Here is the list of all tournaments Bandai will be running at GENCON 2012 in Indianapolis Indiana:

While force and aggression may have it benefits, skillful tactics will often claim you victory just as easily. The best way to earn VP without the risk of battling against enemies is through the use of Green Actions cards. These cards have effects that vary widely, and are crucial in your quest to be the best adventurer so know then well!

First up is “Francis Drake’s Ring (AC-032)”, the one ring that started us off on our quest around the world from the hottest jungles to the coldest icy mountain tops. This Action cost you a whooping 5 cards from your hand but upon the completion of the game will garner you VP equal to your current remaining Life, which means up to 12 additional VP, now that’s one powerful ring!

Our next card is what every adventurer hopes to find at journey’s end – “The Spoils of War (AC-031)”. Once again after the initial steep cost of 5 cards this Action nets you VP equal to the total cost of yellow cards in your play area at the end of the game. So if you dig searching out Treasures, playing Green and Yellow cards may be right up your ally with this Action.

This last card will really light up your day, the “Tibetan Flint Lighter (TR-018)” rewards players who take a real liking to their Green cards, and can potentially gain you 6 VP upon its completion.

Respect your greens since their mastery will lead to your victory!

These behemoths of destruction want nothing more than to grind you beneath their treads. What they lack in agility, they more than make up for in toughness and firepower. The easiest way to defeat them? Don’t fight them in the first place, and let the tank blow away your competition for you. If you find yourself in a most advantageous position, however, you should grasp for glory yourself, as defeating this difficult foe will prove beneficial not only to you, but to others as well. I myself prefer a good RPG or two for leveling the monstrosity.

Just two of these aimed at the right spot will be more than enough to secure your victory, however make sure your aim is true, as the cost is too steep should you fail to win.

Join me next week as I take you through just a few more adventures of my own. We are on the cusp of you beginning your own trek through dangerous territory, with riches pattering the way before you, waiting to be discovered!

Traveling Overseas

Eventually all great adventurers must embark on a globetrotting expedition full of mystery, danger, and tons of flying on airplanes. What better way to cross the vast ocean blue than by sitting between the twin propellers of a monstrous fuel filled beast? It certainly allows you to speed along faster than the competition, giving you more options than everyone else. However beware, the ride can leave you lagged, forcing you to take a break much sooner than your fellow travelers.

This reminds me of a certain now famous adventurer (though I would call him a thief). Quick witted, he was unusually adept at getting himself into all sorts of trouble. Just because you want to get on an airplane doesn’t mean that it has to be your chartered plane. He learned this the hard way when the chartering party found out about their stowaway and attempted to deal with him properly:

Being the man that he is, notice that he is smirking more than being scared, almost amused at the prospect of this disintigrating plane coming down on top of him. Luck notwithstanding, he held on for dear life, other less fortunate men lazily falling to the desert below, disrupting the cascading waves of white. Of course, the plane had to eventually come down, at no thanks to the young gentleman holding on to the supplies. Seems he wanted a souvenir for his trip…

Of course, now that he was off of the plane, disembarking in the most unnatural of ways, he had a great deal of options: should he travel north thru the sands? West thru the sands? One thing was for certain: there was quite a bit of sand….

Gather round the campfire next week as I prepare you with more of my musings and ramblings for those willing to listen. Until then, get some sleep my friend, for we are weeks away from the start of your own grand expedition!

I wanted to remind everyone that just because an enemy is down, it doesn’t mean they aren’t still useful, at least not their weapons! For instance, having a rudimentary pistol may work for most problems, but soon you will find yourself up against a truly menacing threat. One that spits fiery bullets, takes hundreds to beat, and sometimes you can’t save the historic building you are standing in without taking the entire structure down to destroy your adversary.

Take this guy for example. Mean, isn’t he?

His tri-barrel gatling gun has a terrible whirring voice, a voice that hounds your ears and urges you to run before the firestorm forthcoming. Its pertinent that you maintain your health so when he gets the drop on you, your prepared to rip into him with equivalent firepower.

Of course, who says that the only treasures you can find are of the historical sort? I wouldn’t mind having this bad boy to rip through my opponents (and allies)! No other weapon can help you carve such a deep swathe through the enemy and the competition at the same time. If you find yourself standing over an enemy, victorious in your conquest, why not claim his greatest strength for yourself?

