Adventure On The High Seas

Our time at PAX Unplugged this year was a frenetic affair. Jumping from booth to booth in a flurry of meetings, salutations and short gameplay demos. There was barely enough time to eat. I can't complain though, it was an extraordinary experience. But I did have a goal in mind. Before we left for PAX, I had told Jesse 'I want to find the next indie darling'. A game that not a lot of people knew about but deserved the attention. I was worried I wouldn't have the time to find this coveted title. There was just so much going on, so many shinny and professionally made titles, that my attention got continually shifted from what I wanted to be doing: play something genuinely different and almost insane in its scope. Alas I felt I would need to abandon my ambitious undertaking. But during one fateful meeting, that all changed.

Earlier we received a message from Offduty Ninja (an awesome power duo of tabletop  marketing) to try a prototype of a new game called "Sea of Legends." We were immediately intrigued by its concept, but what got us truly excited was the pedigree behind it. Jordan Weisman is a titan of the industry and one of the main partners of Guildhall Studios. If that name doesn't seem familiar, let us help put that into context. Jordan Weisman has been designing games for over 30 years. He's had an incredibly prolific and inventive career throughout. Mr. Weisman has designed the Battletech Board Game, Crimson Skies, Golem Arcana, the Heroclix system, founded WizKids and, my personal favorite, helped launch the first Xbox. There's a consistent theme throughout all of his games and endeavors: a constant conscious effort to innovate. Heroclix was a revolutionary way of introducing war gaming to a younger generation, Golem Arcana was one of the first app enabled games on the market and Battletech needs no introduction. Jordan has been involved in some of the major shifts within our hobby and beyond. It’s safe to say we were excited to find out what Sea of Legends was all about.

But Guildhall Studios isn't composed solely by Jordan Weisman, he’s shoulder to shoulder with 2 other incredibly talented designers. Zach Weisman and Ryan Schapals both met in Harebrained Schemes while working on Golem Arcana, and immediately became friends. In due time each would go out onto their own journeys, destined to meet again to work on an ambitious and almost far fetched idea that would surely be impossible without the skills they gained along the way.

Zach Weisman has lived his entire life around the board and video game industry. As a child he would visit multiple conventions with his father and contributed to all of his big projects. In highschool he published his first game, and then went on to work in Harebrained Schemes after graduating college for video game design. Here he worked on developing and designing Golem Arcana and all of its expansions. Zach later transitioned over to Calliope Games where he became their lead designer. During his tenure he developed some incredible titles working alongside greats like Richard Garfield, Eric Lang, Paul Peterson and many others.

On the other hand, Ryan Schapals went in a very different direction. A writer and die-hard RPG fan from a tender age, Ryan has always jotted down ideas to create marvelous tales for his friends and family. He is a writer to his core. After acquiring his bachelor's degree in writing and psychology, he took his passion into the gaming world by working freelance for Golem Arcana and Battletech in Harebrained Schemes. He later went on to work with Brian Feister in the Open Legend RPG and was promoted to narrative director shortly after. In addition to his experience with writing, Ryan has been involved in 2 app based games including Golem Arcana, and Weave. This is important since Sea of Legends combines every single piece of knowledge shared between all of its founders.

Sea of Legends...is not an easy game to describe succinctly. There's a rich sandbox story, area control, resource collection, tableau building and so many other small elements that make it unique. But to put it simply: Sea of Legends is a narrative-driven choose-your-own-adventure sandbox threat management app based game. You're the hero of your own story, sailing through the Caribbean to resolve a series of randomly assigned branching story paths stemming from two mysterious yet pivotal characters in your tale. Throughout the game you'll be traveling to different destinations to complete certain quests or main story branches while dodging or confronting other players and surviving the game itself.

At the top of your turn you'll need to make a simple yet important decision: where to move. The board is based on a Caribbean Archipelago where you'll travel to different regions in search of game and booty. Once there you'll interact with the area, continue your story or, potentially, undertake a new quest. All of this hinges on where you've been to before and what decisions your fellow players have made throughout. The game tracks everyone's progress and continuously infuses the board state with further curiosities and challenges. If this sounds like a nightmare to keep track of, don't fret. Apple said it best: "There's an app for that." During our session, the app helped keep the game moving at a swift pace while providing enough flavor to keep players engaged with the developing narrative. Put simply: the app felt integral to the experience Guildhall Studios are trying to create: a story worth exploring without complicated book-keeping.

