The Only Board Game Embracing the Thrilling Push-Your-Luck Nature of Wildlife Photography
Focus! Last Roll for the Hangul is a strategic board game for 1-5 players, aged 8 and up. It involves dice rolling, set collection, a repeatedly updated modular board and skittish wildlife.
Set in the beautiful Kashmir Valley during the summer of 1970. You are about to wrap it up and return home, when you hear over the walkie-talkie that the tracks of the endangered Hangul has been spotted nearby.
Despite having only 20 exposures left of film, you decide to make a last effort to track it down and hopefully snap that coveted cover shot (or settle for the less exotic wildlife)!
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Game Overview
Preparation: Setting up the game should take under 4 minutes once familiar with the process.
Victory: Your goal is to score more Victory Points than your opponents. In solo play, your score is ranked.
Ending the Game: You can prevent a new round from starting by ensuring that at least 2 game-ending criteria are met when the current round ends.
Turn Structure: Play proceeds in a clockwise direction. On your turn you pay the next player 1 Action Token for each action you perform. We call this unique mechanism Action Curbing. You end your turn at your discretion.
Action Curbing may not seem significant at first glance, but it plays a crucial role in minimising the starting player advantage. Additionally, it empowers you to influence the game's tempo, which is tactically useful and an entertaining power to have.
Scoring: To earn Victory Points, you take Photos of the Animals in your Area. In other words you'll first need to spend actions to move your Meeple to the respective board spaces.
Animal Behavior: Fast Animals (round) move at least once each round, while Slow Animals (squares) remain stationary unless frightened by Noise. The Hangul behaves like a Slow Animal.
Noise and Actions: Noise may occur upon failing an action. All actions can fail if you push your luck.
Taking Photos: Successful Photo attempts involve collecting the Animal Token and placing it on your film board, converting the token to a Photo.
Publishing: Photos can double in value when published through Contract Cards or the Book. Contracts require specific Photos, while Book publishing is easier but carries the risk of losing submissions if incomplete at the game's end.
Taking Your Turn
1
Pay 1 Action Token to the next player before carrying out 1 of 5 available actions.
2
If the action succeeded, you may repeat it for free, but with an increasing risk of noise.
3
Decide if you want to end your turn now, or return to step 1 to execute another action.
Choosing Your Action
Several factors weigh into determining the most strategic actions, with keen attention to opponents being pivotal in this highly interactive game. Every action affects not only your gameplay but also that of your rivals, creating a dynamic and interconnected environment.
The choice between available actions often leads to a 'chicken and egg' scenario, a frustrating yet entertaining aspect of the game's strategic depth.
Risk of Failing
Out of the five available actions, only Take Photo carries an inherent risk of failure. This risk however, will diminish as you gain experience from spending film—earning up to three power-ups towards the end of your film.
Repeating Actions for Free
Successfully executed actions can be immediately repeated for free, meaning you won't have to spend an additional Action Token. However, you must have an unused Extra Effort Die to add to the action, which introduces a 1/6 chance of failure. Since two of these dice are available, you can perform most actions up to three times with a single Action Token, with a final 30% chance of failure.
For example:
Let's say you play Blue (ref. below) and want to reach the area on the board that is 3 spaces away, to take Photos of the 2 Fast Animals there. However, you only have 2 Action Tokens.
If you accept the risk of potentially scaring away the animals you want to photograph, you could pay 1 Action Token to Move Meeple three times:
- Move Once with no risk.
- Repeat the move, then roll the Extra Effort Dice to determine if you made noise.
- If you didn't make noise, move again, but this time roll both Extra Effort Dice after moving.
If you succeeded, the animals were not affected by your arrival. Which means you are now standing in the same Area as the subjects to photograph.
You proceed to spend your last Action Token on Take Photo, which also can be repeated—as long as you don't make too much noise.
This only scratches the surface of what is possible when you take everything and everyone into consideration.
Planning vs Intuition
The game presents you with a satisfying opportunity to plan ahead and strategise, creating rewarding chain reactions—while leaving plenty of winning opportunities for the more intuitive players.
Kids being natural risk takers, will often push their luck more willingly than their wiser parents, making this a dynamic and fun game for all ages.
During playtesting we have seen children crush their parents caught in analysis paralysis. On the other hand, we have also seen how a plan has come together, causing a cascade of Victory Points.
This game has something for all player types.
Strategic Film Management
During play you will move your Meeple up and down the modular board to get close to the Roaming Wildlife you'll want to photograph.
When deciding how to spend your film, consider that the subject is a wild animal: there is almost always a risk of scaring the animal—which will often ruin the shot and waste precious film.
Your approach in mitigating this risk significantly impacts your performance, potentially securing your win or relegating you in the rankings.
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