Designers:  Michael P. Lee, Rose Atkinson (Crypt X, NewSpeak, Sub Terra II: Inferno’s Edge)

Artist:  Marco Luna (Sarah’s Vision, Sub Terra II: Inferno’s Edge)

Publisher:  Inside the Box Board Games (Molecular: The Strategic Chemistry Tile Game, Sub Terra, Sub Terra II: Inferno’s Edge)

Genre/Mechanisms:  economic, exploration, network and route building, pick up and deliver, push your luck, set collection, tile placement, worker placement

Funding Status:  At the time of this posting, Aquanauts is already fully-funded. Pledges currently total more than the initial funding goal with 7 days to go on the campaign.

Player Count:  2-4

Solo Mode:  no

Complexity:  medium-light

Risk:  medium-high

What It’s About:  “Aquanauts features an accessible engine building and resource management puzzle wrapped in a worker placement system, providing an introduction to Euro-style gaming as well as an entertaining experience to veteran gamers who want to explore the deep ocean.”

How It Works:  “Players are competing to make the greatest contribution to science. Players will need to use their robot and aquanaut workers to collect resources, build new facilities, and operate the submarine in order to earn Contribution Points through publishing papers, achieving public objectives and working together in the shared facilities. The game ends at the end of the round in which a player publishes their fourth paper. The winner is the player with the most Contribution Points at the end of the game.”

Each round, players will 1) Run Automated Systems, 2) Assign Workers, and 3) Return Workers.

When Running Automated Systems, players do the following: add 1 Power to the Stockpile; refresh the Construction Track; allow players to activate the buildings in their grid on their player’s board once each, paying the resource costs; and allow players to active their Aquanaut, paying the resource costs.

During the Assign Workers phase, players take turns starting with the player with the First Player Token, in clockwise order, placing a worker on a Research or Construction space on the Central Board, paying the Facility’s costs and taking the resources shown. Players may only deploy their Aquanaut during the Assign Workers phase if they paid to do so during the Run Automated Systems phase.

“The Research Board is made up of connected Facility Tiles. When a Facility is activated, the activating player pays the cost shown at the bottom of the tile to the supply and collects the Resource token(s) produced by the tile, placing them in their store. A placed worker remains on that tile for the rest of the round. Each Facility Tile can only be occupied by one worker at a time. Resources can also be sent to the surface in the submarine to publish scientific papers. Workers may only be assigned to the Research and Construction boards – they cannot be assigned to tiles on a player board. The Facilities on the Main Research Board are connected by Nodes, which give bonuses when workers collaborate. Nodes activate when two of the adjacent Facility Tiles are occupied. When the Node activates, it pays out the bonus resource shown once to each worker occupying the connecting tiles. If both workers belong to the same player, that means they get two of the bonus resource! Nodes, like Facilities, can only be activated once per round. If a worker is placed on a connected Facility after the node has already activated this round, the node does not activate again and the worker does not earn a bonus resource.”

“The ‘Load’ and ‘Launch’ tiles are used to operate the Submarine, sending resources to the surface to publish Papers and bringing valuable Building Materials down to the sea floor. These tiles are different from the rest of the Facilities on the Research Board, and can be occupied by any number of workers. When a player places a worker on the Load space, they choose whether to load the Dock or the Submarine. When Loading the Dock, the player takes two Building Material tokens from the Supply and places them in a Dock bay, along with a Player Marker of their colour. When the Submarine is launched, it will bring these Building Materials tokens down from the surface and the player can put them in their store. Only Building Materials may be loaded into the Dock. When Loading the Submarine, the player takes up to 6 Resource tokens from their Store and places them in a Submarine bay, along with a Player Marker of their colour. When the Submarine is launched, these resources can be used to publish a Research Paper.”

