Quick Opinion: Far Lone Sails, TREE, Cultist Simulator

There are more than few games which deserve their own article on the blog, but I have not played enough of most of them (insert sad face here) BUT I have played enough of these three small games. And trust me they are more than worthy of your time. First is...

Far Lone Sails

Far Lone Sails is an atmospheric post-apocalyptic puzzle adventure game in which you need to get from what looks like the memorial place of someone to...somewhere else. For this you will travel on a vehicle powered both by sails and an engine. During your adventure you will solve puzzles, upgrade the vehicle ( ship? ), collect fuel for its engine and most of all deal with all kinds of defects. Defects which are not taken care for will start fires and render parts of the ship useless and will also cause further damage. You cannot finish the game without your ship, so you will have take good care for it. When you are not dealing with the ship you will solve (simple even for me) puzzles in the ruins of the world and uncover what has happened to it. 

While theoretically Far Lone Sails has failure state it is hard to get to it and not finish the game. The puzzles you will encounter are also not extremely challenging. What stands out from the game is its atmosphere of loneliness,  beautiful environments and the open for interpretation story ( including the ending itself ). Far Lone Sails is really about the journey more than about the destination, its an experience. Although the destination is also quite interesting.

 

Where to find:

Official site

GoG 

HumbleStore

TREE 

TREE is developed by group of industry veterans calling themselves The Strangers and it came out in September. It is a simple game about a boy planting a tree ( shocking, right? ) and collecting the fruits of the tree each season. But TREE is not about its game element, it is about life. While you are growing the TREE and gathering its fruits you will witness how the boy grows and what fruits he gathers from life. TREE is a short, half-hour game about life and what you can get from it...or not.

Where to find:

Steam

Cultist Simulator

The long time readers of the blog are aware that I am no small fan of Failbetter Games, the creators of the browser adventure game Fallen London and the naval adventure Sunless Sea. And now the creator of these two gems - Alexis Kennedy has made Cultist Simulator. By its nature Cultist Simulator is a digital board game in which your task is to create your own Cult and achieve Immortality. To achieve this you will explore the secret occult places in a city and work so you can have money for pieces on mysticism ( and to support your life ). In the progress of the mentioned explorations you will not only attract people for your Cult, but there is also good chance you will attract unwanted attention of both people who are against your interest in the occult and from occult powers. Both will attempt to end your life. 

How all this works is very confusing - you have...lets call them nouns, those are the cards in the game, they are separated in all kinds of categories and types - Tools, Skills, Books, Rites, Enemies, etc.. And you have verbs, those are the actions you can attempt - Work, Study, Dream, Explore, etc. For the actions you use cards. Most cards can be used with different actions and provide different results. The confusing part comes from the fact that Cultist Simulator as all other Failbetter games leave a lot to the user. You will fail and start a new many times before you learn the ropes of the game and how to play it if not optimally at least manage to finish it without dying. The game is also very chaotic - verbs happen in real time and once you get few going at the same time you will be clicking and hovering stuff all the time, wondering what to do next, seasons will pass, money will disappear and your only friend in this madness is the pause, but even it will not help you enough sometimes. 

Despite all these Cultist Simulator also has this great, unique, mystic vibe all other Failbetter titles have. And while the game is probably not set in Fallen London, because Kennedy has released it independently, it can easily find its place in the underground city and if you like Fallen London and Sunless Sea there is something for you in Cultist Simulator too.

Where to find:

Humble

GoG
Steam

Preview: Multiverse: Cosmic Conquest - Not Magic in Space

This is such well known fact on the blog that I do not know why I even bother to mention it, but I am big big CCG fan. When I hear CCG and I already want to try it. So imagine how I felt when from TokArts contacted me and asked if I am interested in checking their upcoming game Multiverse: Cosmic Conquest.


Multiverse is innovative card game where you and up to 5 more players will try to conquer the Galaxy or to take the home worlds of their opponents. The game heavily reminds me of Magic: The Gathering, but at the same time is so different that I am not sure how appropriate is this comparison.  But let me tell you more about the game and you will decide for yourself.

