You’ve got to applaud the makers of Mad Max-a-like board game Salvation Road for their timing. Launching their Kickstarter to coincide with the release date of Mad Max: Fury Road means they’ll surely pick up a rash of pledges from people fresh out of watching Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy explode their way across the wilderness.
We’ll get to the game in a second, but before that you’ve GOT to watch this piece of brilliance I just stumbled across, a nice ‘up yours’ of sorts to the kind of nonsense anti-feminist boycott blogs about the movie flying around.
Now you’re all PUMPED let’s have a look at the game. There’s more than a shade of the Dead of Winters about this one – that’s no bad thing though, right? The zombie apocalypse game has rocketed into the BoardGameGeek top 20 since being released last year, and it’s hand on heart the best new game I’ve played in 2015. Review soon, once I untangle my brain and pick my jaw up off the floor. Anyone familiar with Dead of Winter will recognise the general Salvation Road premise – a group of survivors, working together to collect resources like fuel, food and medicine to keep them alive while fighting off hordes of marauding bandits. There’s no traitor mechanic in this one, which is one of the things that really makes Dead of Winter a top drawer game in my book. But plenty of non-traitor co-ops are absolute belters – Pandemic and Ghost Stories immediately spring to mind – so let’s not hold that against Salvation Road just yet, eh?
Salvation Road’s win condition is where the game really pulls apart from Dead of Winter in a spray of dirt and oily fumes. It’s superbly thematic, and instantly understandable. You’re surrounded by biker gangs, whose raids are getting stronger by the day. They want your compound, but don’t realise that you’ve a leaky reactor which could explode any day. You need to get out, and occasional radio report from a settlement called Salvation seem to mark your only hope. Risk injury and death by foraging for resources, load up a truck and head out on the highway, hoping you’ve hauled in enough supplies and ammo to fight your way there.
I like this a lot. A pile of Road Cards lets you know what types of resources you’ll need to get through each section, but you’ve no idea how many of each you’ll need unless you’ve managed to scout ahead during the game. But that’s hard to do when you’re whirling around fighting mad bastards and grabbing useful items, so there’s always a toss up between knowing what you need to prepare and actually getting stuck in and grabbing the goods.
Man – what’s tantalising is that once you’ve loaded up your truck and accelerated out from the relative safety of your compound, there’s no going back. You hit all the Road Cards one by one, and if you can’t meet the cost of one or pay the toll when you get to Salvation, you’re toast. It’s brilliant – imagine the tension and arguing in the group about when to set off. Crazed attackers are rolling in harder every turn, you’ve got a bunch of stuff in the truck, but can you hold out two more turns to grab the extra fuel you might need? One more to hunt down extra ammo, just in case? My brain’s already fizzing at the thought of it, and if anything makes the game shine it’s got to be this.
Let’s get down to brass tacks. It’s a pretty reasonable $49 if you’re from the US, but more like £40 for the UK and a hefty €65 for mainland Europe due to shipping costs. Publishers Van Ryder Games are apologetic about this on the Kickstarter, and have sorted it so postage for three copies is generally the same as for one. That’s not ideal, but if you’re champing at the bit to pick this up perhaps roping in a couple of mates to buy copies, or taking the opportunity to sort gifts for friends or family, is the way to make the individual game costs a bit more manageable.
Here’s the Kickstarter link again to save you scrolling back to the top, and a video to watch too. You lucky things!
