Nicholas Roerich, And We are Opening the Gates, 1922 -- see artwork link below.

SECRET JOURNEY

Gather dreams, awaken them, and then traverse them in a fine-art puzzle journey...

• Read the illustrated rules here.
• See the robust solo mode here.

Secret Journey is a challenging and absorbing fine-art card game by Alf Seegert, the designer of Haven, The Road to Canterbury, Fantastiqa, Musée, and Illumination, brought to you by Alf's own new imprint, PANCAKES OF INFINITE LIGHT.

The art in the game is from the 19th and early 20th century, by masters including Caspar David Friedrich, Nicholas Roerich, David Roberts, Thomas Cole, and others.

• You can browse the atmospheric artworks used in the game here.

What it's about

Fantastic landscapes appear to you as visions in a shifting dreamscape: a mist-shrouded peak, a weathered ruin, a mossy forest, a fiery sunset over a turbulent sea.

Summon these dreams, bring them to waking life, and then wander from one to another to complete your Secret Journey…

How it works

Players summon Dream Cards from a four-column Dreamscape, play these cards to bring them to waking life, and then traverse them on multi-card Journeys. This is what the game looks like when first set up.

On each turn you take one of your Dream Cards from your Sleeping Area and move it to a space in your 3 x 3 Waking Area.

You then draw the same number of cards from the Dreamscape as the number on the card just played, choosing one column to draw from. Move these cards to the tops of other stacks and claim the last card for your Sleeping Area. By moving a 3 from the Sleeping to the Waking Area, the player draws three cards from the Dreamscape, moving the top two cards from the fourth column to other stacks and claiming the third card, a Red 2.

Playing cards requires careful planning. By creating numerical sequences of adjacent cards, players can complete Journeys and score points based on the number of cards in them.

Players also receive powerful Vision Cards for each pair of matching animal symbols. Here the player completes a 5-card Journey which includes two Owls and two Snakes. The player draws two Vision Cards as a result.

This 5-card Journey scores 7 points.

Each player draws from a deck of eight Vision Cards in the game, allowing them to manipulate the Dreamscape and their own Dream Cards...

Players also claim Bonus Cards by using cards of the same color to complete a Secret Journey, scoring even more points. But be careful -- each Bonus Card takes up a space in your Waking Area, blocking you from moving Dream Cards there, like the Mystic does above.

When no more cards can be played, the game ends. The player with more points wins.

What do you get?

90 beautiful cards (Poker-sized) in a classy and highly portable purple cloth bag, specifically...

• 9 Rules Cards
• 50 Fine-Art Dream Cards
• 16 Vision Cards
• 2 Journey Cards
• 6 Bonus Cards
• 2 Sleeping/Waking Cards
• 1 Variant Card
• 1 Shadow Pilgrim Card (for solo play)
• 2 Summary Cards
• 1 Art Information Card

A note from Alf

I've been designing games for over 25 years now and have enjoyed working with wonderful publishers like Z-Man Games, Eagle-Gryphon Games, and Red Raven Games. I hope to continue doing so, but I thought it was time to try something new by publishing specific games through my own imprint, Pancakes of Infinite Light.

I'm proud of its debut game, Secret Journey, and I hope that you find its atmosphere rich and its gameplay compelling. My hope is that I'll be able to make many more games through Pancakes of Infinite Light at Gamecrafter, games with distilled components which emphasize what I like to call simplexity: simple rules, complex gameplay. Feel free to drop me a note or ask a question.

Thank you!

--Alf

alfseegert@gmail.com

alfseegert.com

--

Photos of Gamecrafter cards in play

Below: the game at setup

Below: starting Dream Cards in the player's Sleeping Area

Below: a 5-card Secret Journey in Blue in the player's 3 x 3 Waking Area

Below: a 4-card Journey with 2 Cats and 2 Butterflies as companions (= 2 pairs, which means that the player completing it collects 2 Vision Cards)

Below: the game in progress