Factions  

In Multiverse you will be able to play with one of the six factions which are color based, each color with its own playstyle. This is one of the things which reminded me of MtG, some colors are even similar to the same colors in Magic. For example Red is aggressive, Green can swarm you, Blue is heavy control oriented etc. On the other hand the gameplay and the idea of the game is different enough to make it unique and worth it. Each faction produce resources from different types of planets(similar to Lands, again...). Unlike other CCG games in Multiverse the resource cards(Planets) are not part of your deck, instead the planets of all players are part of the board - the Galaxy. 

A Galaxy to Conquer

I keep saying that the game differs greatly from Magic, but let me prove it and tell you about the core gameplay of Multiverse. In this game there is a board and your units via ships move on the map, take new planets, build structures, fight, board enemy ships. This is already a whole new game.  On top of that you can build only on places where the necessary resources are present on the space itself, but you have cargo ships to make this easier. As you can see the game is a galaxy of possibilities on its own. Now that you know what you can do you can start working on a strategy how to win. I did not tell you how you win, did I? May bad. To win you should either conquer all your opponents home planets or conquer half the Galaxy. 

Conclusion

Multiverse: Cosmic Conquest mixes CCG with strategy 4X game, trying to make something very unique and truly interesting. In the game you will do everything you have ever dreamed for in a space strategy game. You will have battles between space armadas, you will board enemy ships, colonize planets and transport goods with cargo ships in order to expand your empire. 

The game is still under development and a lot is work in progress, but you can try it in OCTGN. You will have the stunning 225 cards to experiment with and over at TokArts you can see when testing sessions are happening and play with other people too. 

In case you have no experience with OCTGN you can find full tutorial here. 

When Multiverse is complete it will run on its own engine like every other digital CCG, so if you do not like it now, give it time, this game has huge potential and for I will follow it closely.

Where to find: 

Official site

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain - Some things never get old

I remember at some point in my childhood how I read choose your own adventure books and fail at them all the time. I was not able to finish even one. I mean successfully. At some point later I have forgotten about them ( As it happens with a lot of things.) until few years ago when mainly with the help of Sorcery by Steve Jackson(not to be mistaken with the designer of Munchkin) my interest in the genre was revived to such extends that I even tried to write two stories - one is still unfinished, the second was not liked by the publisher, but enough about me. Today I will tell you about my adventures in the Firetop Mountain which is also created by Steve Jackson (and Ian Livingstone). And no I am not starting to review books on the blog, Firetop has received its own digital port much in the spirit of Sorcery.

 In this adventure you will brave the Firetop Mountain at the top of which powerful Warlock resides. Based on the character you choose at the start your mission in the mountain will be different but it will involve some interaction with the Warlock for sure.

Once Upon a time there was a Warlock...

TWoFM tells the story in the same original way Sorcery did - by small snippets of text which chain together after each of your choices. This time you also have a figurine of your character which wanders around while exploring the vast dungeons of the mountain. Essentially it is a tabletop RPG now. 

After I finished both Sorcery books I have given it to Mr. Jackson that he is a good writer and for this story he have worked with Ian Livingstone. That said there a lot of ways to ruin a good story when you make it into a game, this is not an example of one thankfully as the visual style and mechanics only complement the feeling of a tabletop game.

When you start the game you will have to choose between several characters which not only have different stats and abilities but also have their own distinctive backstory which will affect many of the encounters you have in your adventure. For example you might recognize a famous adventurer who has been locked in the mountain for long time and he will give you useful information or you might even find fans of yours among the goblins and orcs guarding the dungeon. Or you might smack the old men and kill all the greenskins...it all depends on who you are. The character you choose will also determine the objective you have. Giving such unique choices based on the character choice gives the game great amount of replayability ( as it did not have enough by the lone fact that it is a choose your own adventure )

Swords and Grids

There are more than few series in the choose your adventure genre and The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is proud representative of Fighting Fantasy therefore as the name suggests, there is a good amount of fighting in the game and I was curious how it is done and was half expecting the same "powerbluff" system as in Sorcery and I was kind of correct on the bluffing part. This time fights take place on a grid and each turn you and your enemies choose one action when both are done actions resolve simultaneously. 

Tin Man Games have called it GridBluff system, but it is a lot like the action programming mechanic in board games. The name of the mechanic does not matter that much actually and what is important is that it makes the battles really strategic and often puts you in situations where you will think more than few minutes on what to do on your turn. Also with the ascension of the mountain you will encounter harder and harder enemies with intricate battle mechanics related to them. Giant statues will smash everything in front of them, stone palms will come to life and grab you from few squares distance and stone statues will push each other around making standing in front of them deadly. 

