At Origins, ICv2 spoke with Levi Mote, designer of Horizons, an upcoming game from Daily Magic Games.

Mote (Ruse) created Horizons to capture the feel and style of the “4X” game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate), but without the often-lengthy playing times common to that genre.  As he described it, Horizons “takes a 4X game, which traditionally when you say 4X, people think long, drawn out games.  We can play this game with three of the four Xs, we leave extermination out. We can play it in about an hour with up to five players.  It puts it more in what most people would play in a game night, but it still gives you that 4X feel.”

Horizons combines action selection and area majority mechanics.  Players acquire “allies” that can be exploited to improve their actions as they explore the galaxy, which is created using tiles drawn from a bag.  When planets are discovered around stars, players can then build structures on those worlds to gain majority control.  As players exploit their allies, however, they are returned to the pool where other players can acquire them and use their advantages.

Daily Magic plans to fund production of Horizons through a Kickstarter campaign in September.  Backer fulfillment is planned for next April, with release into the trade to follow.  The MSRP for Horizons has not been set, but Daily Magic expects it to fall into the $50.00 to $60.00 range.

Daily Magic also plans to release a Euro-style game in the second quarter next year called Sailing Toward Osiris (see “‘Sailing Toward Osiris’”).  Earlier this year, the company joined PSI’s catalog of publishers (see “Daily Magic Games Joins PSI”).

See prototype game images in the gallery below!