January 11, 2021 – There is a new pirate board game from Root creators coming. Patrick Leder, the head of Leder Games who published such titles as Root and Fort, announced the news via twitter. Tentatively titled “Ahoy”, the publisher picked up the project from designer Greg Loring-Albrigh. The game was originally entitled “Hyperspace Smuggler” and was a Kickstarter that never went through. There is not much details on the project outside of this announcement, but clearly, they saw something special in bringing the mechanics of this game to the world in a pirate board game package. There are a bunch of great pirate games in the world, but none that have dominated the charts like some other themes out there (hello space exploration).
According to Leder, Ahoy is going to be an asymmetric adventure game about piracy, rebellion, smuggling, and control. Nick Brachmann, who worked on last year’s Fort, helping to develop the game. Cole Wehrle, the creator of Root and the upcoming Oath – will also be involved in developing Ahoy, as well as handling project management for the board game. There may not be a ton of info on Ahoy yet, but there is lots of info out there on the original project Hypersapce Smuggler.
Hyperspace Smuggler is a pickup and delivery game with intriguing hand management and tile laying aspect set in a futuristic space world! Players take on the roles of space station smugglers tasked with traveling to (distant) planets to pick up precious cargo and deliver it safely back to the main space station. But be aware! There are other smugglers and custom officials who are looking to steal or confiscate your cargo! Players must navigate through different obstacles in space, finding shortcuts through warp gates, and hiding in nebulas and asteroid fields, in order to make it back to the space station. The shortest route might not always be the safest!
You can check out the original Kickstarter page here, where the initial run hit roughly $6k of its $30k goal before canceling to retool. This page has all the details to paint a picture of the original title which does have some interesting mechanics.
ABOUT ROOT
You are one of four different races found deep within the forest and you are all fighting amongst yourselves for forest supremacy. You might be someone strong and logical like the cats or someone mysterious that is small in numbers but nimble like the Racoon vagabond; regardless, everyone has their pros and cons. For 2 – 4 players, games last 60 – 90 minutes.
FOR MORE: Root Page | Games Like Root | Buy Root on Amazon
ABOUT FORT
You’re a kid! And like many kids, you want to grow your circle of friends, collect pizza and toys, and build the coolest fort. By doing this cool stuff, you’ll score victory points, and at the end of the game, the player with the most victory points wins! Your cards not only let you take actions on your own turn but also let you follow the other players’ actions on their turns. For 2 – 4 players, games run 20 – 40 minutes each.
