Project : New earth mix between Alien and Star Trek

[Jeannot]

Hello everyone from France.

I’d like to introduce my board game, Project New Earth.

It is a space exploration and survival game playable solo or in co-op where you play as one of the senior officers of an human colonization expedition.

The game will take place primarily on the ship, which you will have to manage to upgrade and secure it against external and internal threats.

You will also be able to explore planets and wrecks, or simply mine asteroids. There are over 200 events that can occur during the game, with numerous iterations possible.

You were awakened mid-journey by the ship’s automated systems due to the deactivation of the main AI. You will have to complete the expedition by exploring different stars. You will need to awaken members of your crew to direct, upgrade, and secure your ship during its journey.
You will have many challenges to overcome before completing your objective: discovering a colonizable planet, the new Earth…

I will begin a kickstarter campain next september. Here is the Teaser

[Marx]

Hello Jeannot! Welcome to the server.

AI generated art is an instant kiss-of-death for me, but I know a lot of people don’t mind nearly as much.

What are the actual mechanics of the game? Deck building worker placement, at a guess?

[RossM]

And by next September do you mean in 2 months time?

[Jeannot]

Hello Marx and thank you for your welcome.

You will indeed have to manage the placement of your crew, which has specific statistics and skills. The objective is for them to maintain your ship, improve it, and secure it. Indeed, as your expedition progresses and depending on your actions, events will occur on your ship. These can be more or less serious breakdowns or the intrusion of unwanted creatures, each of which has a specific strategy and objective.

On your side, in addition to managing your crew, you’ll need to manage your ship’s stocks and organize exploration missions to locate a colonizable planet. No deckbuilding. Think of this game as a narrative board game with RPG components.

I will give you more information as time goes on.

[Jeannot]

Hello RossM

Yes, the game is 98% ready.
I’ve conducted numerous playtest sessions with my friends and family or at festivals. I’ve spent a lot of time writing content to make each game unique. There are even secret endings and custom endings based on the planet you colonize (Scenario 1) or terraform (Scenario 2). There will even be additional scenarios that I’ll present during the campaign, including a PvP scenario.

[RogerBW]

@Marx

AI generated art is an instant kiss-of-death for me

Me too.

@Jeannot, for your reference, we mostly don’t encourage this sort of announcement here. But welcome to the board, and I hope you feel able also to use it for something other than promoting your own game.

[Jeannot]

Hello RogerBW

I am also here to discover other boardgames.
I have some time to catch up with my daughter and my wife

[Jeannot]

Hello everybody

And here is a presentation of the Blop, a medium-sized creepy “dirty thing”…

The Blop is a massive alien creature, somewhere between a misshapen caterpillar and an animated tumorous growth. Its bloated, gelatinous body is studded with small, pulsating orifices that occasionally emit gases, fluids, or internal clicking sounds. From its gaping maw hang long, sensory and feeding tendrils, swaying limply around it as it crawls slowly. Its movement produces a wet, sticky noise, accompanied by a trickle of viscous secretions that gradually hardens into a rigid organic resin.

Wherever the Blop passes, the environment is transformed. It colonizes ventilation ducts, technical shafts, or poorly monitored ceilings, covering everything with this dark, half-hard, half-living matter, which serves as a cocoon, a nutrient reserve, or a trap. The Blop doesn’t hunt, it waits, it spreads, and above all, it settles. Some completely invaded areas become inaccessible without heavy equipment, and the rare intrusions report murmurs, oozing… and sometimes, smaller forms emerging from them.

[Jeannot]

Hello guys.

Did you know that the hostile creatures you encounter will have afflictions to pass on to your crew?

You’ll have the opportunity to mobilize your research team to discover vaccines.
I’m giving you the opportunity to introduce one of these afflictions.

The choice is yours !!!

[Jeannot]

Hello everyone

Based on the overall feedback I’ve received, the worm gestation has won. But first, I must introduce you to the “kind” creature who will be passing it on to you…

The Vermibus is a swarm of alien worms the size of a human finger, with translucent skin that is shades of purplish flesh. Their surface is shiny, dotted with microscopic chitinous suction cups and hooks, allowing them to slip through the ship’s plumbing and maintenance ducts undetected. Equipped with a primitive collective intelligence, they proliferate at an alarming rate, feeding on organic matter, waste… or bodies.

