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• Even more Fraga is Polaris, coming from Matagot and co-designed with Yohan Lemonnier, which pits two teams against one another in submarine combat. Here's an overview of the setting and gameplay:
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All the members of a team sit on one side of the table, and they each take a particular role on the submarine, with the division of labor for these roles being dependent on the number of players in the game: One player might be the captain, who is responsible for moving the submarine and announcing some details of this movement; another player is manning the sonar in order to listen to the opposing captain's orders and try to decipher where that sub might be in the water; a third player might be working in the munitions room to prepare torpedoes, mines and other devices that will allow for combat.
Polaris takes place in real time, with all the members of a team taking their actions simultaneously while trying to track what the opponents are doing, too. When a captain is ready to launch an attack, the action pauses for a moment to see whether a hit has been recorded — then play resumes with the target having snuck away while the attacker paused or with bits of metal now scattered across the ocean floor.
Polaris takes place in real time, with all the members of a team taking their actions simultaneously while trying to track what the opponents are doing, too. When a captain is ready to launch an attack, the action pauses for a moment to see whether a hit has been recorded — then play resumes with the target having snuck away while the attacker paused or with bits of metal now scattered across the ocean floor.
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I played a few minutes of this game as part of a press event, and it was a fantastically odd experience as you didn't need to know anything about the rules of the game. All you needed to do was pay attention to the medical coordinator and the commands he was giving to you. As with Polaris, part of the challenge of selling Panicobloc is figuring out how to present the spirit of the game in the rulebook and inject whoever is playing the medical coordinator with a peppy presentation and good ringmaster skills to get everyone else involved.
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Your pirate ship has dropped anchor at the terrible island of Pingo Pingo. Legend says that the island is full of treasure, including the famous Golden Pineapple, but it also says that treasure is fiercely guarded by hordes of cannibal penguins, some of which ride giant polar bears. That potential danger is why you're alone in your boat, on your own but eager to take a run on the island and try your luck.
For now, only the sound of the waves and the cries of the gulls disturb the peace of this seemingly idyllic island...but as soon as you set foot in the jungle bordering the beach, the drums of war start sounding and you realize that you've suddenly gained the status of prey!
Pingo Pingo is a hyper-frenetic action game punctuated by a soundtrack in which you have to react quickly, run, shoot a gun, in which you must be precise, brave, fast, and focused because if not, well, you might not leave the island in one piece...
For now, only the sound of the waves and the cries of the gulls disturb the peace of this seemingly idyllic island...but as soon as you set foot in the jungle bordering the beach, the drums of war start sounding and you realize that you've suddenly gained the status of prey!
Pingo Pingo is a hyper-frenetic action game punctuated by a soundtrack in which you have to react quickly, run, shoot a gun, in which you must be precise, brave, fast, and focused because if not, well, you might not leave the island in one piece...
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A fierce blizzard is fast approaching, but young Kaya and his friends are still fishing out on the ice far from their igloos! The little Inuit need to pack up and rush home as quickly as they can. However, their journey back is fraught with many dangers. Heavy snow and strong winds make it difficult for them to find the shortest route back, the ice beneath them could break apart at any time, and hungry polar bears are lurking nearby! Using clever planning and a keen memory, can you be the first to navigate your Inuit across the ice floes and back to the safety of their igloo?
In Polar Rush!, seven ice floe tiles are placed together on the table to form the game board. On each ice floe are seven different animals or items found in the arctic. Movement tiles are spread out face down on the table. On a turn, a player reveals a number of movement tiles one at a time based on the number rolled on the die. If he reveals a "seal" and a seal is adjacent to his current position, he must move his Inuit to the "seal" (even if it means he must move backwards); if a seal isn't nearby, he doesn't move.
The floes also feature special characters that can help (or hamper) a player's movement, so with clever planning your movement can be quite successful. For example, if you move to a sled, your next move doesn't need to be to an adjacent tile — but if you reveal a "crack" tile, you can separate the game board to create a water gap between the floes. The only way to cross this is to reveal a kayak tile. The first person to get his Inuit home wins!
Polar Rush! includes simplified rules for Inuit as young as five as well as more complex rules for older Inuit.
In Polar Rush!, seven ice floe tiles are placed together on the table to form the game board. On each ice floe are seven different animals or items found in the arctic. Movement tiles are spread out face down on the table. On a turn, a player reveals a number of movement tiles one at a time based on the number rolled on the die. If he reveals a "seal" and a seal is adjacent to his current position, he must move his Inuit to the "seal" (even if it means he must move backwards); if a seal isn't nearby, he doesn't move.
The floes also feature special characters that can help (or hamper) a player's movement, so with clever planning your movement can be quite successful. For example, if you move to a sled, your next move doesn't need to be to an adjacent tile — but if you reveal a "crack" tile, you can separate the game board to create a water gap between the floes. The only way to cross this is to reveal a kayak tile. The first person to get his Inuit home wins!
Polar Rush! includes simplified rules for Inuit as young as five as well as more complex rules for older Inuit.
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The gist of the game is that players are presented with some number of cards, with the exact number dependent on how challenging you want to make the game, and each card shows pairs of items that are connected by lines. To start a round, players are given one item on the leftmost card, say by rolling a die, then they simultaneously race (yes, again!) to see which item is connected to that first item, then they find this second item on the next card, trace the connecting line to the third item, etc.
Eventually you reach the final item — or items, perhaps, if you have two end cards as shown in this example from Fraga's website — and if you're the first to get there, you win the round. Maybe. In At Full Throttle, you had to then grab the proper car off the table to be the winner. Perhaps in these new versions you'll grab other objects or run into an adjacent room to draw the proper image on a transparency taped to a cat. Who knows?!
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