What if solitaire Verne boardgame Nemo’s War looked like this?

Victory Point Games’ blog details a few of the changes they’re making for the upcoming “gold banner” re-release of one my favorite games, Nemo’s War, which is a solitaire narrative shuffling of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the Sea.

…the ship counters are larger (with more story detail and the occasional special ability); the Nautilus upgrades are more numerous (there are ten included), but only four are available at the start of each game. Nemo’s four motives (War!, Anti-Imperialism, Science, and Explore) have had their scoring functions streamlined considerably; the Uprisings, Rest, Refit, and Repair Actions all function smoothly now in the same manner as other “tests” in the game; there are many new cards with more adventures from the pages of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; there is no more weekly calendar to measure time — the deck is built during set up with three “Acts” and a “Finale” and you draw a card each game turn to measure time…

Nemo’s War is currently in playtesting. It’s also pending a visual upgrade from artist Ian O’Toole, whose work (pictured) looks like this.

To get a sense for how Nemo’s War played even before it got gold bannered, me and Bruce Geryk burbled fondly in this head-to-head competition that I’m convinced he won because he wasn’t playing right.