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Above and Below Cover
It's here! All the components of the Kickstarter Expanded edition.
Painted tokens. Finally finished!
Outpost Cards. Posted with permission of Ryan Laukat.
Sample villager cards
Sample village cards
Lost Villager and Creature Villager. From Expanded Edition. Posted with permission of Ryan Laukat.
Painted tokens.
Mock-up of game in progress
Box Cover Art built with LEGO

Above and Below (2015)

Players
2–4
Best: 3
Playing time
90–90 min
Age
13+
7.34
Average rating
17,223
Ratings
2.51/5
Weight
#434
BGG rank
Top 1,000
Alternate names:Above and Below: Les royaumes du dessous +6 more
Designer:Ryan Laukat
Artist:Ryan Laukat
Publisher:DV Games +10 more
Average rating, ratings count, weight and rank are sourced from BoardGameGeek (BGG).
Game DNA
  • This game: Strategy 7, Luck 6, Interaction 9, Complexity 5, Theme 9
Strategy7.0
Luck6.0
Interaction9.0
Complexity5.0
Theme9.0

This game's strategy, luck, interaction, complexity and theme.

FantasyFarmingExplorationEconomicAdventureNegotiationCity BuildingAction PointsSet CollectionTradingStorytellingDice RollingTurn Order: ProgressiveNarrative Choice / Paragraph

Overview

Your last village was ransacked by barbarians. You barely had time to pick up the baby and your favorite fishing pole before they started the burning and pillaging. You wandered over a cruel desert, braved frozen peaks, and even paddled a log across a rough sea, kicking at the sharks whenever they got too close, the baby strapped tightly to your back.

Then you found it! The perfect place to make your new home. But as soon as you had the first hut built, you discovered a vast network of caverns underground, brimming with shiny treasures, rare resources, and untold adventure. How could you limit your new village to the surface? You immediately start organizing expeditions and building houses underground as well as on the surface.

With any luck, you'll build a village even stronger than your last-- strong enough, even, to turn away the barbarians the next time they come knocking.

Above and Below is a mashup of town-building and storytelling where you and up to three friends compete to build the best village above and below ground. In the game, you send your villagers to perform jobs like exploring the cave, harvesting resources, and constructing houses. Each villager has unique skills and abilities, and you must decide how to best use them. You have your own personal village board, and you slide the villagers on this board to various areas to indicate that they've been given jobs to do. Will you send Hanna along on the expedition to the cave? Or should she instead spend her time teaching important skills to one of the young villagers?

A great cavern lies below the surface, ready for you to explore-- this is where the storytelling comes in. When you send a group of villagers to explore the depths, one of your friends reads what happens to you from a book of paragraphs. You'll be given a choice of how to react, and a lot will depend on which villagers you brought on the expedition, and who you're willing to sacrifice to succeed. The book of paragraphs is packed with encounters of amazing adventure, randomly chosen each time you visit the cavern.

At the end of the game, the player with the most well-developed village wins!

The Kickstarter version of the game included the following items which are not found in the Retail version:

Villager Tool tokens Lost Villagers Swamp Villagers Exclusive Stretch goals: Creature Villagers Quest Tokens Underforest Tokens and PDF story book Desert Labyrinth tokens and PDF story book Wooden Goods

This collection of items can be found in Above and Below: Expanded Edition Exclusives

Expansions

Above and Below: Expanded Edition Exclusives
Above and Below: Watch It Played Building Promo Card
Above and Below: G@mebox Building Promo Card
Above and Below: Groves
Above and Below: Desert Labyrinth and Underforest Encounter Book
Near And Far: Rodney & Pep Watch It Played Character Tiles
Near and Far / Above and Below / Islebound: Secret Cabal Character Tiles
Above and Below: Megaland Bonus Cards
Near and Far: Dice Tower Character Tiles
The Red Raven Fan Box #1
Above and Below: Mystic's Hut Promo Card
Near and Far: Bounty Hunter Character Tiles
Arzium Archive Promo Box
Above and Below: Treasure Chest
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