Episode 177: Forgotten Waters

1) The Pegs discuss their recent game plays including Calico, Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef, Imperial Struggle and many more;

2) All the Pegs review Forgotten Waters by Plaid Hat Games; and

3) Look back at Chronicles of Crime by Lucky Duck Games.

Join in the conversation for this episode over at our Board Game Geek guild.

Show Notes

00:01:09 – Trivia: H.R. Puffinstuff

Banter

00:06:43 – #GameToppersNow Contest winners and new Queen contest!

00:12:38 – Christina and Robb discuss all the cheese they ate at their recent gaming weekend

Plays

00:22:18 – Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef [Buy] – Druid City Games; Designer: Tim Eisner, Ben Eisner; Art: Lina Cossette, David Forest;

00:32:27 – Imperial Struggle [Buy] – GMT Games; Designer: Ananda Gupta, Jason Matthews; Art: Terry Leeds;

00:42:35 – Calico [Buy] – Alderac Entertainment Group; Designer: Kevin Russ; Art: Beth Sobel;

00:51:02 – A Word from our Sponsor: Queen Games

00:52:21 – 5er Finden [Buy] – HABA; Designer: Jürgen P. Grunau; Art: Oliver Freudenreich;

01:01:10 – Flick of Faith – Awaken Realms Lite; Designer: Paweł Stobiecki, Jan Truchanowicz, Łukasz Włodarczyk; Art: Dagmara Gąska;

01:06:20 – Papua * [Buy]- Devir Games; Designer: Javier Garcia, Diego Ibáñez; Art: Pedro Soto;

News

01:17:06 – Quest + Avalon Big Box on Kickstarter

01:18:54 – New York Zoo Preorder

01:20:24 – Petersen Games Fantasy Cthulhu Setting

01:21:35 – Edgar Allen Poe: The Horror Gamebook

01:23:21 – Welcome New Mill Industries!

01:25:07 – Ultimate Werewolf Extreme

01:27:32 – D&D My Little Pony

01:31:18 – A Word from our Sponsor: Grand Gamer’s Guild

Review: Forgotten Waters

01:32:33 – Rules Breakdown

Forgotten Waters is a 3 to 7player cooperative narrative adventure game designed by Mr. Bistro, J. Arthur Ellis, and Isaac Vega, with art by Anton Fadeev and Nadezhda Tikhomirova, and published by Plaid Hat Games in 2020.  In Forgotten Waters, which is assisted by a mobile app, players take on the role of pirates exploring the high seas, meeting colorful characters, and taking on quests.

At the start of the game, each player will select a character standee and player pieces matching that standee’s color.  More importantly, they will choose a character sheet which provides the characters starting statistics, an advancement chart in the form of a star constellation, and a unique character story.  Players may choose a character name by rolling on a random table or assign it themselves.  Finally, players will complete a “Mad Libs”-style fill-in-the-blank story that establishes their character background and influences future story development.

Play takes place on a map upon which hexagonal tiles will be placed at the start of the game in a formation determined by the chosen scenario.  Other tiles may be drawn as the game goes on and the players explore the spaces between the initial tiles.  The game also uses a spiral-bound storybook, each page of which will provide a series of actions available at the characters’s current location.

The bulk of the game is in action selection and resolution.  The action selection round is timed using an in-app timer.  Players must, in turn order, select an action from those available.  Some actions may be visited by multiple people, some only by one player, and some actions MUST  be taken – meaning that as the selection round goes on, players may be forced to take a required action if it wasn’t already selected by a previous player.

Then, actions are resolved in order.  Action resolution various from action to action and from scenario to scenario, but in general an action will allow the player to advance their character in a particular stat, and then will test that stat.  Players will know vaguely what the action involved – sail the boat, scout for islands, talk to the starfish, etc. – but the resolution of the action is hidden until someone attempts it.  Action resolution involves simply rolling a pool of dice as determined by the characters stat, then comparing the result to the required successes for the action.  Some actions will only need one success, while others may have varying results depending on the number of actions rolled.

In many cases, action resolution is handled by typing a number into the app and listening to the resulting narration.  In some cases, this may lead to other choices for the player or another party member to make.  This is an incredibly simplified description of how this process to works, but suffice it to say that for much of the game you will try to do something, roll some dice, compare that roll to a target, and type a resulting number into the app to hear a story.

As a scenario-based game, along with just exploring to advance their characters, players are trying to advance the story.  Every page in the storybook will have at least one action that moves the narrative forward.  Many times, exactly how the narrative advances will depend on things the characters have done to achieve keywords earlier in the story, and the narrative may branch depending on which keywords were achieved at certain action resolutions.

Every player will also manage an aspect of the ship via a tracker and tokens: Hull, resources, crew, and more.  These are all resources that are needed to advance the game, and if the players run out they may find themselves trapped and lose the game.

Finally, as players advance their skills they will gain the opportunity to complete their unique constellation. As they do so, certain points in the game will allow them to read a new narrative element in their character sheet which will have an impact on that character, the boat, or perhaps even another player.

The game continues until the scenario is solved or the ship sunk, with some scenarios allowing the players to “save” the game at a certain point and pick it back up at another time.

01:36:14 – Review

02:01:50 – Ratings

ReRoll

02:15:27 – Chronicles of Crime [Buy] – Lucky Duck Games; Designer: David Cicurel; Art: David Cicurel, Matijos Gebreselassie, Mateusz Komada, Katarzyna Kosobucka;

Check out our original review for Chronicles of Crime during Episode 152.

Gameplay Photos

* Disclosure: These titles were received free of charge by the publishers or distributors. If you are interested in submitting a title for review, please read our Review Policy.