Make literal mountains out of molehills in the next game from Telestrations studio
Be crowned top tunneler.
Build literal mountains out of molehills in the next upcoming board game from the studio behind Telestrations, The Op.
Called Mountains Out of Molehills, the game is set in a world populated by competitive moles who enjoy challenging each other’s digging skills in a grand tournament known as the Mountain Maker - competition in which each mole must dig paths through the ground, avoiding any potential obstacles along the way, in order to gather enough earth above ground to create their mounds. Whichever mole manages to create the most impressive molehills is crowned the Top Tunneler.
A board game for two to four players, Mountains Out of Molehills sees players navigating a game board made up of two different levels - an underground and an overground. At the beginning of the game, players can choose between several different characters - Loama; Sandy; Clay and Pete - each modelled after a different species of mole, including the extremely unusual-looking Star-Nosed Mole. As their chosen characters, players will then draw movement cards from the deck, with the various cards showing the direction that the mole will move if they’re played.
Being blind, moles require some pre-planning before they can embark on their underground expedition, meaning that players will need to devise a route using their cards - putting them in the order in which the players want their mole to move. Every move underneath the ground will cause a molehill piece to be placed in the corresponding spot above the ground, with the colours indicating which mole has created which molehill. Making molehills will score points for players at the end of each round. However, if another player’s mole places a piece in their colour on the very bottom, then they control that molehill.
Players will want to contend for molehills throughout the game, but will need to be careful about the height of the molehill they’re adding to as the higher the molehill, the more in danger it is of toppling down and scoring zero points. Whichever player has the most points by the game’s end is named the winner.
Mountains Out of Molehills was co-created by Pat Marino - designer of the dark fantasy board game Court of the Dead: Mourner’s Call and co-designer of movie board game Die Hard: The Nakatomi Heist Board Game - and Jim DiCamillo, who have both previously worked together on the set collecting game Gem Hens.
Apart from Telestrations and Mountains Out of Molehill, The Op is also responsible for publishing several Star Wars board games - including Star Wars: Dark Side Rising - as well as the social deduction game The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31.
Mountains Out of Molehills is set to be released on February 24th for a retail price of $40 (£29).