Designers: Stan Kordonskiy (Dice Hospital, Lockup: A Roll Player Tale, Rurik: Dawn of Kiev), Jonny Pac (Coloma, A Fistful of Meeples, Sierra West), Drake Villareal (Merchants Cove)

Artists: Mihajlo Dimitrievski (Architects of the West Kingdom, Explorers of the North Sea, Paladins of the West Kingdom, Raiders of the North Sea, Valeria: Card Kingdoms), Yoma (Gearworks, Planet Unknown, Rurik: Dawn of Kiev)

Publisher:  Fantasia Games

Genre/Mechanisms: area majority/influence, deck building, end game bonuses, hand management, modular board, set collection, simultaneous action selection, solo/solitaire game, tableau building, territory building, worker placement

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Endless Winter – Paleoamericans is already fully-funded. Pledges currently total more than 20x the initial funding goal, with 4 days left to go on the campaign!

Player Count: 1-4

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: medium-high

What It’s About: “Endless Winter: Paleoamericans takes place in North America, around 10,000 BCE. Players guide the development of their tribes across several generations—from nomadic hunter-gatherers to prosperous tribal societies. Over the course of the game, tribes migrate and settle new lands, establish cultural traditions, hunt paleolithic megafauna, and build everlasting megalithic structures. Endless Winter is a euro-style game that combines worker placement and deck building in an innovative way. Each round, players send their tribe members to various action spaces, and pay for the actions by playing cards and spending resources.”

How It Works: “The game is played over 4 rounds, each of which represents a generation. Each round is divided into 3 phases.”

“During the Action phase, in turn order, players take turns until all players have taken 3 turns. During each turn, a player plays 0-2 Culture cards from their hand, places one of their remaining figures (activating the top space of an Action column on the main board or the Eclipse action on their player board), discards any played cards, and if it’s their third turn of the round, Prepares the Ritual Pile.”

“During the Ritual phase, turn order is adjusted and each player may take Eclipse actions.”

“During the Preparation phase, players reset the boards for a new round.”

“After the 4th Ritual phase, the game proceeds to Final Scoring. Players receive points for Sacred Stone tiles, the Offering Track, the Honor Track, Tribe and Culture cards, Animal cards, and Stacked Megaliths. The player with the most points wins the game.”

Comparisons: A handful of other games also with a Native America/First People theme include Discoveries: The Journals of Lewis and Clark, Lewis & Clark: The Expedition, Mexica, Nētā-Tanka, Teotihuacan: City of Gods, Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar, and Wendake.

What Should I Pledge?:
$60 Pathfinder: the Deluxe Edition of Endless Winter, the Ancestors Expansion, Canine Familiars Module, and all unlocked stretch goals.
$90 Shaman: everything in the Pathfinder pledge level, plus the Ceremonial Grounds Module, Rivers & Rafts Expansion, Cave Paintings Expansion, and Digital Soundtrack.
$120 Chief: everything in the Shaman pledge level, plus the Resin Components Upgrade Pack and Large Playmat.

Add-Ons:
$17 Rivers & Rafts Expansion
$17 Cave Paintings Expansion
$30 Large Playmat
$8 Small Playmat (covers the card section only)
$12 Resin Components Upgrade Pack
$3 Ceremonial Grounds Module
$5 Digital Soundtrack
$8 Big Box Upgrade (fits all planned future expansions, and replaces regular box in your shipment)

KS Exclusives
There are a ton of Kickstarter Limited items that may be available later at an additional cost, but will not be packaged in for free with other items as with this Kickstarter. There are also several Kickstarter Exclusive items that will not be available outside of this campaign, including the Digital Soundtrack, Dual-Layered Megalithic Tiles, Screen-Printed Camps, (5) Chief Washed Miniatures with Ivory Effect, and the Big Box Upgrade.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S., you’re looking at $120 for the Chief Pledge, $8 for the Big Box Upgrade, and $27 in shipping for a total of $155.

Endless Winter – Paleoamericans completes its Kickstarter on Tuesday, November 17th and tentatively ships in December 2021.