Thorgal: Update #13 – Journey

I don’t like the name of this action. We’ve been discussing it in the team, and I’ve been trying to change it for a long time, trying to convince the team that this word doesn’t suit me, but still without success. Maybe with your help, we can find a solution. The word that annoys me is Journey.

Yes, today I will talk about the Journey action.

In numerous visualizations of the game, you have seen beautiful maps of regions on which the Player Heroes will move. Each of these maps is divided into areas. To move from one area to another, players use the Move action. A figure located in the Mining area goes to the Port, or from the Port to the Fortress, or from the Port to the Settlement, and so on. A vast world divided into several important areas. The Move action. Everything makes sense, right?

So, what is the Journey action, you may ask!

The journey action represents the exploration of a given area, moving within its boundaries, and searching for sources of resources, secrets, rumors, or unique finds. It is represented by a deck of cards on which players will mark the areas they are exploring. Each card contains interesting places where you can find metal, learn rumors, or even have an encounter – represented by the “?” icon.

Each of the Player Characters has their own exploration ability, which indicates how well they navigate the terrain. In a game mechanics language, this means what polyomino shapes they have at their disposal to explore the terrain most efficiently, discover as many positive sources as possible and avoid spaces with dangers.

As you may remember from previous articles, during the game, players can earn Experience Points and spend them on development. One of the developments is to obtain better, more diverse shapes and thus be much more effective in Journey.

To make Journey a bit mysterious, we introduced two random elements – firstly, every time you discover a new Journey card, you discover something – each card has a unique discovery icon in the upper right corner. Small cute bonus to make Journey always a positive experience. Secondly, some cards feature encounter icons represented by “?”. When you decide to place your marker on such a space, you draw a card from the event deck. You may have discovered some rumors, a magical resource, or even an Experience Point… The deck contains a range of different cards that provide cool bonuses, but they are random and unpredictable.

To sum up – Journey action is an alternative way to quickly acquire a small amount of resources, a chance to earn Experience Points, but above all, it is about discovering sources of resources in the area, so that you can later use the action of Gathering them.

And the only question left is – do you like this name? Does it fit?

Find more about Thorgal here: https://gamefound.com/projects/portalgames/thorgal-the-board-game