Top 10 reviewed games for 2015

Through 2015 I have written here on this blog about 33 different board and pc games. Today I plan to tell you which of those are the 10 best in my opinion. I mean everything here is my opinion, but just to be clear. I must say that all these 10 games are excellent pieces, I have enjoyed playing them a lot and it was really hard for me to put them in any order.  Here we go:

Number 10 is Invisible Inc. by one of my favourite studios - Klei. The game is turn based stealth action game in which you take control over a team of agents which are ultimately fighting against the global rulers. With its clean gameplay, greatly working game mechanics and beautiful art style Invisible Inc is definitely one of the best made games I have played this year. Full review you can find here.

Number 9 is Age of Decadence by Tower Studios. The game has very interesting and strange setting. It is a mix between the fall of The Roman Empire and post-apocalyptic... By genre AoD is RPG where you will always start from the bottom and will never grow to become a half god, half man killing machine. Because this not the style of the game. Instead you will have to talk your way through mostly anything avoiding any fights. Despite this 100% peaceful playtrough will be impossible and when you have no other choice you will have the pleasure to use very deep and precise battle system. Great choice if you want to play something hard, with interesting story and great gameplay. Detailed review here.

Number 8 is Armello by League of Geeks. In my review of the same game for bigboxgamers I said that Armello is the best digital board game and I still think this is true! The story of the game is that the King is dying and each of the Clans should make so the next King is one of their own. Through out the game you will control one character from Clan of your choice and with many battles or ton of backstab and deceit you will have to make so you're the next who will sit on the throne. And because your oponents will not be enough of treat you will have to also battle the forces of darkness and the Royal Guard if you decide that the shortest path to the throne is the death of the King. Detailed review you can find here.

Number 7 is Ori and the Blind Forest by Moon Studios. Ori is classical adventure metroidvania game in which you play as the lost and later orphaned Ori who tries understand and save the Forest in which he lives. The game has a beautiful hearth melting story and looks gorgeous. Sadly the truth is that the game is for hardcore metroidvania players as it has some very complicated and hard jump puzzles in which you will die again and again and again until you manage to solve it in the end...or just leave the game and never finish it. Which will be big miss on your side as this game is truly great. Read full review here. 

Number 6 is Jotun by Thunder Lotus Games. In it you take control over Thora a young, fearless warriores who have died but not in battle and now she should prove herself in front of the Gods if she wants to ever see Valhala. Jotun is a adventure-exploration game and is for all of you who enjoy hard battles with huge bosses. And when I say hard I mean very very hard. Bosses will kill you with two strikes which is understandable when you are as big as their toe. The other main feature of the game is its atmosphere achieved by it amazing art style and great music and narration. Wholeheartedly I recommend you to try Jotun. Detailed review here.

Some rare gems right there guys and gals. Each and every worthy of your time. But let us continue with the second half of the list which if not else are as good as the first five.

Number 5 is Sunless sea by Failbetter Games. Failbetter became famous with their browser adventure game Fallen London. Sunless sea is taking place in the same dark and mysterious world but focuses on the zee exploration instead of the streets of London. You will take the role of a ship captain who have some goal connected with the zee. During the game you will gather crew, explore, smuggle goods, help the government, get insane and even kill your whole crew...or they you. In Sunless sea there is something very Lovecraftian...the mysteries, the monsters, the characters you meet. This really is one of the most atmospheric games that I have played this year. It does have a bit of a steep learning curve but once you get the hang of it you will quickly sink in the world of Fallen London. Full review you will find here.

Number 4 is Massive Chalice by  Double Fine Productions. In it you are the king of a land surrounded and slowly taken over by the Cadence. Your only hope is to hold it back until the Massive Chalice manages to charge its energies and repel the treat. This you will do by creating and helping the royal bloodlines to survive. In return they will give you their best warriors to fight in a X-COM style turn based battles against the Cadence. Your warriors will level up, learn new skills you will also have the ability to upgrade their equipment. And in rare cases when the best of them die they will leave their legendary weapons for the next generations. Very cool turn based strategy with some very interesting mechanics. Hot recommendation if you are into this kind of games. Detailed review you can read here.

Number 3 is Duelyst by Counterplay. My newest mania! Duelyst is a digital card collecting game with huge twist! Once summoned your creatures turn from cards into "real" monsters which walk around on the board and smack each other. The target of the game is to kill the enemy General. By implementing only one new thing Counterplay have brought so much new things to the genre while at the same time keeping their game quick, competitive and well balanced. If you want something quick like Hearthstone but deeper Duelyst is your game! Full review read here.

