Mansions of Madness and Star Wars: Rebellion designer’s next board game lets you create thousands of unique characters

The designer of Mansions of Madness and Star Wars: Rebellion has revealed his next release, an ambitious card game about creating thousands of unique characters.

3000 Scoundrels is the third game from Unexpected Games, the experimental tabletop studio founded by former Fantasy Flight Games designer Corey Konieczka, following puzzly legacy game The Initiative and this year’s iffily-titled Voices In My Head.

3000 Scoundrels is described as a competitive engine-building game, with two to four players gradually building up their available abilities and strength throughout each playthrough.

This comes primarily through creating a gang of unique characters using a set of job and trait cards that can be combined to create thousands of different names, artwork and gameplay effects. According to the announcement press release, up to 3,000 different combinations are possible, with around 50 configurations appearing during each playthrough.

Some of the cards are transparent, allowing them to be overlaid on top of another card to add abilities, as well as altering the card’s artwork and name. For example, “Cocky”, “Cowardly”, “Wealthy” and “Brilliant” could be applied to a Bank Robber, Prospector, Loan Shark or Dog, going by the first images of the game.

3000 Scoundrels is set in an alt-history Wild West, with players’ gang leaders looking to pinch futuristic technology left by a mysterious figure called The Traveller. The most technology collected by the end of each roughly hour to 90-minute game, wins.

The game’s engine-building and card-drafting gameplay is combined with an element of bluffing in order to gain the cards you need. However, being caught out during an attempt to cheat (by the rules) can lead to penalties.

3000 Scoundrels will be released this autumn with a $49.95 price tag.