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Hello friends of analog entertainment, welcome to a new episode of Hunter and Cron.
Today with a special highlight
Robinson Crusoe - Adventures on the Cursed Island.
A cooperative adventure game for 1-4 players.
A game that can kick your ***. I'm myself still totally sick.
From all the ugly wounds
the nights under the open sky, in rain, storm, half starved.
Ferociuos creatures, snow.
Cannibals, everything can you imagine.
No shaving razor...
Just watch and see..
Robinson Crusoe is played in scenarios. We 've built up the first scenario here.
This is entitled: Shipwrecked.
A short scenario description, in this case a classic story
We are stranded on a deserted island and naturally try to escape.
Down here the objective of the scenario, which in this case is to build a wooden pile,
to ignite a large signal fire, and to attract a ship with this signal fire,
which brings us to freedom and safety.
In scenario 1 we have twelve rounds total time.
And in the last three a ship is sailing close enough to the island
that it can theoretically see our signal fire,
if we have built it until then and set it on fire.
There are other scenarios, six in total. Here, for example scenario 2:
"The Cursed Island" where the goal is to build crosses on different parts of the island,
to banish the curse of the island.
"Volcano Island", "Jenny needs help" , "Island of the Cannibals" and "Family Robinson".
This is pretty cool because the game manages to make each scenario very very different.
In the " Island of the Cannibals" with every book icon appearing there is "an attack of the cannibals "
Or in "The Cursed Island " the curse, the "strange mist " spreads further.
The game plan seems incredibly extensive and complicated of course
but is actually designed very clear and beautiful.
Here above is shown how the game works in its different stages.
There are 6 stages.
The event stage, the morale stage, the production stage, the action stage, the weather stage and the night stage.
Each round is almost exactly the same.
As it consists just by this 6 different stages.
In the event stage, the top card is turned face up from the event stack and is followed.
Here it would be the event " Black Cloud " - thick black clouds are hanging in the sky, the weather is not nice to you .
Put a rain marker on the weather field.
This means that if we are in the weather stage,
then we have to deal with this rain cloud.
The event cards are divided into two parts as we see, because in the lower part there are threatening events,
which can be prevented by preventive actions.
After the immediate event has been dealt with, the event card goes down here.
Shifts the event card, that is eventually lying there to the left.
The threatening event is here, that another rain cloud would come on the weather field.
And we could prevent it with the pre-emptive action "Make arrangements".
Now if one more event card comes in the next round,
One card is pushed out and now the threatening event of this card would come into force.
Then there is the moral stage here number 2
There is a moral marker which is at the beginning on zero. It can be positive or negative.
If it is positive, then the first player gets additional resolution markers,
with which he can perform certain additional skills.
If it is negative, he must relinquish resolution markers.
If he can not do this, he will also suffer wounds.
In the production stage we get resources
according to the part of the landscape, where our camp is located, in the case at the beach it would be one fish and one wood.
The 4th is the action stage, the heart of the game.
And this is displayed down here, Here you can also see the number four "actions".
These are all actions that can be performed.
Prevent this "threatening events".
Then you could go hunting.
In order to go hunting we must first explore the island
and slowly assemble a hunting stack if we get animal symbols.
We then go through the stack again when we hunt.
With "building" we can either try to invent these inventions.
At the very beginning you can only invent the shovel, because that is connected to the part of the landscape "beach".
Then you can build the camp with the build action. Because at the moment we are still sleeping in the open.
We could increase the roof strength of our camp and we could build a fence,
to hold off voracious animals.
And we could try to build weapons, which we need to hunt the animals.
Then there is the action "collect resources" We can simply try to gather more additional resources,
in already discovered parts of the island, wood or food.
And then there's the action "discover".
With this I take the top island tile, uncover it, and have thus discovered the landscape type "river".
Now we could theoretically invent the map and the perineum.
Moreover, here is a ruin icon, but fortunately in the start scenario it has no effect.
And we get one exploration tile. In this case, it would be spices.
Then there's the action "cleaning up the camp".
Here you get two resolution and the morale marker would shift one field into the positive.
Then there's the action "rest" where you can heal .
Next is the weather stage, number five.
For every rain cloud, that we cannot counter with the appropriate roof strength,
we have to pay one wood and one food.
And finally the night phase, number six . There is the reckoning.
Each character must eat, if he can not do that, he suffers wounds.
And if we still sleep in the open it is also bad for our health .
There are four different characters in the game For example, the carpenter and the cook,
which of course all have their own special skills.
Each player has two action token, which he can use in the action stage.
A fundamental principle in Robinson Crusoe is, that there are often two ways to perform an action.
Either alone or together, but together also means that a player uses both of his tokens.
And if one performs an action alone, then this action is done at risk, and may also fail.
The cook could try to explore two fields at risk.
And for risky actions dice must be rolled.
One die indicates whether the action is a success or a failure.
Also, there is a die which indicates if I suffer a wound.
And finally, the third indicates if I experience an adventure.
That means I must here draw another card: "Lost".
And now I have to spend the night outside of the camp.
This is already quite a problem, because I don't have anything to eat.
There are dice for all different actions
Also there are weather dice with rain clouds and snow clouds.
And an animal die that also can provide unpleasant surprises.
In some scenarios, you have the possibility to discover treasure via the ruins symbol.
Because then you can also explore the ruins.
For example, really great : We have found gold - unfortunately on the island it is worthless.
Robinson Crusoe is really survival - fight - adventure on a very high level. And on a hard level.
The only thing I think is a bit of a shame with Robinson Crusoe
is that the difficulty level is high - which is great,
but it is produced primarily by the fact that we really stumble from one catastrophe into the next.
We have to tediously earn every bit of wood, every fish, every invention.
Nothing is permanent, everything can be ripped into the abyss with the next event card .
This is also kind of nice. This keeps the tension high.
But I personally would have liked that from time to time you would have a few more experiences of success also.
It is not a walk in the park, not a candystore, but that's sexy.
It is one of the few cooperative games where I have to say, that failure is actually fun.
We just need a single piece of wood! You just have to go once into the forest, gather resources, bring a timber.
Then lay it on the pile of wood, set it on fire, then comes the ship and gets us.
And then the one with the last wood gets lost and does not make it back to camp,
while in the camp one starves and all loose the game.
This is truly an agonizing defeat, where you are on the edge of crying.
And that's the best part about Robinson Crusoe.
It's just one of those very rare games
where the next day you have a story to tell.
Robinson Crusoe is really a force of a cooperative game.
It elevates the whole genre to a new level in my eyes.
It is made incredibly nice, the design, the production quality,
the cards, the artwork. This is incredibly good.
In terms of game atmosphere at the table it is genuine, unique and great.
I can only say: more of it!
I want some more scenarios!
By the way, there is a 7th scenario to download from Pegasus about "King Kong".
This was Robinson Crusoe, We can recommend it highly.
Have fun playing and until the next time.