When I think steampunk I’m immediately taken to the skies. Specifically my mind goes to giant airship battles being done overhead with crews scurrying about decks while trying to manage all sorts of contraptions in the air. When thinking steampunk, everyone wants to be an airship captain commanding the biggest, baddest ship in the wind, and that’s no laughing matter. If you take intense airship battles and mix them with unique, modular gameplay, you’d get Zephyr: Winds of Change, which is now on Kickstarter from Portal Dragon Games.
In Zephyr: Winds of Change players choose their own airship to captain, each with its own specific layout, special ability, and deck of action cards. Hire your own crew, each of which also will come with their own unique abilities that can be activated independently of the roles they take on the ship. Throughout gameplay you’ll draw cards that offer up different scenarios, building a unique story each time you play. You may encounter tough decisions that affect your crew in a major way, or you could be caught up by sky bandits and need to engage in combat, where you’ll draw cards to play out different effects.
The artwork for Zephyr is simply fantastic. It’s all done in-house, which means the creative team can really soar to all sorts of heights with bringing the game to life. What’s more is that they can offer an almost-complete game before it even hit Kickstarter. Expanding on that, there are several campaign rewards that allow the community to really take part in the game’s final creation stages. You can earn everything from getting your name into the game, affecting the creation of assignment cards, and all the way to becoming an actual crew member.
Zephyr: Winds of Change looks like the perfect cooperative game to bring to the table. Specifically for us, when it’s mostly two-player games that hit ours, this style of game is a perfect fit. The components are unique, the modular gameplay provides tons of replayability, and the overall theme is thick with flavor. Be sure to check out the game on Kickstarter, where it’s got about 20 days and 20k left to go. You can even slap down a pledge to become an evil warlord in the game!
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