Last year We sadly said goodbye to Zachtronics, developers of some of the most interesting independent video games of the last decade. And this year we say hello to The Lucky Sevena new card game—by some of the same people—that looks extremely cool.
A “tactical solitaire” game being developed by Coincidence, a studio/collective made up of a number of former Zachtronics employees, including Zach Barth himself (who designed the game). The Lucky Seven) and artist Jonathan Stroh.
The game is described as:
The Lucky Seven is a tactical solitaire game set in an unknown 20th century conflict. As in a tactical game, you move and attack with your squad members to neutralize randomly placed threat cards and keep the situation under control. Like a solitaire game, The Lucky Seven is different every time you play and requires you to look ahead and make the most of your options.
Which might make more sense to you read the rules and take a look at some pictures like this one showing the cards arranged so it is reminds me (in a very good way) of the excellent fearless.
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I’m curious how the game is able to reduce a tactical experience to something as (relatively) simple as a solitaire card game, while still promising through its flexibility a game that could be endlessly challenging.
The Lucky Seven is currently on Indiegogo, although it should be noted that it is for pre-order only, not development; Coincidence says that “the game is designed, the graphics are done and all we have to do is get the game printed”.
One nice thing – and be there – is that there are no instructions in the box. Instead, print them out at home. Which sounds like a cheapskate decision, but it really isn’t (small manuals are a negligible cost in game making compared to maps, tokens, art, etc.) because as they say, this means “we can use them after launch.” update and provide an FAQ for anything unexpected that pops up”.
Do you know how many board games I’ve had to play in the last ten years that had bad instructions?And that had to be fixed by either creating house rules to circumvent them or frantically browsing threads on BGG? Almost all the singles I’ve played. So the promise of a digital set that’s updated frequently (assuming of course!) sounds infinitely more useful.
