A strange alien artefact has arrived on Earth. A half-block-of-flats cube now hovers over the North Pole, collapsing on itself and emitting strange signals and the scientific community is agog. Tesseract is an upcoming board game by designer James Firnhaber and artist Denis Freitas for Smirk & Laughter Games, an imprint of Smirk & Dagger, which will have you race against the clock to save the planet.
Contain the Tesseract Before the Planet Explodes
The plot is fairly straightforward, with the namesake Tesseract object arriving on Earth and emitting strange signals that could be the precursor to a planet-ending event. Scientists are keen to understand what is going on. In the six days since the Tesseract arrived on Earth, though, the object has collapsed so much that it’s now a small cube bursting with strange energy waves.
It’s down to 1-4 players to figure out what is going on and secure the unstable artefact as it seems to be on the cusp of erupting and bring about unknown but feared consequences. The gameplay itself focuses on cooperative dice manipulation with the main focus of the game a block of 64 dice. Players will remove dice to fit in their unique cubes, which will represent individual labs and other scientific equipment.
These cubes will be manipulated across the cube to ensure that players prevent a fatal explosion while any removed Tesseract cube is also secured in a special containment matrix that neutralizes the powerful bursts of energy. Players attempt to establish a lab that contains three cubes of the same value before they can neutralize a part of the Tesseract.
The publisher insists that the game will be very challenging and offer a gripping co-op experience for players aged 14+. While the rules and difficulty are not yet known, Tesseract appears to be an easy-to-pick but hard-to-master board game.
Players will be thrown into gameplay in which tension mounts quickly as the Tesseract continues to destabilize and players attempt to contain it before a catastrophe occurs. The game plays in 60-90 minutes and it is expected to hit retail and sell for $54.99 in May 2023.