Lurking in the ship’s metallic bowels, the Vermibus bides its time. When they reach critical mass, the swarm becomes aggressive, emerging in teeming waves to overwhelm the crew. They attack not just to kill, but to recycle flesh and fuel their expansion. Every attempt at purging seems to only slow the inevitable—for where a Vermibus crawls, a colony is never far away.

Worm Gestation is an advanced form of biological infestation, transmitted by a small alien creature acting as the reproductive vector of the Vermibus. During incubation, it injects a cluster of microscopic eggs directly into the victim’s soft tissue. The host initially feels only mild discomfort: stomachache, chills, a feeling of internal throbbing. But within minutes, the nightmare takes shape. The eggs hatch inside the body, which then becomes a living colony—a fleshy nursery for dozens of larvae.

Baby Vermibus devour everything in their path: muscles, organs, nerves. The body swells, throbs, and writhes in unbearable pain. Movements beneath the skin are visible to the naked eye, veins burst, and jets of internal fluid sometimes accompany uncontrollable spasms. The death of the host occurs when the internal mass can no longer support the parasitic load. At that moment, the skin splits, the orifices distend, and a swarm of young, already mature Vermibus escapes by crawling towards the vessel’s conduits. Each victim is not only lost… it becomes the source of a future invasion.

You can now access the Kickstarter campaign pre-lauch page

[Jeannot]

Hello, everyone.

To celebrate reaching 80 subscribers on the Kickstarter campaign pre-launch page, I’ve decided to open the doors to the armoury and show you the big guns you’ll be able to use to hunt Aliens.

The Hanta MK III, the flagship product of the Hanta corporation, is an ultra-modern assault rifle designed to combine lightness, robustness and great firepower. Made from a titanium alloy and reinforced Polymer, it resists the most extreme conditions while remaining maneuverable in the field. Featuring an integrated holographic aiming system and an adjustable rate of fire, it excels in both close-range and long-range combat. Its modularity allows the addition of high-capacity magazines, silencers or grenade launchers, making it a versatile weapon popular with armed forces and mercenaries.

Please feel free to subscribe on the pre-launch page if you would like to see more.

[Jeannot]

Hello, friends.

Members of the French board game community were concerned about the number of QR code scans required during a game. In response, we worked together to create three technical sheets that players can use to speed up the pace of the game. The three sheets will allow you to avoid scanning Crewmates, Hostiles, and Rooms cards.

Below is the result (in physical and French versions, which will be provided in the box along with the same three cards in English).

What do you think?

[Marx]

Yeah, the QR codes were a very bad idea, and this looks… very inelegant. An improvement, but not a solution.

Too many rules. Way too much stuff to cross reference and check. Way, way too much text.

At a glance I would say you are way too big in your scope. Space Alert, a game that’s been out for… 15+ years?.. has twice the number of baddies, with all the information available at a glance on a standard card.

I think you probably need to tone everything down by a factor of 10.

But I could be wrong. I only took a glance, after all.

[Jeannot]

Hello Marx

Sorry for my slow response. I just got out of the hospital after an 8-day stay…

I disagree with you. The main rules are available on this only page Do you think there are too much?

1 page of these technical Sheet is dedicated as a reminder of the rules. The other pages list all the abilities of enemies, characters, and rooms to avoid having to scan them during the game. All you have to do is scan the QR codes for the events and locations. There is narration to personalise your game and the effects.I think it’s the perfect compromise for a fast-paced game with plenty of twists and turns.

[Marx]

I mean, if you’re convinced that it’s perfect as is, don’t let my opinion sway you.

A quick glance over the rules reveal what I would consider a lot of problems, and yes, the way the rules are currently written (in English at least, my French isn’t strong enough to attempt it in the original language)… I would charitably describe it as “weak.”

You have to check the Star “special effects” at the end of the Ship sequence. Which means every turn after you check any Time Sequence QR Codes, you then have to scan the Star QR code again… every turn…

How many dice for a Damage check? 1D6 plus Damage Tokens minus Reinforcement Tokens but ONLY if there are a minimum of 3 Damage Tokens, and a result of 8+ results in nothing but a 9+ is the room becomes Damaged… unless the room is already damaged in which case it is 2D6 plus Damage Tokens minus Reinforcement Tokens and a result of 16+ results in the room being temporarily Destroyed… because rooms that are Destroyed can be Repaired by Technicians in adjacent rooms can make a Repair Test, which if it passes, lets the crew make an Engineering Test (a test to see if you can make a test…) which if THAT test passes lets you put the room in a Functional State (with Damage Tokens? Without Damage Tokens?).