Number 2 is Darkest Dungeon by Red Hook Studios. Darkest Dungeosn is a 2D side scrolling roguelike. Roguelike! Not rogueLITE but LIKE! This game will kill you for every small mistake you make. Hell you can even die in the tutorial! Its great! Dark, grim, hard, true enjoyment for the masochistic fans of the genre. In the heavily inspired by Lovecraft world of Darkest Dungeon you will lead a group of heroes into different dungeons ultimately trying to find out what happened to the place. While in the dungeons your characters will die..a lot, but that is the smallest problem. They will also get insane, gain perks both negative and positive, betray their team mates, coward from fights, get phobias and many other things which will let the game kill you off in the most merciless way possible. The worst part? After every fail you see clearly that it is possible to win. Great roguelike. Read full review here.

And now THE number one game reviewed on this blog is........

Pillars of Eternity by Obsidian. Yes, that's right! The newest masterpiece of Obsidian. Pillars is cRPG game in the best traditions of this genre. It has epic turn based battles, deep character development and story that grabs and does not let you until you don't finish it. What impressed me mostly in the game is how well it is written. Every dialogue, every book you find lying on a dusty floor in some forgotten ruin. Not to mention that every word you say matters. You can literally decide the outcome of more than few future meetings in the first few hours of the game. And while I think that if you don't try to read every line in this game you have missed like 90% of it I cannot skip the fact how well the battles are done. You didn't read your whole line before selecting it - too bad this whole town don't like you. You didn't activated your skill at the right time...oh well your whole party is dead.... You decide which is worse. Really, really good game I must really nit-pick to find any flaws in this piece. Full review you will find here.

Honourable mentions: Rebel Galaxy and Mordheim: City of the Damned. Both seem to be great games, but both are massive, massive time sinkers and I just didn't have the time to finish and review them, so I leave them out of this Top 10 list. 

With this list I'm not trying to say that any of this game is better than Wild Hunt, Fallout or...whatever triple A title took the top of different lists that are posted all over the place. This is simply the best 10 games that were reviewed here on the blog. If I have reviewed Witcher or Fallout they might have been in this list. Actually Witcher would have been for sure. But...yeah. Enoy this list, I hope you like it and have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! 

Armello - EN

On 22nd of January in Steam appeared a new addition to the very popular Early Access, which allows you as you're aware to play games while they're still in development. Now I rarely use Early Access and usually use only to mark things which to follow. But in this case the game I'm about to tell you about grabbed my interest so hard that I couldn't resist. Armello looked like the perfect combination between boardgames and modern technology.

"From the Rat to the Bear
The Clans declared
Time has come
To take the Throne"

I think that this short quote pretty well tells you what the objective of the game is. But although it seems that all agree on what must be done Armello is not a co-operative game. In fact it is just the opposite. But first let's tell you more about the Clans.

"From Great Horrors
Great Heroes emerge"

The Four Clans have chosen their Heroes and they will have to defeat all dangers that the world will throw at them. And on top of that they will have to face the other clans.

The Chosen ones are:

• Thane of the Wolf Clan - The Wolfs are the knights of Armello, they're fair, honest, proud and their only task is to protect the Clan. If for that the King must be killed, so be it.
• Sana of the Bear Clan - The Bears are the oldest Clan in Armello, heirs of the ancient Druids. This Clan has served the Throne for many years, but the most important thing for them always has been to protect the world of Armello. And now the corruption of the King is threatening this world.
• Mercurio of the Rat Clan - The Rats are the most numerous clan and this is their biggest straight. They're everywhere. There is no event in the Kingdom without a Rat present. There is no crime without a Rat sniffing around. With the huge amount of money and influence that they have, The Rats are the rulers in shadow.
• Amber of the Rabbit Clan - The Rabbits were the first who found the underground treasures of Armello. And took them for themselves, fashioning them into beautiful jewellery and mighty weapons. This allowed them to stood together with the other Clans.

When you're ready with choosing a character it’s time to leave your clan grounds and try to save the Kingdom. But your time is limited! The corruption eats the King and he is dying. If your Clan is not the most influent when he is gone, you will have missed your chance. But if the influence race doesn't fit your taste there is another way - sneak into the palace, pass by the Guards and stand against the King. But don't underestimate him, The Lion might be sick, but he will be no easy opponent. To do this you will have to prepare yourselves. This you can do by completing Clan quests and gathering equipment.

