Develop Boonlake from Alexander Pfister, Then Participate in Maracaibo: The Uprising

With a group of pioneers, you have left civilization behind to settle along the shores of Boonlake, a long-forgotten region inhabited by humans long ago. This unexplored area beckons you! Become part of a new community and commit yourself to the common good. Explore the landscapes, build houses and settlements, raise cattle, produce raw materials, and develop your infrastructure. Do your best to automate these processes. Seize the opportunity to make the best of your new life in Boonlake.


Boonlake is an expert game in which you are finding yourself improving your life — and your group's life — in this new territory...but how you accomplish this is completely up to you! Introducing a novel action mechanism, each game progresses differently. Will you focus on expansion? Or maybe you'll contribute to creating an infrastructure? Or possibly pursue your own agenda? Carefully consider what you choose as each action benefits everybody else...

This year, Maracaibo will receive an expansion called The Uprising. Players are cast as indigenous people under colonial bondage, who will work together to liberate the cities of their island from foreign rule. "In the cooperative scenario, they win when all locations are free," Pfister says.

When the game enters the market again in the indeterminate future, it will no longer carry art, terminology, or set dressing associated with 18th-century European expansion. Those days, he says, are over.

"Mombasa made gamers think about this awful history. But nowadays, I wouldn't use this theme anymore. That's the reason for a complete re-theme. It's good that the community, including me, became more sensible," he says. "We want our hobby to be inclusive."