Roam
Designer: Ryan Laukat | Artists: Ryan Laukat
Ryan Laukat is a game designer who just wants you to explore. First, we were invited to go Above and Below in his colourful and attractive fantasy world of Arzium, and then Near and Far, before he tempted us to head off to Islebound. Now… Well, the clue is in the title. But despite the expansive, open-ended promise of Roam, this latest Laukat doesn’t have the thematic breadth or depth of any of its Arziumbuilding predecessors. In fact, it is his most compact, and abstract, game yet.
The theme, such as it is, inflicts a sleeping sickness on the diverse residents of Arzium (goat-people, warthog-people, lizard-people, peoplepeople), who now wander aimlessly around the land, somnambulantly performing quaintly strange little tasks, such as “building a restaurant near a sulfuric geyser” and “breaking priceless gems with a hammer.” It is up to the players to head out into the wilderness, find them, and gently bring them back into reality.