“The ‘Launch’ tile launches the Submarine. In addition, the Submarine also launches automatically when either the Submarine or Dock bays are all filled. In either case, the Submarine launches immediately, as follows: 1) The Submarine is moved up to the surface; 2) The player who launched the Submarine can then decide in what order to unload the Submarine bays. If the Submarine was launched automatically, the player who triggered the launch chooses the order; 3) Each bay can be used to publish a maximum of one Research Paper. A player can only publish a paper if they can pay the cost of a paper with the resources in their bay. Players cannot combine bays to publish a better paper. The player then takes the published paper and places it on their own Player Board; 4) If the player cannot publish a paper, they can instead trade in three of the resources in the bay for three Contribution Points. This can only be done once per bay; 5) Once a player has either published a paper or traded in three resources, they discard the remaining resources in that bay and the next one is unloaded; 6) Once all bays have been unloaded, the available Research Paper slots are refilled from the deck; 7) The Submarine now brings the Building Materials in the Dock down to the Research Base. Distribute the Building Materials in the Dock to the player who owns each bay. They place the Building Materials in their Store; and 8) Return the Submarine to its starting position.”

“Research papers are the primary source of Contribution Points in Aquanauts. The resource cost of the paper and the number of CP awarded for publishing it is shown on the card. Each paper also has a Subject – Bony Fish, Sharks, Molluscs or Cnidarians – shown by the creature symbol on the card. Some Public Objectives may depend on the paper’s Subject. Players do not immediately take CP tokens for their published papers – instead, the points on published papers are added up at the end of the game. Once published, players place the Research Paper face down in one of the slots of their Player Board, so only the paper’s subject is visible.”

“The Construction Track enables players to build Facilities on their Player Board. To construct a Facility, the player places a worker on the space beneath that Facility Tile on the Construction Track, paying the cost shown. They can then place that Facility into the Grid on their Player Board. Facility Tiles can’t be rotated; they must be placed the right way up in the Grid. Once a Facility Tile has been placed, it cannot be moved. Each player’s Player Board has room for up to five Facilities.”

“Each game, there will be a limited number of Public Objective Cards that players can earn. Public Objectives represent different achievements, like having the best ‘Cutting-Edge Facilities’ or becoming a Specialist in a particular species. Players claim a Public Objective immediately when they have met the requirement. Objective Cards may require players to have Published Papers on certain subjects (shown by the corresponding symbols), have constructed a certain number of Facilities on their Player Board, or a combination. The player who claims it receives the number of Contribution Point tokens shown on the card. Once claimed, a Public Objective is flipped face down and no other players can score it. Public Objectives are not replaced.”

“Once all workers have been placed, players take their workers back, ready for the next round. Robots return to their worker slots, and the Aquanaut returns to the Living Pod.”

“Once any player publishes their fourth scientific paper, the game ends when the round finishes. No player can publish more than four papers. When the round has ended, players turn over the papers on their Player Boards. Each player adds up the number of Contribution Points on their papers and the number of Contribution Point tokens in their store to get their total number of Contribution Points.”

Comparisons:  Thematically, the game bears some similarities with Underwater Cities, another worker placement game. And the Submarine mechanism, while different from the shuttle in On Mars, bears some similarities as a bottleneck mechanism; in On Mars it becomes a necessity to access other worker placement areas, in Aquanauts it becomes a tool to transfer resources and publish Research Papers, the main way to earn points in the game. Some other nautical-themed games include Keyflower (which also features both tile placement and worker placement), Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North (worker placement), Madeira (worker placement), Manila (worker placement), and Raiders of the North Sea (worker placement).

What Should I Pledge?:
$49 Amateur Diver: the Kickstarter Edition of the Aquanauts core game.
$80 Aquanaut: the Kickstarter Edition of the Aquanauts core game, all stretch goals and exclusives, and a full set of miniature buildings, aquanauts and robot workers.
$123 Pioneer: the same rewards as the Aquanaut pledge, plus the Deluxe Submersible.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives
The Echinoderms Mini-Expansion, and, if the $55,000 stretch goal hits before funding, the Hypochromic Promo Card.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S., you’re looking at $123 for the Pioneer pledge plus $14 in shipping for a total of $137.

Aquanauts completes its Kickstarter on Friday, April 10th and tentatively ships in June 2021.