In the dystopic 1930s, the industrial revolution pushed to the limit the exploitation of fossil-based resources, and now only powerful and unlimited hydroelectric energy is available to fulfill the thirst for power of the massive machines and unstoppable engineering progress.
Barrage is a resource management and strategic placement game in which players compete to build their majestic dams, raise them to increase their storing capacity of precious water, and deliver all the potential power through pressure tunnels connected to powerhouse energy turbines. Each player represents one of the international companies who are gathering machineries, innovative patents, and brilliant engineers to claim the best locations to capture and exploit the water power of a contested Alpine region crossed by rivers.
Barrage includes two innovative and challenging mechanisms. First, the construction wheel has to be managed by players to carefully plan their actions and handle their machineries since both your action tokens and resources are stored on the wheel and come back only after a full wheel round is completed. The more you construct and perform maintenance on your wheel, the earlier that resources and actions return to you.
Second, the water flow on the rivers depicted on the board is a shared and contested resource. Players have to intercept and store as much of the water as they can, build dams (upstream dams are expensive but can block part of the water before it reaches dams downstream), raise their dams to increase capacity, and build long tunnels to divert water to their powerhouses. Water is never consumed — its flow is just used to produce energy — and released in the rivers, so you have to strategically place your dams to recover water diverted by you and other players.
Over five rounds, players must fulfill power requirements represented by a common competitive power track and meet specific requests of personal contracts. At the same time, by placing a limited number of engineers, they attempt to increase their machineries to acquire new and more efficient construction actions and to build and activate special unique effect buildings to customize their own developing strategy.