That’s a mess. Why have Reinforcement Tokens if they just subtract from Damage Tokens? Why not just have any Damage remove a Reinforcement Token first, and once you’re out of Reinforcement Tokens then you start to accumulate Damage? Why have 1D6 in one case, and 2D6 in the other? Just make both of them either 1D6 or 2D6 and, if you really want, give it different target numbers?

This was after looking at the rules for all of 2 minutes.

But again, if you’re happy with it, go for it. But if you’re looking for advice… I’d playtest this thing until you can get rid of all the QR codes completely, and I’d do heavy reworking to most of the core rules so that you can explain them in one long breath without any lookup tables or charts involved whatsoever. I can explain the rules to Twilight Imperium 4th Edition in 15 minutes, and as one of the more complicated board games (not the most by a long shot), it involves all of zero times you have to cross-reference a QR code or scan anything.

“If I had more time I would’ve written less.”

[RossM]

I’d love to see you explain TI in 15 minutes. It absolutely baffles me

[Marx]

It can be done. I have done it.

The core mechanics are pretty simple (“On your turn you can either do the action on your Strategy card, you can activate somewhere on the board, or you can do anything that has the word ‘ACTION’ before it like a card or a racial power”). You spend a Token from your Command Pool to do anything on the board, you spend a Token from your Strategic Pool to do anyone else’s Strategy’s secondary ability, and the last pool of Command Tokens is how many capital ships you can have in a system.

Planets all have two resources, “Votes” (technically Influence) and “Materials” (or Materiel if you wanna sound fancy).

Combat is straightforward until you start adding technologies in (“Roll a D10 and get your target number or higher, ships with lower numbers are better”), and then you just run through the Strategy Cards (This one gets you a bunch of tokens plus more tokens if you spend Votes at a rate of… 4 votes per token?.. off the top of my head. Might be 3 or 5. This Strategy lets you declare any one sector of space except the Capital World as Very Difficult to Attack. This Strategy lets you stack political favours in a way that benefits you, plus lets you pick first of the Strategy cards next turn. This Strategy lets you build starbases or PDS on a planet. This one lets you gain Trade Goods and offer them to other players for favours. This one lets you activate one of your sectors twice, letting you attack with the same fleet multiple times. This one lets you gain new technologies, which bend or break rules or make your ships better. And this one lets you find new and interesting ways to score points, which is how you win the game, including holding the Capital World).

Then it’s just discussing the order of activation when you want to invade or build in a system (all clearly outlined on everyone’s player board) and the racial powers.

Don’t get me wrong: there is a LOT of “So this rule always applies unless something breaks it” in the explanation, and I usually don’t cover the Political Phase (“The Agenda Phase” if you wanna be technical) until somebody takes Mecatol. But the beating heart of the game isn’t actually that complicated.

It’s the player interactions and the depth of the decision space that makes it complicated. And the Action Cards.

[Jeannot]

If I understand you correctly, Marx, ultimately it is the explanation itself that is poorly written in its English version? If you want we can meet each other online to rewrite them without changing them. what do you think?

[Marx]

No, I think the rules are flawed and need a lot of rework. Not a translation issue (as far as I can tell).

I haven’t really dived into the systems. The game is clearly not designed for players like me (the AI art is a massive indication of that). If you’ve already sunk a few thousand hours of playtesting in and this is at a stage where the people who play it without you around are having fun, I’d say go ahead and ignore me. There are plenty of very popular, successful games I don’t like (Risk, Stratego, Monopoly, Clue, and Uno to name some off the top of my head).

But if you’re asking for honest feedback from what I can see, the rules seem weak, the gameplay itself seems poorly thought-out, and there is a lot of indication that the game is way too ambitious and lacks a fun core gameplay loop.

But again, I’m a rando on the internet. If other people are telling you that it’s good the way it is, go for it!

[Jeannot]

No problem Marx.

I appreciate your honesty. You have arguments that support your return. And I understand that I cannot satisfy everyone.