Fancy your chances? Take up pick and shovel, Yooper; fame and fortune wait for no man.
Kickstarters come and Kickstarters go, but the team behind resource management goodness Copper Country has something well worth your time and cash. Picture this: it’s 1840, and there’s a fortune to be had if only you and your fellow Yoopers can tame the wilds of Michigan. You control a copper mining company, and laid out before you is mile upon mile of trackless wilderness. Stake your claim, dig that precious metal, and if you can just eke out the last precious ingots of profit before the final lump of poor rock chokes off all opportunity, you’ll be the richest magnate in the state!
If you’ve been following the wise sayings of board game guru and pear fluffer Quinns of Shut Up and Sit Down, then you may already have heard of this cunning little title. Here’s the intriguing twist: at the start of the game a lump of poor rock is placed on each one of the 33 industry track spaces. Each time a lump of copper is torn from the earth, one of those bits of poor rock is moved from the industry track to a mine, closing it off forever.
That means, first, that removing the poor rock could reveal something useful, or intriguing, on the industry track: a new business, or a historical event. It could also advance the era, meaning that new technologies and tools become available, making your operation more efficient while at the same time reducing the total amount of potential copper out there. Second it means that the game clock has advanced one more doom-laden tick, since the removal of the last bit of poor rock means the game is over. Meanwhile your workers are busy trying to keep the company going and the copper flowing, but come winter – or some other disaster – they’re going to die like flies unless you’ve planned ahead.
Wondering how this works in practice? Fear ye not, as veteran gamer Rahdo has covered gameplay extensively in his series of videos. If all you’re interested in is his final thoughts, check it out here, but if you want to know more about the gameplay and have about half an hour apiece free, go here and then here. Spoiler: he really likes it!
Copper Country‘s Kickstarter has 19 days to go at time of writing, and it’s a touch over $5,000 away from its $31,200 goal. It is a boardgame, so overseas backers had better pay attention to the postage rates, but for those of you out there who really can’t live without more area control and resource management in your lives, hie thee to Kickstarter ASAP.
Source: Copper Country Kickstarter
