What is Project Aleutian?
We are excited to announce our first prototype, Project Aleutian! Project Aleutian is a race against nature to bring down a stone cloud, a floating land mass, to prevent it from crashing down in a populated area. Of course, the nations of the world also want to recover as many resources as possible before it makes landfall. Each player takes on the role of one of these nations as they compete for the resources and technologies that will improve life within their borders.
Basics of Play
In Project Aleutian, cards are drafted from two displays of face-up and face-down cards located between each pair of players. A turn consists of performing as many general abilities, available on drafted cards, as desired followed by performing one of three actions: collect crystals, purchase a card, or perform a specialty action.
Collecting crystals involves discarding an available card from the display to collect crystals of various colors from the supply.
Purchasing a card involves spending your crystals to acquire one of the cards from the display into their play area. Cards in your play area have a permanent effect unless they are noted as general or special ability cards.
Some cards, once in a player’s play area, grant the user special abilities. Using a special ability usually requires paying the cost to use the action followed by getting the action’s benefit.
Phases of Play
The game progresses through two phases: the chase and the descent.
The game begins in the chase as the nations try to stabilize the stone cloud, and land it within their borders. This is to stake claim to it once it hits the ground. The displays are made up of cards from the decks of the two bordering nations. Once one of the stone cloud’s core crystals is removed, the stone cloud begins to make landfall.
The descent phase occurs as the stone cloud makes landfall, and all of the nations make a last ditch effort to recover resources. A new display composed of stone cloud cards is set up in-place of the depleted display. These cards contain high value cards for acquiring victory points.
The game ends once a set number of core crystals, dependent on the number of players, is removed from the stone cloud. Once the game ends, victory points are totaled to determine the winner.
The Nations of Bryche
Navaire is a coastal nation on the planet of Bryche, the setting of Project Aleutian. As a coastal nation with a rich naval tradition, they are well known as experts in navigation. As such, they are renowned makers of traditional compasses that use the magnetic field of Bryche to aid in traversal of the seas and skies. They also developed special compasses that use their nation’s blue crystal to point toward and help find specific resources on the planet. Their ability to locate crystal deposits for themselves and other nations has led to Navaire being one of the richer nations on Bryche.
Scivatan, also known as the “Mountain Empire,” holds lands primarily amongst the largest mountain range on the planet of Bryche. The mountain range is rich in a yellow crystal that remains hot and never seems to cool down. It was used early in the nation’s history to keep their mountain homes warm, and at the dawn of industry it quickly became a sought-after heat source for steam powered machines as it was more reliable. Access to these crystals has led Scivatan to be a leader in the development of new engines and tools used by all nations.
Seulana is a nation primarily consisting of forest and desert on the planet Bryche making life both abundant yet sacred to the Seulanans. They work to live in harmony with nature and are very conscious of what resources they use to further their goals. The nation is rich in a green crystal which restores broken inorganic items to a repaired or complete state. However, to the Seulanans it represents a spiritual connection of the object with its soul, and restores an object to its true form. Those who are called to a life of shaping the souls of objects are called Exemplars. Exemplars use their skills for humble tasks such as common repairs for the general public, for technical marvels such as making roads that never need repair, and for historical import such as restoring manuscripts or relics weathered by time.
State of Development
Project Aleutian is a functioning prototype several versions in with many play tests under its belt. Since the game is still evolving, the test version boasts printer paper cards, placeholder art, and simple pieces.
The game will continue to go through play testing for the foreseeable future as other finer points of the design are developed. Madelyn Hogrebe (@heartoflakesandmountains) has started developing art for the game as the primary illustrator for the game.
The current goal for this game is to enter crowdfunding in 2025.