A very interesting looking science fiction board game is up for preorder on the GMT Games P500 list. AWAY TEAM: The Voyages of the Pandora, designed by the legendary John Butterfield, will task a player (or two) with taking on a mission of exploration to the stars. The game is for one or two players, ages 14+ (my guess), and a full campaign could last upwards of 80 hours. You can reserve a copy at the preorder price of $61.00 with an eventual MSRP of $87.00.
About the game:
AWAY TEAM: The Voyages of the Pandora is a game of exploring alien worlds in distant star systems. You command the Pandora, an interstellar survey ship on its voyages of discovery. Each voyage sends Pandora to a different star system where you assemble away teams from the ship’s crew and equipment to explore planets, moons and other sites of interest, with the following directives:
– Locate exo-life forms, and document their physiology and behavior;
– Collect exo-DNA, vital to genetic science and human adaptation to life in the stars;
– Identify and survey environments suitable for human settlement and development;
– Search for intelligent life and alien cultures; and if found, establish contact with goodwill;
– Don’t get killed.
AWAY TEAM has three modes of play.
– The solitaire campaign game, provides an epic inter-connected narrative experience for one player across seven star systems; providing over 80 hours of play time, exploration, and plot-twists.
– The solitaire star system game provides one player with a repeatable play experience commanding one Pandora voyage to a single star system. You set the experience level of your crew and the danger level of each voyage.
– The 2-player game puts players in command of competing away teams from Pandora in a voyage to a single star system, also a repeatable play experience.
Forty years ago, John Butterfield designed The Voyage of the BSM Pandora, the ground-breaking solitaire paragraph-driven game for SPI. Now John takes his branching narrative game concept into a new dimension with Away Team: The Voyages of the Pandora.