This is the web-based playtest version of Arctic Escape, a cooperative, family-friendly board game I'm developing.

Note: This is NOT an online game where each player sits at their own computer. Instead, it's a web page that simulates a physical board game, with the computer screen replacing the board and the game pieces. It's meant to be played by a group of players all in the same room, sitting around a single computer screen. (But if you want to include a player from another location, you can use a video chat app like Zoom to share the computer screen with them.)

Cooperative means that all the players work together to beat the game. Either everybody wins or everybody loses. Family-friendly means that the game is simple enough for young children to play, as long as they're part of a group with some older players.

In the game, you're a group of scientists investigating an ice floe when it begins to melt. You must make it to the other side of the floe where your ship can pick you up before too much of the floe melts and the whole thing collapses.

The floe is covered by different types of terrain, some of which require specific types of equipment in order to cross. (For example, mountains require rope, and deep snow requires a sled.) Each player starts off with some equipment, and they can get more as they use those up, or exchange equipment they have for more useful types, but it takes time to do that, and in that time, more of the floe melts.

Blizzards also move across the floe, making travel across the terrain more difficult.

At the beginning of each round of the game, if two or more players are in the same square, they can optionally form a single group that travels together more efficiently. When entering special terrain that requires a certain type of equpment, for example, only one member of the group needs to have the right equipment for the entire group to enter.

Each player also has a unique expertise that can help them or any group they're in more easily navigate the various types of terrain.

The goal of the game is to get everybody safely to the ship. However, there are also scientific samples that you've gathered in the course of your research scattered across the floe. The more of them you can collect on your way to the ship, the better your win will be. But be careful not to spend too much time going after the samples, or you might lose everything!

The samples component makes this a game where one win is not necessarily the same as another. There can be degrees of victory! (Because of this factor, forming up into groups is not necessarily a no-brainer. A group of players can travel more quickly, but collecting as many of the samples as possible might go faster if the players split up.)

Note: I hope to eventually publish this game as a physical board game, but created this web-based version so I could get people's feedback about the game play before finalizing the commercial version. So please:

• Let me know what you think of the game.
• Subscribe to my mailing list to be notified about the eventual publication of this or other games I might create.

Hints for playing the game

• This web-based version of Arctic Escape is meant primarily to be played by a group of players all in the same room, as if it were a physical board game. (Which I hope it will become some day.) The computer screen just takes the place of the board and the game pieces.
• One of the players should take charge of the computer, making everybody's moves for them. That way, only one person needs to learn how to work the game controls, and you aren't playing musical chairs with the keyboard and mouse.
• If you want to include players from other locations, you just have to set up a video chat with them (for example, using Zoom) that allows you to share your computer screen with the meeting participants.
• Because all the rules of the game have been coded into this computerized version, you don't really need to read them in order to start playing. The game itself will guide you through every step and not allow you to do anything illegal. However, if you still want to read the complete rules, you can find them here.