It’s been a long time since I did a Game Buzz post, but when your favorite board game designer is releasing his first original board game in eight years, you post about it. So, here’s my look at

Severton is an upcoming board game to be published by Albi that was designed by none other than Vlaada Chvátil. It’s his first board game since 2017’s That’s a Question – everything since then has been expansions or reskins of existing titles. In fact, I think it’s hist first non-party game since 2013’s Tash-Kalar: Arena of Legends. The game is for 1-5 players, and is based in the world of Rychlé šípy, which is a Czech series I know nothing about. It apparently follows a group of young friends who have adventures together. Severton is a cooperative game, where players are taking on the roles of these youths to discover the secrets of Severton, a neighborhood in Prague that is ruled by Vonts.

The game comes with five scenarios, which progressively add new mechanisms. However, the rules do specify that you can replay them as much as you want because you’ll be making different choices each time to create a new experience. Additionally, there will always be five characters in the game, with some people controlling multiple characters in games with fewer players.

The game is played on a board, which the characters will move around. The five characters always start in a particular spot, but where they go from there will be up to the players. Additionally, there are ten progress boards in the game, two for each scenario. These are set up end to end, and you can change the difficulty of the game by flipping them to reveal more stars for a harder game. The left side of the board is reserved for the Vonts cards (group and movement). Some of these will be dealt out facedown, and Vont tokens will start in random spaces on the board. There is also an action deck from which each player will get four cards (some scenarios also give you other cards). The scenario will also direct you to set up a quest deck.

In the upper left corner of the map, there is a dial. This is used to track the phases of play, with a token moving clockwise as each phase is completed. This will continue until you win (or lose). There are seven phases: Actions, Vonts, Quest, Unrest, Vonts Refresh, Players Refresh, and Quest Replenishment.

1. ACTION: During this phase, you’ll be playing action cards to move and explore. Players can take turns in any order throughout the phase, taking a turn whenever it makes sense. There are two types of actions:
   • Move: There are 22 marked spaces on the board, and paths of different colors connecting them. To move along a path, you simply play a card of the matching color. Other characters can move with you by playing any card (color doesn’t matter for this). A character can make a maximum of two moves per action phase.
   • Explore: If you play a card with the flashlight symbol (purple or wild cards), you take an Explore action. You can use this to discover a secret passage, or to investigate Vonts that are within two movements of you. This reveals their Group and Movement cards.
   • Additionally, each character has a special ability which can only be used during this phase.
2. VONTS: During the Vonts phase, you’ll activate each group by first revealing their movement card, move them, and discarding the card. They’ll follow paths just like the characters do. Vonts can’t end on a space with other Vonts (and will regroup if they need to), but they can land in spaces with characters. If this happens, a Vont encounter occurs – reveal their Group card and resolve the encounter by fighting, outwitting, or hiding. Or getting caught, but try not to do that.
3. QUEST: Here, you’ll be looking at any revealed Quests and following their instructions.
4. UNREST: During this phase, the Unrest token advances two spaces. If it reaches the end, the game is over. It may cross certain symbols that trigger different actions, like adding more Vonts or giving players an extra move the next round.
5. VONTS REFRESH: Draw new facedown movement cards for each Vont group and deploy any that have not been sent to the board.
6. PLAYERS REFRESH: Players who were caught come back to the board, and all players draw new action cards.
7. QUEST REPLENISHMENT: Draw new quests to replace any that were completed. This doesn’t happen in Scenarios 1 or 3.

If you complete your objectives, you win! If not, you lose. And that’s pretty much it.

Not really knowing the source material for the game, I don’t think I can really comment too much on the theme. My interest in this game exists solely because of Vlaada Chvátil. And I do think it looks pretty interesting – it’s cooperative and scenario based, which he has done well at in the past. It seems like a game that would be pretty fun to explore, with all the different Vont groups and characters and scenarios. The rules seem fairly straightforward and basic, and with no knowledge of what the scenarios entail, I don’t think I can make a judgment call of how they play out. But, I am a Vlaada fanboy, so I feel like I can trust his designs, even if it has been a while.

I look forward to hearing people’s reactions when the game comes out, which should be at Spiel in October. But that’s it for me today, so thanks for reading!