Hike It! The Backpacking Board Game Coming Soon to Kickstarter

Hike It! The Backpacking Board Game will be launching sometime in October on Kickstarter.

Hike It! Is a 1-4 player, medium/light complexity, heavily themed board game that puts you deep in the Great Smoky Mountains, hiking to your designated waypoints, competing for scenic spots and skills, managing gear and water, and trying to get safely back to your trailhead - all while encountering challenges like weather, injuries, exhaustion, dehydration and bears.

The game utilizes set collection, action points, resource management and push your luck mechanisms to create a truly immersive hiking experience, forcing you to grind out each mile, earn every reward, and hopefully not suffer any health issues along the way.

The board was designed by a professional cartographer and game designer - Ron Halliday (Seven Bridges). The map is a true representation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park at a 1:100,000 scale and displays actual trails, scenic spots & camps found in the park. We have even gone so far as to make each space on the trails an estimated mile apart from each other so that each space you move is a "mile hiked".

Overview

Hike It! is different from other hiking style games in that the game was built around theme and realism. During development, every mechanism, gameplay feature or rule of this game had to pass the following questions "Is it thematic? Is it realistic? Is it intuitive?".

Here are just a few examples of how the game was thematically accurate and realistic mechanisms are infused into the gameplay:

• PACK WEIGHT: In the game, the more gear or water you carry, the more prepared you will be for challenges, but the less distance you can hike due to pack weight. Inversely, the less gear or water you carry, the farther you can travel, but less likely to overcome certain events or happenings.
• WEATHER FORECAST: Each hiker will have access to the 3-day weather forecast to plan ahead, but the forecast is not always accurate, so you must be ready for anything.
• WATER SOURCES: During your trek you can refill water in your pack at water sources if you get low, but if the weather does not produce rain for some time, those water sources may dry up.
• SKILLS VS. GEAR: Hikers rely heavily on gear early on to overcome challenges, but over time you will have opportunities to build certain skill sets that will help mitigate the need for physical gear in your pack - allowing you to move lighter, faster & smarter.

Design

TJ Swing the creator and designer is an avid hiker for over 15 years all throughout the Appalachian Mountain range, where he has accumulated a wealth of experience and experiences. "One of my favorite things about hiking long distances are the interactions, stories, and ‘moments’ along the way, and I wanted to make sure Hike It! had this engrained into it."

• HIKER TRADES: Hikers in the same region are able to trade with each other. So if a hiker hits a challenge that they cannot overcome, they may reach out to other hikers in their region and barter for the items they require. This can lead to friendly trades, or possibly some heavily negotiated exchanges.
• AGGRESSIVE BEARS: Whenever a hiker successfully makes it back to their starting trailhead, they are not out of the game, instead they then take over the bears in the game and then chase down the remaining hikers.

You can find out more info on the official website www.hikeit.games.