Game Review - Forgotten Waters

I'm interested in the evolution of games, and particularly the rise of cooperative rather than competitive games. This year's Christmas game is a good example of that, with the players as the crew of the same pirate ship, and also the first game to actually integrate a phone app as part of the game, rather than a rules reference or a bolt-on source for additional premium content.

The game itself has a number of heavy cardboard trackers for various types of resource - supplies, crew, hull points and the number and power of any cannon the ship may acquire. These resources will be gained and used up as the game progresses. If hill points or crew reach zero, the players ship sinks and the game is over; supplies can reach zero, but causes other problems rather than instant death. Neatly, the crew tracker also has a second counter tracking crew discontent. This starts at the opposite end of the track from the crew counter, and moves in the opposite direction - if the two ever meet, you have a mutiny on your hands :-(

A final tracker records the relative infamy levels of each player. This decides which player can choose actions first, which slightly advantages that player, but as infamy fluctuates rapidly, it tends to move regularly if unpredictably between players.

The other major component is a laminated book. The back cover unfolds to give a hex map, on which cardboard hexes with islands, reefs and other encounters are laid as players explore, while the main section has a series of double pages for a variety of locations. These are the real heart of the system - each location has 6-8 options, which allow players to do various things.

Players choose actions in order of infamy. Some actions are compulsory (ie if no player has selected them earlier, the last player has to select that action), some can be done by only one player, while others can be done by multiple players if they want.

In some cases, the result of visiting a location is automatic (loading cannon always does just what it says, ie changing the status of one of your cannon), or it may give you a choice (going to the market gives multiple things to purchase) or may depend on a die roll to see how well you succeed (eg the effect of firing a cannon varies according to a die roll and character skill).

Some locations will be visited many times (eg port, where players can replenish resources or repair their ship), the open sea (scouting, ship maintenance and...well, basically sailing) or a sea battle (where players can split between loading and firing cannon, leading a boarding action or damage control).

Others are visited only once, eg the witches' flagship or the volcano settlement, and getting to them may require a considerable amount of work.

Some of the pages integrate with the mobile phone app - for example, if you decide to explore one particular location, you key a three-digit code into the app, which will then probably ask you a number of other yes/no questions - whether you have visited particular places or have particular objects, whether this is your first time visiting this location etc - before telling you what happens. This integration allows far more options than a printed rulebook could include without producing something resembling an old-style solo adventure, and often includes a page of descriptive text.

One nice feature is the character sheets for each player. The main game function of these is to allow players to get additional skill points in the six areas (gunnery, navigation etc) which add pluses to dice rolls. They are easily earned by doing tasks, though players will have to balance activities which gain them skills, gain resources for the ship and advance the plot.

However, they go well beyond that, with each character sheet having a different name and biography, and having three fate paragraphs (a bad one, a decent one and a good one) setting out what ultimately happens to your character. Which you get depends on how many constellation points you've picked up in the game, and some of the bad ones are actually rather sad. It has no effect, but I actually found myself feeling guilty if I didn't put in enough effort to get my character at least a decent fate. :-)

It definitely feels like a "play through all the scenarios once and then you're done" game rather than one you can return to over and over, but that's still probably 8 all day sessions, and realistically how often do most games get revisited anyway?