A Kickstarter Daniel (@dungeondive) backed has landed, and his shorthand for it is Seven Moons with more moving parts — a one-to-four-player open-world hero builder where the same rules serve solo, co-op and competitive play, only the victory conditions changing.
You pick one of four heroes, each with a class and a stunt deck, and build outward from three stats — mind, body, will — that feed derived values for charm, flee, hit, health, damage and fortune. Every turn opens with a fortune roll on a d20 that generates income and gear, then an action phase spent moving hexes, triggering encounters, establishing shops, scouting mini-bosses or recruiting militia. Characters start absurdly fragile at one health, but death costs only a victory point and a walk back to the nearest city, and power snowballs quickly once gear arrives.
The clock is the Aspect of Yordai, marching toward an erupting volcano; reach it first and the world ends. Militia parties can be spent as cannon fodder to shove the boss back, which Daniel rates as a timer that genuinely works — pressure without a pure countdown.
His reservations are specific: the tiny cylindrical stat markers are miserably fiddly and he’d replace them, two southern cities are so much better positioned against the boss route that solo play feels steered, and shipping only one boss flattens replay. He backed it, is glad he did, and wants three bosses in the box.
Daniel wants the single boss replaced with three variants to vary the sandbox. Which open-world game in your collection lives or dies on its endgame threat?