At a media event here at Gen Con, CMON was showing off some new games they have coming down the pipeline. I was able to grab designer Eric M. Lang and get the lowdown about Hate, a new bloody and brutal board game that will be CMON next Kickstarter project.
While an individual game might be 2-player (and last about 60min), the “core” of the game is a campaign-style series of games that up to 6 players can participate in, overall. So think of the game as its own 6-player league. While one-off games are certainly fine, the real “meat and potatoes” of the game comes from playing the league-style campaign, where players will be able to upgrade their characters and village between game sessions.
Though that may be getting ahead of myself. The game takes place in a brutal… very brutal post-apocalyptic world. It was described as “Mad Max on steroids.” This isn’t going to be a game to take to grandma’s house or play with little kids. It is brutal. It is mean. Unspeakable acts will be done (all in good fun on a game board, of course). Players are in control of their own band of survivors and they are looking to increase their resources and become leader of the world. They’ll do this by engaging in battles with the other players’ tribes.
In the game, there are three main stats. Those are: Resources, Scavenge, and Hate. Resources are just that. They’re things players will use to upgrade the buildings back at their camp in order to make it more livable (and brutal, but we’ll get to that). Scavenge is what you’ll use to upgrade your warriors. In this harsh land, you’ll need every scrap you can to survive. Finally, there’s Hate. This also allows you to upgrade, but more in terms of abilities and things like rerolls for your characters.
So, everything seems pretty tame so far. Well, that’s where the real nastiness comes in. As I mentioned, the game is used to its fullest potential when played as a set of interconnected scenarios. Thing is, if you have a character die, they’re just gone. If they get horribly wounded, that’s not healed between missions. Want to drag off an opposing player’s character and throw them into your spike pits back at your camp? You’ll be able to do that. Doing so will even get you bonuses and resources from it.
And that’s a quick overview of Hate. Obviously, expect more details as this gets closer to its launch on Kickstarter.