each colony on a star card allows you to collect all listed resources. Next, the Harbingers of the Void are activated: you must follow the effects on all Harbingers cards in play. Among these effects, some may destroy stars or your colonies. Then you can take your actions, up to four. You can take all of these four actions, but each can only be taken once.
You can recruit a new faction (up to 3 in total under your control) to get more colonies and additional abilities by paying the corresponding resources. You can move your Ark onto a star card in play (which might incur costs if you go through debris or empty space). On the star card your Ark is standing upon, you can build a colony by paying the listed cost. Finally, you can participate in a Federation project by dedicating one of your colonies to it: either the edification of a new star (which will be put into play once enough colonies have been placed to it and your colonies remain on the new star when put into play) or participating in the fight against a Harbinger. To do so, your Ark must be adjacent to the Harbinger. To fight the Harbinger, you must also dedicate a colony to it by paying the corresponding resource cost.
When a new star is put into play, if the star is adjacent to a star of the same color, a Harbinger of Void is summoned (this is how they get into the game). If you connect three stars of the same color, they form a galaxy. You draw a “Galaxy Ruler” card, that will grant you resources and victory points every turn.
In the solo mode, you win if you create a galaxy for each of the star colors. You lose if you have no colony left on the map due to Harbinger actions.
The game can be integrated with the previous title in the series, Nova Lux, by using factions and star cards from that game. You can also use the outcome of a Nova Lux game to decide which faction to play during the set-up. The Kickstarter campaign will also bring in an AI to play against with the standard multiplayer scenarios, and a set of Campaign Scenarios specifically for solo and co-op.
You may check the Kickstarter preview.