The app though is only a portion of the game. My favorite elements happened on the table, amongst the squabble and miniatures that our actions brought about. Every turn players will need to manage threats that spawn from a deck of cards, similar to Pandemic or other popular cooperative titles. Each card will determine what creatures comes unto the board and what their overall objective is.  However, the most interesting aspect about these antagonists is that they can technically become your friends. At the end of your turn, after spawning, you'll have to move each faction minion towards their objectives, but the path they take and what they might stumble into along the way is under your control. However, enemies don’t have to be used solely for battle. Most of the strategy stems from creating uncomfortable situations for the next player by creating blockades or having minions conveniently stand on their next mission. There are many options to explore, just remember though: everyone has access to these same pieces. This dangerous power is the equivalent of waltzing with a spinning saw blade that's switching between its dance partners at an alarming rate. 

But with great power comes great responsibility. The more minions on the map, the higher the likelihood that a world threat might appear. World Threats are colossal figures that will expedite the end of the game, not just for you, but for everyone on the table. There's incentive for players to dispatch the forses that litter their oceans. Nonetheless, this isn't a cooperative game. Threats are used as a tool against your opponents and as an intuitive way to bring about the end of the game if players are mucking around for too long. Everyone is aiming to have the highest reputation, it's their legend that should be on the lips of every traveler and in the thoughts of every Spanish battalion, you are merely a casualty of their epic tale...or so they think.

The tale you weave here is a personal one. You are not donning the role of any pirate. This is a story you create as you play! The decisions you make will lead you to completely different paths with unexpected and exciting results. The story is presented in snippets, each one contained in small chapters within the app. You can expect a reading of the story portion to last around 1-2 minutes, but what's conveyed was always well written, compelling and fun. I was interested in what other players were doing and their own journey. The brief look I had into the narrative was fascinating and enjoyable. More importantly, the consequences of our actions were always felt in some capacity; either by transforming the board or strengthening an existing threat. In our game one story arc led a player to be persecuted by Spanish ships for the entirety of the game. What ensued thereafter was a series of hilarious turns and a story I'd remember afterwards.

But stories aren't the only thing that make a pirate. You'll need a crew and a ship to get you through these seas. You'll start with a fairly shanty sea vessel and a barely capable crew. Each crew member will have an ability you'll be able to exploit during different portions of your turn. Your ship on the other hand will determine your movement capacity, your damage output and your hold. Both of these elements work in tandem to create a pseudo tableau players will be able to build and change to their liking. Fancy a more combat oriented game? Try and recruit crew members that buff attack and a ship with more cannons than actual wooden planks. Prefer a speedy vessel? There's options for that too. Sea of Legends is ultimately a sandbox of your own yo-ho-hoing making.

I had a lot of fun playing Sea of Legends. I've never been a fan of sandbox games but this felt different. There was enough of a thread that I could follow to help me gain some footing in this ever shifting realm without ever feeling constricting. The action narratively and on the board kept me engaged throughout our lengthy 3 hour session. This of course was due to the prototype nature of the game. Everything that I played felt like it needed just a tad more refinement. A tad more finessing. But what was there was such a different take on storytelling and narrative adventures that I left that table anxious for more. I was impressed with the breath of work Guildhall Studios were undertaking, but what truly surprised me is how close to finished this felt. I remember thinking, right at the very end of our post-game discussions: Had I seen the glimmer of something great; Did I stumble onto that special game I was yearning for? Was this truly that different and that fascinating that it deserved more attention and more time? Was this...the pearl in the rough of my PAX experience? I can't definitively say, since what I played was still a work in progress; but what I will share is the following: Sea of Legends has the potential to be something truly special. I for one will be eagerly awaiting the Kickstarter and seeing just how far the game has come since then. Consider this one of my most anticipated Kickstarters of 2020.

Honk.