sinu's profile

Hi there. I would like to write a "thank you" letter addressed to Serious Poulp and make it open, so I believe this forum is the best place to post it.

To start with, I discovered 7th Continent somewhere around November 2017 and was crushed that I had missed. It was a relief when you announced re-opening of the pledge manager. Well, it was sad as well, as the reason behind it were the issues with cards in wave 1, but still, I was getting the chance to put my hands on the game, that seemed to be very special. And it was possible only to your outstanding customer service and decision to re-print cards for everyone. Thank you for that!

Obviously, when PM re-opened in July 2018, I went for it, ordered full game-play components and the dice bones and the countdown started. Then another delays started to occur along the way, but I didn't really mind, as you kept the communications frequent and clear. It was evident that rush was one of the main causes of the 1st wave issues, so I was still happy and confident that I would receive a perfectly produced game. Another thanks is for running the KS campaign in the manner you did.

Finally, at the sunny day of 29th May 2019 I got my big box, packed very secured and with all the content I ordered. Well, almost, as the core box was mistakenly in French. I've raised a ticked and... received an answer with proposed (and satisfactory) solution within an 1 hour. During 2nd wave fulfillment, tons of packages being sent and presumably a lot of backers contacting you at the time. As if all that weren’t enough, an English core box was sent to me 7 working days later. Just another evidence of your exceptional approach to your customers, that's insane and I can't appreciate it enough!

So the game itself... is it perfect? Well, no, it is not. It is, however, an excellent, unique game, one of the best games I've ever played (I am more into competitive PvP games, but 7th Continent is surely the best co-op game I've had chance to play). Before I go further, please note that I treat the game with all the content/expansions added as a one whole. That being said, I love how thematic it feels via presentation, art and mechanics and it is hard to believe how well the exploration/survive aspects of the game are designed (). It's great that there's no set story there, but instead you are allowed to create your own adventure. One of my concerns was that once the continent is fully explored, the game will be essentially done, and I am really amazed how wrong I was. The continent is huge and I am not really sure now whether it will be possible to see every secret there's is in the legitimate way. And even if one day I map everything, the game still can be challenging by taking multiple courses run and/or with the hardcore mode activated. What's more, my wife loves the 7th Continent as much as I do, so we are can collectively sink into the game. Tons and tons of fun stuff. But why then it's not perfect for me?

• Lack of balance in playable characters. That's not a competitive game, so it's not that big of a deal, however it drives me a little bit crazy how for example H.P. Lovecraft can be broken. On the other hand, crazy is his thing, so maybe that's all right?
  
• Game's difficulty is, let's say, ambiguous. It was rather difficult at start, but once we discovered that
  Small spoiler

  ×there are opportunities to discard one card from items stack and thus making possible to keep certain items indefinitely by "repairing" the stack
  , it became much less of a challenge,
  Small spoiler

  × so I believe that item management could use some kind of a re-work in the next installments of CYOA games.
  
  
• As mentioned earlier, I believe the replayability of this game is really high, I am not sure for two mini-expansions though. I strongly believe that the Comfort Creatures was the best one (branching outcomes and own companions, wonderful!), followed by Facing the Elements (a lot of flavor!) and then the Devourers (I like challenges ) and I have no concerns for these. However, I found The Flying Roots and Path of Repentance to be great for the few first runs and running out of steam for the following playthroughs.
  Small spoiler

  × In Flying Roots there's a neat mechanic to draw one outcome and banish 2/1 other during single plant investigation, however rewards for series of investigations to store under Satchel and Journal cards are always the same in the fixed order. A little bit of random would help there, but it would be also more difficult to balance probably. As for the PoR, I have mixed feelings. For the first game it was great, but once the ending is revealed, you know what to expect. With all the exploration cards added by other expansions, it might be tedious to fulfill the PoR goal and it requires a lot of luck or/and grinding. On the other hand, there's enough of 500 cards to finish most of the courses without reaching the PoR ending, so it's only relevant for the first VG run (or other courses if you stray) and probably some multi-courses runs.

  Medium spoiler

  ×To be fair, it can be played as a mini-course on it's own, as well,

  so all in all I am ambivalent about it.
  
  
• Even though introduced enhanced QA, back blue color of some action cards differs in my copy. It's very minor, subtle and visible only in comparison with other cards, so doesn't matter when we draw from the decks, but hey, it's there.

To sum up, you have all done a wonderful job at Serious Poulp and I can't thank you enough. Of couse Bruno and Ludovic receive the most appreciation as the designers, but I'd also like to thank Sarah from customer service, Firebird for the fora moderation, Kamille for the website, and all the other who participated in this successful project, that I cannot name. Kudos!

Oh, and by the way - I am sure that I will support 7th Citadel on day 1.