The Dwunnies’ Guardian Tree has fallen victim to an unknown disease. The waterfalls of the Delven lands have begun to run dry. Food has become scarce for the livestock that the Porc nations rely on to maintain their way of life. All these changes have driven citizens of these nations to seek prosperity in the newly formed Risen Isles. Play as a proponent for one of these forces as you seek out resources and renown in this new frontier.

Short Hop Games is making their debut with their first game: Quests & Cannons: The Risen Islands! Designed by Eric and Shannon Geller, this 1-6 player board game tells the story of the inhabitants of Miraheim as they take to the seas in an effort to survive a changing world. The world of Miraheim and those within it are brought to life by the artistic talents of Sita Duncan, Lilia Sitailo, Régis Torres, Lily Yao Lu, and Tony “MrKrane” Carter. Quests & Cannons has not been released as of this publication but will be launching on Kickstarter on September 21, 2021. Our preview copy was provided by the publisher with a few prototype elements so the final product may look different from the images we have provided.

This game comes packed with multiple modes of play using unique characters on a modular board. Our copy came with a total of twelve characters to choose from; each with an ability tied to their nation and a second unique to themselves. Free for all allows each player to fight on their own regardless of their alignment in the story while Team and Co-Op will require characters to be of the same nation/kingdom. The game even provides rules for solo play in case your hunger for adventure needs sated before you can bring friends together for a session. The fact that each of these can be played with either the map layouts suggested in the rules or via alternating tile placement by the players means that no two games need ever be the same.

Setup for each mode is relatively the same with a few differences that will be explained for each. Players begin by constructing the outer ring and filling it in with terrain tiles in one of the methods previously mentioned. A random resource token is placed face down on each island space and any islands not on the board should have their respective clue cards removed from the Map Clue deck before play. The Map Clues, Loot, and Quests decks are then shuffled separately and one each placed around the board on the outpost tiles (the order is not important). Each player receives a ship board and sets it up with sails, cargo spaces, and cannons according to the character they have chosen. They will also need an action point tracker, one map clue card, five black ammo dice, a blue Traveler’s die, three coins, and a ship token with its sail matching their likeness.

In Free For All and Team Mode, each player will need to choose a starting location for their adventure. It should be noted that in Team Mode all members of a single team will not only need to be members of the same kingdom but will also need to begin from the same side of the board. Free For All mode is just as it sounds and the first player to achieve a predetermined amount of prestige will trigger the end game conditions. Any players that have not yet had a turn in that final round get one last chance to play. Team mode will have each nation combining their points towards a common goal and play order will go from nation to nation so that no given group has two turns in a row.

Co-Op and Solo Mode set up a bit differently as the game will throw some NPC ships into the mix to try and deter players from their goals! Players can use the character panels from an opposing nation to keep track of their ships for hull structure and cannons, but they will follow their own set of rules for movement and interaction as laid out in the game’s rulebook. Not only will the heroes need to achieve the prestige of the other modes and avoid enemies across the board, but each character will have a personal agenda that they must achieve as well should they wish to be declared victorious. Both of these modes implement a hard limit on the number of rounds per game as well. All of this is in the rules, and we at the Cardboard Cantina found Co-Op to be the most fun when playing with only two players.

All this, and we still haven’t explained how Quests & Cannons is played! Like mentioned before, Quests & Cannons brings a lot to the table in just one box. During their turn, a player can spend up to three action points. These may be used to move, gather, or attack. Movement allows a ship to go into an adjacent space so long as it is not impassable or difficult terrain, the latter of which requires two movement. Additional movement may be added to a move action by expending unused sails on the player’s ship board for an additional space each. If a player ends a move on an island, they may flip the resource token (if it is as of yet undiscovered), and doing so will earn them one coin. Stopping on an island allows the player to draw one quest card. While on these spaces a player may also spend an action to complete a clue if the island matches a card in their hand and/or use the gather action. Gather will allow them to add a single token of the represented resource to their ship’s hold. Should a player wish to attack, then their target must be in the same space as their ship and they must have ammo dice available. They can roll a number of dice up to the number of cannons currently equipped on their vessel and each die used is expended until they can buy more. For every four pips in the total roll, a hull point is removed from the target. Should they manage to damage or sink their foe they will receive loot and prestige as per the rules. Trading posts, home spaces, and outposts all allow a slew of trading, buying, and other actions that will be explained in greater detail in the rulebook as well, but it should be sufficient to say that they play a key role in earning enough prestige to come out ahead in the clash to victory.

There is so much replayability and fun in this box that we will definitely be backing this in September! Quests & Cannons: The Risen Islands is family-friendly, easy to teach, co-op and/or competitive, quick to play, and so much fun we couldn’t put it down. We pride ourselves on getting multiple plays in of a game and exploring it as much as we can before we write a review, but Short Hop Games really hit it out of the park for their first game. During our multiple plays, it became apparent how much work, effort, and playtesting went into this game. Thus far everything seems incredibly balanced and we can only hope that this continues to be the case as new characters are tested and potentially added to the final game. We will, with tearful eyes and sobbing farewells, be sending our review copy on to the next in line and be forced to wait with bated breath for the Kickstarter to come around and fulfill before this gem makes it back on to our table. It is with sweet sorrow that we wait, but wait we shall. Anyone who loves exploration, set collection, naval battles, hidden agenda mechanics, the smell of cannons in the morning, or any combination of these elements should keep a sharp eye out for this game’s debut!

All Short Hop Games product photos were taken and edited by Krista.