The 7th Continent

Lore & Background

The 7th Continent is inspired by adventure books within which players are able to make their own survival decisions. It can be played individually or with up to four individual players or teams. Players progress at their preferred pace, using a save system that allows the game to be paused and re-started where left off. Each player can save items they have collected, along with their action deck and terrain card. The game requires players to use survival skills including hunting, fishing, crafting, using the environment, and gaining experience points to trade for new skills. Players go through a different adventure each time due to multiple possible random events and alternatives for any single card. Players can be easily added or dropped out of a game. The game is designed to be played with cards and dice.

The game exists in a universe where a mysterious land has been discovered off the coast of Antarctica known as the seventh continent. Each player is an explorer who has just returned from the first expedition. Several other members of this expedition group have disappeared suddenly upon their return. The explorer has been feeling strange symptoms for the past few days. As the explorer falls asleep, they are transported back to the seventh continent to lift a curse. Each curse requires multiple clues (typically 3 to 5) to be resolved, not just one.

Reader's Guide

The 7th Continent holds significance as a landmark crowdfunding success in the board game industry, raising over 5 million USD in less than 24 hours on Kickstarter in 2017. Its cooperative, storytelling gameplay, inspired by adventure books, introduced a save system that allowed players to pause and resume sessions, a feature uncommon in board games at the time. The game's design emphasizes survival skills and replayability through random events and multiple card alternatives, ensuring each playthrough differs. The game is exclusively available through the Serious Poulp website, with a Classic Edition base box retailing for $69 USD and a Collector Edition base box reserved for Kickstarter backers. Expansion card packets and various accessories are also available, along with mobile apps for Android and Apple platforms. The 7th Continent won the 2017 Swiss Gamers Award and the 2017 Board Game Quest Awards Best Card Game Winner, cementing its legacy as a critically acclaimed title that expanded the possibilities of narrative-driven board games.

Did You Know?

• It was designed by Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter.
• The game features a save system that allows players to pause and restart where they left off.
• The Collector Edition base box is exclusively available for those who helped fund the game on Kickstarter.

Origins & Crowdfunding Triumph

The 7th Continent emerged in 2017 as a storytelling cooperative board game created by designers Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter. What set it apart from the start was not merely its design but the explosive public response it generated. The two designers launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, and the result was nothing short of extraordinary: the project surpassed five million US dollars in pledged funds in under twenty-four hours. That single day of fundraising placed it among the most heavily backed Kickstarter projects of the entire year, a remarkable achievement for a tabletop title. The scale of that early support signaled that Roudy and Sautter had tapped into a deep hunger among players for a narrative-driven, cooperative experience that treated the player as the true protagonist rather than a spectator of a fixed story. The financial success also gave the project the resources to develop the game's ambitious card-based systems, multiple editions, and the exclusive distribution model that would follow.

Gameplay & Design Philosophy

At its core, The 7th Continent draws inspiration from the tradition of choose-your-own-adventure books, a lineage that empowers the player to shape their own survival path. This philosophy is captured in the game's tagline, "YOU are the hero." The experience can be enjoyed solo or with groups of up to four players or teams, and one of its most distinctive mechanical features is a built-in save system. Players can pause their session and resume later, preserving their collected items, action deck, and current terrain card. Progression is governed by a suite of survival skills—hunting, fishing, crafting, leveraging the surrounding environment, and earning experience points to unlock new abilities. Because every card carries multiple possible random events and branching alternatives, no two playthroughs unfold identically. The game is built around cards and dice, and its flexible structure allows participants to join or leave a session with minimal disruption. Actions can be taken alone or in coordination with fellow explorers, giving the cooperative framework genuine strategic weight.

Narrative & World-Building

The story world of The 7th Continent is anchored in a specific, evocative premise: a mysterious landmass has been discovered off the coast of Antarctica and named the seventh continent. Each player assumes the role of an explorer who has just returned from the first expedition to this unknown territory. The return is marred by tragedy—several fellow expedition members have vanished without explanation, and the player's character has been experiencing strange, unexplained symptoms for days. The narrative tension crystallizes at a single moment: as the explorer drifts into sleep, they are transported back to the seventh continent, where they must break the curse binding them in order to resolve the crisis. This is the precise point at which the board game begins. The overarching goal is to lift the curses the player faces, guided by clue cards—one per curse—shuffled into the deck at the start. Terrain and adventure cards depict specific patches of the continent and the events tied to them, while action cards drive movement, decisions, and represent the player's health.

Distribution, Editions & Critical Recognition

Distribution of The 7th Continent is handled exclusively through the Serious Poulp website, a deliberate choice that keeps the product tightly controlled by its creators. Two base-box editions exist: a Classic Edition, retailing at sixty-nine US dollars, and a Collector Edition reserved solely for those who backed the project during its Kickstarter campaign. Beyond the core boxes, the catalog includes expansion card packets and a range of supplementary game accessories, all purchasable through the same platform. The experience has also been extended to mobile devices, with dedicated apps available for both Android and Apple operating systems. Critically, the game earned immediate recognition upon its 2017 release, taking home the Swiss Gamers Award and the Board Game Quest Award for Best Card Game in the same year. These accolades, combined with the record-breaking crowdfunding numbers, cemented The 7th Continent as one of the standout narrative board games of its era and established a template for player-driven storytelling in the medium.

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