ICv2 had a chance to chat with Glenn Drover of Forbidden Games at the ACD Games Day, who shared some details about the upcoming Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates, releasing in August, as well as the company’s philosophy for producing games.

Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates is a race game set during the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean Sea.  Each player commands a trio of pirate ships making their way across a map of the sea, trying to be the first to reach a Spanish treasure galleon anchored off Trinidad.  The game features a deck builder mechanic, with each player’s deck of cards representing the crew of their ship.  As they make their way across the board, they have the option of taking detours to plunder merchant ships, earning cargo that can be cashed in at any of the towns to purchase famous treasures and improved crew cards for their decks.

The game ends as soon as any pirate reaches the treasure galleon.  Points are awarded for the position of the ships on the three routes to Trinidad and the treasures acquired during the game.  The player with the most points is crowned the “Pirate King” and wins the game.

Extraordinary Adventures:  Pirates was created by Glenn Drover (designer of Age of Empires III:  The Age of Discovery and co-creator of Railways of the World), who described the game as "Very streamlined, fairly easy to teach, but the depth of the game is in all the different cards which basically have either movement or a special power.  You’ve got lots of little strategies and tactics in the game, but it’s very easy to learn and teach.  You can get non-gamers involved, casual gamers, and play with heavy gamers.  Everyone can play together."

Disney artist Mark Page contributed more than 100 pieces of original artwork for the cards in the game.  It is intended for 2 to 5 players, and takes a little under an hour to play.

The game will premiere at Gen Con this summer, and will be included in the "Pop-Up Gen Con" program (see "‘Pop-Up Gen Con’ Brings Convention to FLGS").

Production of Extraordinary Adventures:  Pirates was funded through a Kickstarter campaign that attracted $94,493 in pledged support from 1,487 backers (an average of $63.55 per backer) last November.  Drover explained that Kickstarter was a cornerstone of the company’s planning, including for its two earlier projects, Raccoon Tycoon and Railroad Rivals, stating that "Our strategy is to Kickstart always, then bring it to the hobby channel, then bring it more mass channel.  This game [Raccoon Tycoon] will actually be going in a lighter version into Barnes & Noble for Christmas."

The company is currently seeking funding for the first Raccoon Tycoon expansion, titled The Fat Cat Expansion, which has pulled in $93,928 from 1,988 backers as of this writing (an average of $47.25 per backer) with eight days remaining.  The campaign, like Forbidden Games’ earlier efforts, includes a retailer-only backer option.