Pampero News – Wood Components

Pampero is APE’s upcoming game where players accept contracts to expand solar and wind power across Uruguay. The design is by Julián Pombo, and arguably be APE’s biggest and most complex game yet. The art is being done by the talented Ian O’Toole, and you can be sure we’ll share that out as fast as we get it!

But we do have something to share! Ian has completed the design for all the wood components in the game and we had the printer create a couple dozen for us to use for demo and review copies. This first picture is a shot of all the wood components in one game. Including the plastic bags, that’s over 10 oz. of wood – a lot of lumber by gaming standards!

The first thing to notice is that there are four player colors – white, blue, yellow and purple. Players get all of the wood components in their colors. The supply of green batteries is shared by players.

Next we’ll give a close-up of the components, starting with the windmill farms. These farms provide power which is used to obtain contracts.

Hand in hand with the windmill farms are the electrical towers. There must be at least one electrical tower in an area to fulfill a contract. If the tower belongs to you, then you pay for the contract to the bank. If it belongs to another player, then you instead pay that player.

Players start the game with a limited number of bulldozers, but can obtain more throughout the game. Dozers are required to clear an area before a windmill farm or electrical tower can be built.

As players complete contracts, they move transformers from their player mat on to the main board. Uncovering spots on the player mat provides benefits to the player.

Scoring markers matching the contract type also move up the player mat. There are 5 main contract types, as shown here.

Other miscellaneous markers are used for tracking game progress.

Finally, batteries are not in player-specific colors. Some things can be purchased using batteries.

That’s all of the wood pieces! I’ll share more Pampero when we start getting art from Ian!