Only one colony will escape!
In Arkosa, you’ll be developing your bunker, recruiting unique new colonists and trying to keep your population happy, fed, rested and breathing.
However, the planet won’t make it easy for you. There’ll be regular attacks from the resident hostiles to contend with, plus a whole bunch of unique events that can occur to your intrepid explorers while they are out in the wastelands.
In order to claim victory you’ll need a well organised, productive and happy bunker. But only one colony will win the grand prize… a ticket off the planet!
Arkosa from Toon Hammer games is a space race for survival on a post-apocalyptic hostile planet. But despite that common trope it’s packed to the gills with humour and events that makes this quite unique and pushes the 120min gameplay along in no time.
So what’s the premise?
Simply put… survival! This planet is full of weird and wacky inhabitants and it’s your role to build and manage the most effective bunker to build your colony while preparing to be rescued by a passing ship.
Great news and sounds simple – WRONG!
That ship only has space for a single colony so the bunker with the strongest reputation will make the cut and get that ticket to ride.
So how does this work?
Once you have established your faction you’ll be vying to develop the best reputation by satisfying the needs of its inhabitants, expanding your bunker and growing the population to get you closer to that golden ticket.
Played over 3 rounds you’ll start with the Action phase, taking 2 out of 4 actions:
- Put a colonist to work
- Build a new room in the bunker
- Make a trade
- Bribe (in round 2 and 3)
Next you’ll need to feed your colonists, adjust points based on the current morale of the bunker and finally trigger any rooms to generate new resources for the next phase.
And the experience?
Toon Hammer is a fairly new studio to the market but they certainly hit the ground running with Gobblin’ Goblins which is another character filled title with unique and dynamic art – but this time around they’ve upped the bar to a full board game experience and what I see so far is a really engaging engine with fantastic energy and a bunker full of quirky characters.
The key driver here lies entirely around the exploration of the planet and as you progress along the exploration track you’ll hit encounters that provide additional moments of humour through the taste text on each event card, while raids and injury will also impair your progress and require you to resolve these issues.
Its these events that develop an aspect of story but above all prolong the longevity of the game as no two games will play out a like, and given the mix of actions you can take to develop your colony there’s plenty of replay value and new experiences to encounter along the way.
Overall Toon Hammer has really found a niche in the market by adding lightness to their games. With Arkosas initial premise as a colonist survival theme as seen with titles such as Dead of Winter and Fallout for example, they’ve injected some much needed humour that really pushes the game along and gives it far more highs than emotional lows.
For fans of survival genre who like the light hearted concept of Fallout Shelter and are open to something slightly odd, quirky, spicy and with plenty of humour then this is something you’d want to bring to the table – check it out on Tabletop Simulator (link below) and see what you think…
Production wise this is all a physical preview copy kindly provided and subject to change, but this has unique artwork laden with fun and something that I hope stays and is built upon. Components wise this is a really well produced prototype and certainly one of the better ones we typically receive, so I have confidence and high hopes for the final product and think this is something to check out when it hits Kickstarter in late June 2021.
Coming to Kickstarter in June 2021 – Arkosa is packed with humour and heart – its the only ticket to ride that matters
