Great expansions bring new life into their base games. Our marketing of Far Away: Corporate Espionage focused on the additional missions and new creature AI system, but there’s more to it than that. The next couple of blogs are going to focus on other additions and enhancements players can expect. First, we want to highlight the Hollows: a new terrain type with its own exploration system.

Hollows are large, underground cavern networks. The HEX you stumble across aboveground is just the start of the explorer’s journey. Instead of rolling the usual DIE to get the typical distribution of resources and landmarks, players can push their luck are they go deeper in search of things that will give them an advantage. The basic gameplay flow works like this.

Each HEX corresponds to a slot on a new Hollows MAT.
One exploration lets the explorer go as deep as they want or can.
The explorer draws a CARD and rolls DICE to see what happens (and possibly gains loneliness).
Periodically, CARDs lead deeper into the Hollows, where explorers roll more DICE for bigger risks and rewards.

Here’s an example CARD:

This is a Hollows CARD you might find on Tier 2. A low roll will injure you. A good roll gets you some good stuff. It’s a big decision to stew over, since an Injury is horrible (through less so with the new GEM resource), but Artifacts can bail you out of a lot of bad situations and Minerals are almost always useful in the mission goals. There’s definitely weight to the player’s decision to toss the DICE when they see that CARD.

There’s also a new resource that can only be uncovered underground: GEMs. These are rare CUBEs that can swing a mission in the explorers’ favor. Certainly worth risking a lot to get.

Nothing in FA:CE exists solely to pad out the game. The Hollows address a common issue in Far Away: at certain points in missions your actions as the players are obvious and the time spent playing the explorers is far less than the creatures. The Hollows add moments of intense focus and scrutiny on players, without forcing more decisions into every single turn. They add a chapter or two to the story of the mission.