Endeavor: Age of Sail publisher announces element-stacking board game, Gorinto

Build a shrine with the elements in Gorinto, a new board game from the co-publisher behind Endeavor: Age of Sail.

An abstract tile stacking board game for one to four players, Gorinto is based on the Japanese art of building memorial shrines. Players must find a balance between the five elements - void, wind, fire, water and earth - in order to gather the most wisdom.

Each turn players must choose to move one tile from the edge of the main board and place it onto the inner part of the board, using its elemental collection pattern to take certain tiles near to it. Every elemental tile allows players to gather other tiles differently; for example, whereas placing a water tile allows players to collect tiles in a horizontal line, placing a fire tile allows players to collect tiles in a vertical line.

As the players gather elemental tiles they’ll gain greater mastery over the elements they’ve gathered more of. This elemental mastery will allow them to collect more tiles every time they use element tiles they’ve placed before.

Tile collecting is important because it allows players to fulfill the two public and shared goal cards that are decided at the start of the game. These are based around certain criteria that allow players to earn more wisdom at the end of each season, such as collecting specific combinations of elements. (For example, gaining wisdom for every two void tiles a player has.)

The winner of Gorinto is whoever holds the most wisdom at the end of the game. Gorinto also includes a solo board game mode involving kitsune, which are ancient Japanese fox spirits.

Richard Yaner is the designer of Gorinto, having previously created dystopian board game Dark.net - which was published by WizKids, the label behind horror board game Fury of Dracula: Fourth Edition.

Gorinto is being released by Grand Gamers Guild, the co-publisher of Endeavor: Age of Sail and The Artemis Project.

The Kickstarter campaign for Gorinto is currently live until March 5th, with a pledge of $35 (around £28) getting a copy of the core board game. It’s estimated to arrive with backers sometime in February 2021.