Not all of us can have guns, some have to rely on their ingenuity, and the will to explore every nook for that next great artifact. But not all artifacts are good for you, some are bad for the competition, which is also good for you! Maybe the jar has flesh eating insects inside. Maybe it contains a fantastical creature of olde, a djinn perhaps. For whatever reason, finding this treasure promises deep pain for any you wish to incur such a thing to.

Come to the fire next week and learn from my wisdom for your upcoming travels. Until then, don’t forget to claim what’s yours!

Anime Expo, 6/29 – 7/2, 2012
Los Angeles Convention Center

Please visit the Bandai Room (Room 510 West) if you are attending Anime Expo 2012 to take a demo of our great games as well as get some cool door prizes. We will be running demos of our games every hour. When you take a demo, you will also receive a raffle ticket and at the end of each day we will select a few winners for some random awesome prizes.

I trust many of you have gotten yourselves acclimated to the climate and conditions here. I know it took me a fair amount of time to get used to the heat! Until then, I’m here to share a few stories of my own adventurers so you know what to expect once you begin on your way to riches, eternal youth, or world domination!

In case you haven’t seen, we have a required video series for all those looking to explore the outside reaches of the camp. This series is made to get you adjusted to the rigors and perils you may come across on your journey for riches. You can find these videos here. Anyone watching the videos has been statistically proven to have a 20% higher chance of survival during their journey, so do take a look before you decide to embark.

Of course, I wouldn’t be a good guide for you unless I had some experience myself, no no of course not! I might not be the adventurer I used to be, but I have stories that could make the dead rise, though I wouldn’t want to see that again, haha!

What types of stories you say? Lets just say that I’ve dealt with my share of “competition”, like this guy:

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but his thuggish accent and menacing glare would give normal people reason to run. Me? No, of course not, not when I’ve got two of these holstered on me!

Firing both of these guns gives you just enough firepower to take him down, leaving you to enjoy the victory points, the spoils, and to continue your adventure in peace.

Until next time, travelers, be sure to get your rest, my friend, because the journey of a lifetime begins here.

In just a few weeks Uncharted: The Board Game will release at your local hobby store. Until then take this time to visit our VIDEOS section and watch our tutorials to find out a little about the game and how to play it. When the time comes to pickup the game at your local store, you will already be an expert at the game and blow your opponent out of the sky.

We currently have 3 videos up and more are coming soon. Please make sure to leave comments on the videos so we can know how you like them and make them even better for you in the future.

• Explore the world of Uncharted as you never have before!
• Scour the world for epic treasures with up to 3 other adventurers.
• Use your wits and cunning to outsmart your friends on your path to world’s greatest riches!
• Game comes with everything you need to start your adventure!

Visit our Rulebook Section to view the rulebook and start unlocking the past today!
Uncharted: The Board Game Video Tutorials Coming Soon.

We had an outside company to lead the development on this product, and they managed to make a fantastic game over in Japan called 7 Islands. Once you play 7 Islands then Uncharted, you start to see the similarities, especially in the exploring for treasure type of aspect, but beyond there the similarities cease. Where 7 Islands was more akin to a Deckbuilding Game, Uncharted is closer to a board game, complete with a full board, 190 cards, and tokens to represent your search for treasure, as well as keeping track of your Victory Points. The key to victory? Being the player with the most Victory Points when the game ends. The game is over when 1 of the 3 Decks on the board run out of cards.

The game itself does not have you building any form of a deck. In fact, the only decks that exist are the ones on the board themselves, with everything you do being tied to the play area in front of you. For all the cards in the game, there are 4 different colors, each representing a different type of card and design intent:

Red: Only Weapons will be Red. These will allow you to defeat the enemies while you are exploring.

Yellow: These cards primarily help you search for treasure, or manipulate other players during their own expeditions.

Blue: Primarily card draw and card filtering, some of these are also known to block damage and heal life.

Green: By far the most varied, green cards tend to show images of setpieces from the game itself, and provide a wide array of different abilities from bonus Victory Points to extra Actions.

When the game first started, we all had a basic 4 cards we always played, regardless of whatever else we drew. These cards came to be the 4 starters that each player begins with. These cards provide players with the bare essentials they need in order to begin searching for treasure, defeating enemies, drawing cards, and more.

The game begins with each player having 1 copy of each basic card in play. Each player then draws 3 cards for their starting hand. However, if you’re playing a 3 or 4 player game, the third player draws an additional card, and the 4^th player draws an additional card AND starts with 1 Victory Point. This keeps the game on an even keel from beginning to end.

Stick with us next time when we go over the basics of how the game is setup and played! See you all next Monday!