"Sana was walking through the forest. The Sun was setting behind the threes. Worry had grasped the bear's heart, because she has heard rumours about disappearing Bears in those forests, but there were no clues who might have done this. It could have been the Rats or the Rabbits....suddenly there were noise on her right! Sana turned ready to defend herself. Towards her was running Amber from the Rabbits, but there was something wrong, her sword was sheathed, her eyes were filled with fear.

- Run! - The Rabbit shouted while darting past the Bear. But Sana had no time to follow as the huge Bane was already upon her..."

Armello is separated in two big parts - Day and Night. Few things depend on those phases of the game. For example dice roll results, Bane spawning and Declarations.

Banes and The Kings Guards are the "neutral" sides in the game. The Banes are enemies of all and The Guard minding their own business most of the time. But they can jump on you if you enter the Castle or someone chooses the right Declaration. At some point you may even be forced to attack them because they have the habit of standing in your way. But be careful they're strong opponents in the beginning of the game.

"Mercurio was just passing through the small town when he heard some noise nearby. The Rat sneaked in that direction and peeked carefully behind the corner while one of his hands was resting on his long dagger. There he saw the source of the noise. Thane of the Wolfs and Amber of the Rabbits were fighting. The Wolf skilfully swinging his sword, but the smaller Rabbit was easily avoiding all his attacks..."

The battles in Armello are done by rolling dice. The idea is very similar to the one in The Witcher - if you roll more swords than your opponents rolled shields you score hits and vice versa. There are also some differences and strategies, but I'll let you find them by yourself. The results from the battles are also few - you kill your opponent and win 1 prestige point for that(unless he is a Guard, then you lose 1), your fight ends without a winner, then nothing happens or you die in which case you lose 1 prestige point and respawn at your starting position. The one who have most prestige when The King dies is the winner.

Digital boardgame

League of Geeks unlike others have utilized at 100% the resources of modern devices and computers. Armello is fully 3D, every character is fully animated with his own moving, attacking and defending animation. The board, cards and characters are various and unique, also well drawn. Now I agree that this kind of puts the game further from "classic boardgames", but at the other hand it turns it into something that is enjoyable to play on the computer. It might even attract players who don't play boardgames.

Players interaction

When the game is competitive its very important the scale on which players can interact with each other or with other words how much you can hinder them. In Armello this is main part of the game, there are a ton of ways to make it harder for the other players. Starting with simple things like taking their towns and choose nasty Declarations and get to poison apples, stealing items,  laying traps and ambushes. The big amount of interactions is probably the reason why killing players give you prestige. Because believe me, the game can easily turn from peaceful questing to vicious head-hunt.

Conclusion

Armello is great combination between classic adventure boardgame and a PC game. In it you will control one character bit it will not be just some pawn on the board but it will stride, fight and defend. At the same time you have limited actions per turn, roll dice and play cards.  

But it's not only beautiful to look at, it is also pleasure to play it, because even in this early stage the game have polished and various gameplay, because of the pre-generated board and different characters playstyle.

In my humble opinion Armello is a link that may make fans of both PC and boardgames to sit and play something together.

The game as always you will find on the links bellow. 

Let your Clan be victorious!

Links:

Official site

Steam

Myths at war - The end of the Age of Men!

This time I intend to remind you that this blog is not only about video games, but also about boardgames. Here some of you will say "But you wrote about some digital board games recently, we remember." , but what I mean are "real boardgames" like Dungeon Raiders and Discworld: Witches.

Today I will tell you about Myths at War! Designed by Francisco Gallego Arredondo and published by GMD, Myths at War is a game where you will build your own deck and will summon armies of Gods and Warriors who will fight against each other. Sounds familiar? Well it has almost nothing to do with the one you are thinking.

Myths at War has 6 sets released so far and each one introduces a new faction composed of Gods and mortals. The main idea is to create decks from those sets and fight against each other with them. The winner is the first who get to 30 points(power cubes). Here comes the first difference with other similar CG games - players don't have health points. Neither do their creatures. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First the cards themselves.

