After a few moments, you come to your senses. The nausea and splitting headache are now familiar, as is the smell of the cryostasis coolant that just was drained from your Pod. Around you, other crewmembers are awakening.
But wait... what is this place? This is not the Waking Room of the ship you were put to sleep! What happened ? Could it be that our transport was hijacked by organ traffickers and our cryotubes stored here ?
As the rest of the humans awaken, the central computer broadcasts a message on the P.A. system: "Station Argo central systems. Xeno presence detected. All personnel proceed immediately to Escape Pods."
The lights change colour to further stress the emergency.
First, the location change, now Aliens ?What the...
- "Chief, where are we ?"
Your team has awoken, and is reporting to you.
- "Don't know, don't care. You heard this. Let's find the Escape Pods and leave this place, stat!"
Lead your team to the safety of the escape pods and leave station Argo before the Aliens kill you!
Push the others to make way in the cramped corridors, and use Astronauts from other teams to slow down the Aliens. Be careful however because if too many die, everyone will lose!
Argo is a tile-laying space station crawler, with lots of puzzle aspects, and a "not-cooperative but you have to behave" aspect that makes it unique in its genre.
Playing Argo is easy:
1) First, you move one Alien
If the Alien kills an Astronaut, you gain one point.
The dead Astronauts are placed on the Alien score track.
In this example, the Aliens have killed 2 Astronauts, and have 5 points.
2) Then you place a new tile or shuttle into play.
If it has a red Alien head, it comes with a new Alien on it.
3) Then, you move your Astronauts. If there is no room, you PUSH other Astronauts!
You can make up to two moves with different Astronauts each turn.
The active player makes all decisions and gets all benefits : push your opponent Grunts to kill Aliens, and get the points for yourself! Push their other Astronauts on Aliens to kill them, and score points!
Rooms also can be activated for special effects. Corridors hold one Astronaut, rooms 2.
4) As soon as two Astronauts are in a shuttle, it leaves station Argo.
You gain points for your seat (2 for Yellow, 3 for Green). Last aboard gets most points! Chief doubles the points, so Yellow scores 4.
5) When all shuttles are gone, the player with the most points win ONLY IF the Aliens don't have more points.
If Aliens have more points than the player with most points, everybody loses!
BE SURE TO WATCH THE GAME VIDEO BELOW!
This is the best way to know how Argo plays!
http://www.trictrac.tv/video/Argo_The_Game
2-4 players, 40min, 13+
In Argo, you lead a team of Astronauts to the Escape Pods. However players also control the Aliens, and the seats in the Escape Pods are limited, so unpleasant things will happen. The pushing action in the cramped confines of Station Argo make for a puzzling challenge as you strategically plan your moves. There is no room for luck in Argo.
You earn points by placing your Astronauts in the escape pods Pods and by killing other Astronauts with the Aliens. However, the Aliens also get points each time an Astronaut dies, and if you use them too aggressively the Aliens will win the game!
Here are a few pictures of the components :
All pictures are from a prototype version or 3D renderings, not actual game components.
The box size is 30x30x7Cm, a large box is required to accommodate all the components!
Here's what the game looks like during play. (Only part of the components are shown on this image, there is much more in the box.)
Click here to download the multilingual rulesbook (En Fr De Nl Es It - updated 14.11.2016)
Here is a presentation of the game with Mr Jamie from TricTrac
http://www.trictrac.tv/video/Argo_the_How_and_What
Here is a full 2p game with Mr Jamie from TricTrac:
http://www.trictrac.tv/video/Argo_The_Game
Argo Kickstarter campaign Participating retailers :
- EGDGames http://www.egdgames.com Spain
- Isle of Games http://www.isleofgamesaz.com USA
- Game Depository http://gamedepository.com New Zealand
- La case départ http://www.casedepart.be Belgium
- Lolipop http://www.lolipop.be Belgium
- Jeux Descartes Bordeaux http://www.69rtc.com France
- Variantes http://www.variantes.com France
- Dedale https://www.dedale.be Belgique
- Jeux Descartes Lyon https://www.facebook.com/JeuxDescartesLyon/ France