Designers: Kat Kimoundri (HEXplore It: The Forests of Admiron, HEXplore It: The Valley of the Dead King), Nathan Loos (HEXplore It: The Forests of Admiron, HEXplore It: The Valley of the Dead King), Jonathan Mariucci (HEXplore It: The Forests of Admiron, HEXplore It: The Valley of the Dead King)

Artists: Yanis Cardin (After the End, HEXplore It: The Forests of Admiron, HEXplore It: The Valley of the Dead King), Konrad Lenga (HEXplore It: The Forests of Admiron)

Publisher: Mariucci J. Designs, LLC (HEXplore It: The Forests of Admiron, HEXplore It: The Valley of the Dead King)

Genre/Mechanisms: cooperative play, dice rolling, grid movement, modular board, press your luck, role playing, storytelling, variable player powers

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, HEXplore It: The Sands of Shurax is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total almost 8x the initial funding goal with 3 days left to go on the campaign.

Player Count: 1-6

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-heavy

Risk: medium-high

What It’s About:  The Sands of Shurax is an exploration and hero-building adventure game, and the third game in the HEXplore It series. It can be played standalone, or as an expansion with the previous games.

How It Works: All of the HEXplore It games have been designed to play via randomly generated board positioning using one of many included scenarios. In addition, Mariucci J. Designs is now in the process of designing and implementing a Campaign Mode, beginning with the first game, The Valley of the Dead King, and the first campaign should be completed by the end of 2019 and be made available to all backers of the current Kickstarter campaign as a .pdf. For now, we’ll just be focusing on current gameplay.

Heroes lose the game if they die before one of the four win conditions has been fulfilled. In HEXplore It: The Sands of Shurax, these conditions are specific to each City-State. They are: Phorora and the other heroes must reduce the Ravager’s Energy and Outlast values to 0; Dria and the other heroes must gain 100 Platinum; Tarri and the other heroes must defeat Pilenkiknay (Boss 8), then pull the Ravager to the other three City-States and defeat them; and finally, Nemsynet and the other heroes must defeat the Ravager, reducing its Health Vitals to 0. If any of these win conditions are met, the heroes win the game.

Each turn, gameplay consists of the following steps: Move Heroes (together as a group, up to 4 Hexes per turn), Roll Skills (each Hero), Roll a Circumstance (one player), Settle the Event for the location the Heroes occupy on the map, and finally, The Ravager acts and then the next turn begins. In addition the game begins with characters selecting a class and race, and adjusting their class stats based on their race using a dry erase marker and the game’s laminated player boards. This gives the game some of its gameplay variability, as well as simulating some of the character variability found in RPG’s like Dungeons & Dragons. HEXplore It also includes combat, Missions and rewards, and Caravan Events.

Comparisons:  HEXplore It is essentially a dungeon crawler combined with a dudes-on-a-map game, while leaning into the character statistics of tabletop RPG’s. It certainly has more of a board presence than straight paper-and-pencil RPG’s, but it also has more customization and narrative options than a standard dungeon crawler like Descent. There’s also a lot of game here once you account for the two previous volumes as well as the upcoming fourth volume. And HEXplore It’s developing campaign system, if successful, will add another mode of gameplay and many more hours of game experience. But keep in mind that most board game dungeon crawlers, particularly those available via retail like Descent, streamline many elements so that players can get right to playing the game. HEXplore It’s positioning closer to old school RPG’s means that there’s more set-up and book-keeping, and less of the mechanics are handled “behind the curtain,” and it consequently requires a deeper level of involvement in some of that kind of minutiae. This will likely greatly appeal to some gamers while being seen as a turn-off by others.

What Should I Pledge?:
$64 Hexplorer’s Pledge: The Sands of Shurax and all unlocked stretch goals for the core game.
$91 Mutant’s Pledge: the Hexplorer’s Pledge, plus The Sands of Shurax Living Card Deck Addon, The Forests of Admiron Living Card Deck Addon, and The Valley of the Dead King Living Card Deck Addon.
$95 Heroes’ Pledge: the Hexplorer’s Pledge, plus The Sands of Shurax Expansion Box and the Domain Seer’s Club.
$104 Monstrosity’s Pledge: the Heroes’ Pledge, plus The Sands of Shurax Living Card Deck Addon.
$140 Legionnaire’s Pledge: combines everything in the Mutant’s Pledge and the Heroes’ Pledge.
$160 Content Creator – Forest’s Peril Pledge: the Legionnaire’s Pledge, plus the ability to create a card in The Forests of Admiron Living Card Deck Addon.
$160 Content Creator – Valley’s Peril Pledge: the Legionnaire’s Pledge, plus the ability to create a card in The Valley of the Dead King Living Card Deck Addon.
$160 Content Creator – Artificer’s Pledge: the Legionnaire’s Pledge, plus the ability to create an item for The Sands of Shurax Expansion Box.
$190 Multi-Volume – Wastelander’s Pledge: The Heroes’ Pledge, plus a copy of The Valley of the Dead King (2nd Edition) and The Valley of the Dead King Expansion Box.
$190 Multi-Volume – Sunscorched Mind’s Pledge: The Heroes’ Pledge, plus a copy of The Forests of Admiron and The Forests of Admiron Expansion Box.
$250 Content Creator – Caravaneer’s Pledge: the Legionnaire’s Pledge, plus the ability to craft a Caravan Master in The Sands of Shurax Expansion Box.
$264 Multi-Volume – Templar’s Pledge: combines the Multi-Volume – Wastelander’s Pledge and the Multi-Volume – Sunscorched Mind’s Pledge.
$304 Multi-Volume – Pharoah’s Pledge: combines the Multi-Volume – Templar’s Pledge and the Mutant’s Pledge, plus the HEXplore It: Heroes’ Chest.
$500 Ascendant Explorer: combines the Heroes’ Pledge and the Mutant’s Pledge, plus the HEXplore It: Heroes’ Chest and a beta copy of Volume 4 in the series: The Domain of Mirza Noctis.

Add-Ons:
$6 Dice Set: includes 4 Sand Dice & 2 Pyramids (4-sided), 6 HEX Dice (6-sided), 6 Fate Dice (8-sided), & 6 Skill Dice (10-sided)
$8 Hex Dice Bag: embroidered, with draw strings, in either purple or burgundy
$12 The Valley of the Dead King Living Card Deck Addon
$12 The Forests of Admiron Living Card Deck Addon
$12 The Sands of Shurax Living Card Deck Addon
$27 Bundle of all 3 Living Card Deck Addons
$29 HEXplore It Heroes’ Chest: a metal-clamping storage box with dividers and storage solutions within.
$69 The Valley of the Dead King (2nd Edition)
$39 The Valley of the Dead King Expansion Box
$69 The Forests of Admiron
$39 The Forests of Admiron Expansion Box
$64 The Sands of Shurax (additional copies)
$34 The Sands of Shurax Expansion Box (additional copies)

KS Exclusives:
None listed.

All-In Total: If you’re not interested in the beta copy of the next volume, then in the continental U.S. you’re looking at $304 for the Multi-Volume – Pharoah’s Pledge plus $12 in shipping (which seems low for this pledge, but that’s the only shipping price quoted), for a total of $316.

HEXplore It: The Sands of Shurax completes its Kickstarter on Sunday, September 1st and tentatively ships in August 2020.