Each set includes two pantheon cards, 20 gods cards(characters,events and resources) and 30 designs. The sum of these numbers is also the minimum size of your deck - 51. Pantheons are cards which will define your strategy, because they are a must and there are only two of them for each faction. They will also tell you with how much power cubes you start and will mark your Pantheon are, but more for that later.
The gods cards include characters which are Gods, Mortals and Summoners. The Gods are powerful cards from which you can have only one in your deck. Mortals are limited to maximum of two and are used for sacrifices for the Gods or to help each other and be stronger together. Summoners are also mortals which are the only ones who can use Incantations which are something similar to equipments but reduce the characters statistics and give them new abilities.
Events are cards which together with the others from the Gods deck form your Oracles from where you will reveal cards. when event is revealed it resolves immediately. They can be both positive or negative and will be main part of your strategy.
Resources are special cards which will help you to accumulate more power cubes which are both resource and victory points.

The designs deck include equipment and actions. The first are item cards which you equip to your characters and they boost them. There are faction bound items and also items which cost less for certain characters or give them abilities. The actions are one time use cards which can have various effects on the game. They have different control effects so to say. For example they will exhaust other cards, kill characters, remove cubes etc.

Building a deck might be a taunting task at first.  And it may even look like there are not many strategies in every faction, but once you become familiar with the cards and play few games you will see more and more strategies within the decks. Battle oriented decks, cubes control, Incantation/Actions heavy are just few of the options.

Now that you have an idea about the cards let me guide you through a round of Myths at War.

When all players(up to 5 by the way...I don't recommend it though you will hate the game if you play it with five) are ready with their decks everyone put their Pantheon cards on the table, take as much starting cubes as shown on the Pantheon card. Next to the card will be your Pantheon area. After that shuffle and separate the Gods deck into four face down piles. It is not necessary for those to be even just start from right to left and put one card in each until you run out of cards. These will be your Oracles. When all players have their Oracles ready, shuffle your Designs deck and draw 5 cards. This is your starting hand. When all this is ready decide who will be first player. MaW have its own complicated way to decide who is first but everything will do so the way is up to you.

First phase is revealing the Oracles. Everyone in order flip the top cards on all of their Oracles and then they can discard one card from the Oracles which doesn't have any cubes on it.

Next is Transfer phase, this is probably one of the most important phases if not the most important. During Transfer you will move cubes from your reserve to characters and resources or from characters who already have cubes to other characters. Remember that only cards with cubes equal to their cost can enter your Pantheon. Transfer is also done in order and each next player have one more transfer than the previous player - the first player have one, the second two etc. You can transfer as much cubes as you want per transfer action. If any cards have their cost paid with cubes they are moved in play(in your Pantheon). All characters keep their cubes while any resources in play have theirs removed back to the common pool.

When the Transfer is completed is time for Influence phase. In this phase you have two basic actions which you can always take - Equip and Meditate. Equip allows you any number of times to equip one item to one creature after paying its cost. Equipments are played from your hand. Meditate gives you the option to tire(tap, sorry Wizards, please don't sue me) one character and take two cubes from the common pool. Other than that you can play and/or use any actions and abilities which say that take effect in the Influence phase. Important to rembeber is that players alternate in playing cards until one of them passes two times in a row. Influence is the time for last preparations between the clash between your armies. Last chance to disable this one scary God or get in play your own monster of character. When everybody are done with this phase is time for...

Confrontation is the long waited clash of sorcery and steel. Players in turns asign characters to the battlefield. All characters which are in the Pantheon can be asign if they have at least one power cube on them. This is the cost for entering the battlefield. When everybody have asign what they want to the battle is time to see who wins. All players count the force of all their characters on the battlefield. Tired characters count for half of their force. Exhausted chracters and such with negative force do not count. The player with lowest force remove from his pool as much power cubes as is the difference between him and his opponent.

After the end of the battle all creatures are returned to your Pantheon. All effects that don't specify continiuos effects are removed; each player draws one card from their Designs deck; any Tired creatures are returned to normal state. The player on the left is the new first player.

This continues until one player have 30 power cubes in his reserve or until only one player have any power cubes.

Conclusion

This was one very long explanation. Sorry about it, but I think that without it you would have no idea what I'm talking about. Now that you have an idea let me tell you what I think of the game. 

I will start with the components and the rulebook. The cards are well made with nice and thematic drawings. Unique for each faction. Unlike them the rulebook is...horrible! May be one of the worst rulebooks I have ever read! Its worse even than the rulebook of Heroes of Might & Magic. The rules are written in two languages and are eleven pages long...eleven! For a game this complicated! I have no idea what GDM have thought when they have written this rulebook... There is even some difference between the wording in the rules and on the cards! Anyway after some guessing and some research on the internet I have figured how to play the game. And oh boy was it worth it?! Myths at War is amazing!

