Snapshot is live
Snapshot is a 1-4 players dice rolling and set collection game in which you are trying to take the best pictures of wild animals. The Kickstarter campaign launched on September 28 and will run until October 27.
At the beginning of the game, you receive an assignment comprised of a cover photo which specifies two animals, either one of which you must get a picture of, and a feature article, a list of animal traits that you must collect through your photographs. Animals belong to four different habitats (Rainforest, Mountain, Savannah, Shoreline), and, at the beginning of the game, you draw three and place them in their corresponding habitats.
In each round, you first explore the habitats. You draw animal cards, one after the other, and place them in their respective habitat. Each animal card has a number and a variety of traits that may be relevant to your assignment. If the number of the card you drew is higher than the last card placed in the habitat, you can continue exploring, or stop there and start taking pictures. Otherwise, animals get spooked and the round for you is over. You do, however, gain three tracking tokens to make up for it.
To take pictures, you must first assign dice from your pool of six to habitat cards and animal cards. You may add tracking tokens to help you later on. Once you have placed your dice, you roll them to see if you succeed in taking a shot at the animals. First, you roll the dice assigned to the habitats you are tracking animals in and see if at least one of them meets the habitat requirement. If so, you can roll the dice you placed on the animals of this habitat. To succeed, the sum of the dice must be equal to or greater than the animal card number: you then take the card in your collection. Tokens that you spent earlier on are added to the result. You may also use unspent tokens to re-roll a die tied to a habitat card.
You win points by fulfilling your assignment, and by completing achievements if you collect pictures of animals from each habitat or three animals from one habitat. Each animal card is also worth a number of points. In solo, additional components are added to add tension, but these components and the solo rules have not been revealed yet.
The solo modes has just been revealed. In solo, you are facing the "SnapBot", who plays according to a card that you reveals every turn. The SnapBot will add animals in the display, photograph some animals according to priority rules fixed by their own card (it can be the animals who score the most points, or who help them grabbing awards), and "spook" some animals away. And that's basically it.
Your own turns are identical to the multiplayer rules.
Overall, it seems to provide a low upkeep system that will slightly mess with the game to mimic the other players impact on the game.
In the end the SnapBot will score, and you can add secret scoring objectives to the…