Designer: Jake Staines (Austerity, Dungeon in a Tin)

Artists: Ilya Baranovsky (Dune Express), Jake Staines (Austerity, Dungeon in a Tin)

Publisher: Side Room Games (Black Sonata)

Genre/Mechanisms: card selection, resource management, solo game, worker placement

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Maquis is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total over 12.5x the initial funding goal.

Player Count: 1

Solo Mode: yes

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-high

What It’s About: A light solo worker placement game set during the Nazi occupation of France, intended to play in under 30 minutes.

How It Works:  Take actions around the board by placing your workers, but also simultaneously drawing Patrol Cards and placing Milice pawns. If workers are “caught” during patrols by the Milice collaborators or Wehrmacht soldiers, they’re arrested and removed from the game. Gather resources while recruiting fellow patriots and undermining the Nazi occupation by blowing up trains, publishing underground newspapers, and the like. When you complete your second mission, you’ve won the game. If your last worker is arrested, the town’s Morale reaches the fail space, or you have not won by the end of the 15th day, you lose.

Comparisons: While some worker placement games include a solo mode (Agricola, Anachrony, Caverna, Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island to name a few) the highest-rated single-player-only worker placement game on BoardGameGeek is Deep Space D-6 by Tony Go, who coincidentally is about to launch a campaign for his new game, Jumpship, in a few days. The historical context (and the Patrol Deck) also brings to mind games like Black Orchestra and Twilight Struggle.

What Should I Pledge?:
$24 Marquisard: copy of the game plus all stretch goals.
$40 Leader of the Resistance: vanity pledge level with your name printed on the inside of the box.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives:
None.

All-In Total: In the continental U.S., you’re looking at $24 for the Marquisard pledge (I’m not counting the vanity pledge level here as part of the all-in) plus $10 shipping for a total of $34.

Maquis completes its Kickstarter on Sunday, May 5th and tentatively ships in December 2019.