Through the years I have played a good amount of CCG games(HEX, Hearthstone, Duel of Champions, Infinity Wars, Duelyst are some of the more famous ones) and while most of them offer some difference from the original formula(MTG) they are heavily based on it. Players have health points, they need some sort of mana to play cards, cards kill each other in battle. Myths at War is nothing like that and I love this about it. There is basically no board control here because every turn all creatures return to your Pantheon and you need to keep them supplied if you want to bring them to battle again next turn. Because of this well running engine which produce stable amount of cubes for you is extremely important.  These mechanics turn Myths into a lot more strategic and harder game. 

Renowned Explorers International Society - What did you say?!

Do you like a lot of talking in games? Do you like fighting with words? If you do, keep going! If you don't...read on, see what you are missing. 

In Renowned Explorers's 19th century you lead a team of novice explorers who want to become rich and famous. To achieve their goal they will have to complete five missions and climb the ladder of the explorer's Society. The ladder is a static Leaderboard with the names of different characters from the game. At the top await you the most successful and famous explorer Rivaleux. Who is...well probably not as good as everyone thinks, let's say it that way. 

The game does not have much more story to it. Every expedition is stand alone and has its own small story. Your objective is also every time the same - to reach the location of different archaeological or mysterious sites where usually a final battle will ensue. If you win you will get the artifact guarded at the site and will complete your mission successfully. But that is like 10% of each expedition, because while you are looking for the path to your objective you will encounter all kind of challenges. For example you might stumble upon the tracks of other artifacts and mysteries, each bringing you more and more fame. While stumbling through thick jungles or trying not to die of thirst in hot deserts you will do different skill checks which if you win you might improve your characters, find hidden paths, get assistance from locals, get access to shops, survive certain death or even uncover ancient mysteries.

Imagine it like a light choose your own adventure mixed with rogue-lite with a lot of skill checks. The skill checks by the way are not done with dices but instead with a slot machine with only two symbols - success and fail. The higher the level of your skill the more successes you have in the machine and vice verse.

Now let me tell you about the real talking that this game is about! While you explore the ruins in various famous sites around the Earth you will often have to fight be for your life, be for a valuable relic. In the turn-based battles you will have three choices - Aggresive, Devious and Friendly. 

First is your everyday brawl - you are smacking people over the heads, shoot them with guns and slice them with sharp and pointy things. The second is all about breaking your enemy's spirit by offending him with words. This kind of attacks will give different negative conditions to all who are affected by them. They may become depressed and sad for example, which will reduce their stats and resistances. And the third is all about showing people how beautiful the world is. If you're playing Friendly you will make your enemies so happy and confident that they may actually leave the fight convinced that your cause is the best! Be careful though as Friendly will heal and buff your team mates but it will also improve your enemies stats. The best part? You can combine these styles which will cause different moods on the battlefield affecting everyone present. Things can be Peaceful or become Tense, Provocative, Hostile or even Dire. Each of these moods as already mentioned will buff or debuff characters so its really important to learn and use them to your advantage. Also the way you finish your battle will sometimes have additional effects. For example your enemy might give you something if you impress them with your attitude or mysterious stranger may appear and reward you if your style suits him.

With each challenge successfully completed your characters will gain experience and you will have chance to improve their battle and adventure abilities. The first will serve you in battle(not kidding!) while the second will be your best friend while wandering through dangerous lands. These are also the ones used for skill checks.

Every time you finish an expedition (successfully or not) you will return to the Headquarters of the Explorers's Society where you will be able to spend your renown, science and money to improve your team and prepare it for the next mission. 
If after the fifth expedition you are not first in the Society's List you have failed to win and will have to start from the beginning. If your lose all the spirit of your Team also lose. This might happen during battle, by failing challenges or due to hunger.

Renowned explorers is a game made to be played multiple times until you learn how to play it ultimately. It has some original mechanics which with some older ones are working great together. And when you master it you can try its expert mode where you will be able to save only when quitting.

The game also has some sense of humor, nice compelling graphics and a ton of characters with which to experiment while trying to figure the best strategy.

Conclusion

Renowned Explorers is a great mixture of an adventure game and turn-based battles. It also includes a bunch of innovative and interesting mechanics. The spotlight being the ability to defeat your opponents by using only words(good or bad ones, the choice is yours). Together with its graphics and sense of humor this makes a good game which you will like for sure if you are into adventures and searching for lost ruins and treasures. But don't let the first impression of the game to confuse you it is not easy and it will definitely take time to master it.

Where to find it:

Steam

GoG

Official site