French board game publisher Serious Poulp will release the new “choose-your-own-path” exploration board game The 7th Continent in 2016. The game is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, and has raised nearly $450,000.

Designers Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter have  partnered on Steam Torpedo and 8 Masters Revenge, both distributed in North America by Iello (see “IELLO Fall Game Round-Up”).  Their newest game, The 7th Continent, is a cooperative exploration and survival board game, which introduces an interactive storytelling mechanic in which players make choices that reveal divergent plot elements and encounters as they explore the mysterious continent.

In the game, players take the roles of intrepid world explorers in 1907, who have just returned from the first expedition to the newly discovered land off the coast of Antarctica. But fellow explorers from that first mission have suddenly vanished, and a mysterious ailment is debilitating players’ daily life.  So they must return to the strange land, and discover a cure for the curse (or curses) while attempting to survive in the unknown land.  Each curse sends the explorers on a different route, where they create the board game with different Terrain and Permanent event cards.  Players must survive risky situations and use their character’s skills to find food, build weapons, craft useful items, and eventually cure themselves of the curse.

The game is for 1 – 4 players, ages 12 and up. Game length varies by number of players, and if the wrong choice is made, a player’s game can end in as little as five minutes (death), or, conversely, go on for hours. MSRP was not announced. Expansions with new curses and additional cards are also planned for later release.