Overview
The 7th Continent, by designers <PERSON> and <PERSON> and published by Serious Poulp, is a cooperative exploration game for 1-4 players. The setting of the game is the elusive 7th Continent, a massive chunk of uncharted land that the players, assuming the roles of early 20th century adventurers, must explore in order to lift one of four (or more with expansions) possible “curses.” The continent is presented in the form of literally hundreds of 60mm by 60mm square cards. Each card depicts a section of the landmass and connects to the rest of the land via a system of numbers not unlike that of a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book. During a game turn, the players cooperatively carry out a single action. Actions may involve moving into new areas, or they may involve performing one of a number of possible actions available on a specific card such as climbing, searching, or even meditating. Carrying out most actions requires players to draw a number of cards from a deck of action cards in order to reveal a certain number of success icons. This deck of action cards also serves as the players’ collective life force and the game’s timer, as once it runs out the players are in imminent danger of losing at any time. To win, players must successfully lift the curse or curses they have chosen to take on before they die.
The 7th Continent is a difficult game to review for a number of reasons. Although the designers indicate that it draws inspiration from the Fighting Fantasy book series, there are few board games in the contemporary sense of the genre to which it can be compared. It defies some of the established ground rules of game design that hobby gamers often take for granted. And it is a game that is all about revealing its secrets to players as they play, thus self-consciously wagering its own shelf life on the hope that the experience it offers is good enough to encourage players to come back to it despite having learned things that cannot later be unlearned. The game puts its expectations on the players themselves and the belief that through the players’ evolving relationships with the intricacies of the expansive world the game provides, the experiential qualities of playing the game will sustain beyond the limitations of its design. Yet, the 7th Continent is also, beyond a doubt, a remarkable achievement that reflects a level of ambition and audacity that will likely have a lasting impact on not just those who play it, but on the entire board game industry. 937
In the following sections, I will (humbly attempt) to illuminate the aspects of the game that I found to be most useful in thinking about the gameplay experience it offers.
What’s in a game, anyway?
Mechanically speaking, there’s not much to 7th Continent. The abovementioned card-based system for resolving actions is about the most game-like aspect of it. There are a couple of other mechanics to note—some hand and inventory management and a tangible but heavily-abstracted progression system—but for the most part there’s not much “game” here in terms of interwoven, rule-governed systems. The continent itself dictates the terms of the “game” as it is slowly revealed, one little square at a time.
Perhaps most conspicuously absent is any kind of round structure or turn order. A “turn” involves the players collectively deciding on an action to carry out and which character or characters to be actively involved in that action. The 1-4 player count indicated on the game box is really more of an ostensible limit on the number of characters that can participate in any given attempt to lift a curse. You can play with up to 4 characters, but there’s really no mechanical or systemic limitation on the number of people who can sit around the table and deliberate what those characters should do and when they should do it. In this respect, 7th Continent is less a game than it is a form of structured interaction. Whether you are one person playing four characters or seven people communally controlling a single character, you are in it for the opportunities it gives you to be a relevant participant in the ongoing discourse generated within the confines of the game world. Of course, this means that there are no real barriers to entry into 7th Continent. Experience with or interest in hobby board games really makes no difference in terms of letting people play the game. Any potential conflicts that may arise will be a function of the players themselves, their personalities and group dynamics, and not of the game’s systems. Moreover, the learning curve is entirely insular to the game world. The only real learning to be done here comes from playing the game. 629