Conclusion

If you have gotten this far you are probably already downloading the game. I mean Fighting Fantasy, Steve Jackson, Ian Livingstone, choose your own adventure, Tin Man Games...there is hardly a better combination you can wish for if you are a fan of tabletop and/or adventure books? But even if you are (still) not a fan but have wondered will you like such books the digital version of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is good place to start as it has all the charms of the books and at the same time it comes powered up by digital technology which only adds to the experience and immersion. But the game has something to offer even to the experienced gamers as this version adds new characters, enemies and areas to explore. Must try!

Where to find:

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain

Steam

Humble Bundle

Tin Man Games

Chronicles: Runescape Legends - The first look is deceiving

First, before everything else I want to say that my experience with Runescape is around 2 hours so there will be no comparison to characters from there, lore, places from the game etc.

Card Collecting games are seeing huge resurgence and that is no secret for anyone. Hearthstone is still huge, not to mention how many more came after it. Some of them good, some bad, but that's how always it is. After Hearthstone though every CCG was proclaimed to be clone of Blizzard's hit. When information came that Chronicles: Runescape Legends which is Runescape's CCG is going to be released the same was said for it too and to be honest it looked like one. But oh my how wrong we were, because this has very little to do with Hearthstone or any other card game.

In Chronicles you and your opponent go through five levels, on which you fight monsters, buy items, get money. There are two important things to mention - first you do not fight the same monsters so this is not co-operative game. Second you choose what monsters to fight and when by playing them from your hand. Yes, that's right! Essentially you are building the encounters on each floor or level by playing cards from your hand. As I mentioned cards are not only monsters they can be helpers, or weapons, healing items, money or even spells.

Basically your idea is to build your character by increasing his attack and armour for which you will need money from helpers and monsters. And at the same time if opportunity presents itself to weaken or even kill your opponent. The moment one of you is dead the match is over. If after the end of the last floor both of you are alive you fight until there is only one. Battles with both monsters and opponent happen the same way - you just smack each other and the tougher guy wins. Despite this there is good variety of tactics based on the character you are playing. Some will gain armour quickly and win by simply being tough as nails and by beating you to a pulp with their massive plates of armour. Others will collect money with ease and will buy items quickly, another will shower you with spells and so on you got the idea. The classes feel different, each with their own weaknesses and strengths. Each being able to be played aggressively or not depending on your preferences. You can go for the kill when you duel or you can try the cruel way and kill your opponent during the encounters, by playing different spells and monsters which allow you to strike the enemy. 

Chronicles will offer you 3 main ways to play which are the same as in any other CCG - Ladder, Dungeoneering (draft/Arena) and Singleplay. Also there are a lot of daily task to do when you log in so if you do not like to just climb the ladder you will have things to do. Boosters are sold for both real and in-game currency and also you will be rewarded cards and boosters when completing daily quests.

Visually the game will remind you of Runescape. The battles are bit clunky looking as the characters (Legends) are made like figures. This is something I hope they change at some point as it will make the game a bit more enjoyable to watch by the ones who are playing it. Although I must say that this gives the game this boardgame feel. Interesting idea is to make you see across the board the character of your opponent in humanlike size sitting against you and watching the game and even mimicking and reacting to things that happen. This also helps to recreate the feeling that you are sitting against someone and playing a boardgame. Chronicles is a lot more like a dungeon crawl mixed with card collecting and deckbuilding than a cardgame.

Conclusion

Chronicles: RuneScape Legends is one more game which is blending genres together but the difference is that this time two tabletop game are mixed - boardgame and CCG, making something unique and interesting. The greatest thing for me is that you do not need to know anything for RuneScape if you want to play the game and enjoy it. It also offers something unique to all fans of CCGs. Another thing which I noticed is that because you play your cards for your benefit somehow it feels that card collection size does not matter as much and starting decks feel more competitive capable than in other similar games. That said do not expect to reach the top of the ladder but you will have easier start once you grasp the game. 

Where to find:

Official Site

Jagex Games

RuneScape

Tharsis - Rolling dice and eating people on the road to Mars

Tharsis is a small game made by Choice Provisions and it's about the first manned mission to Mars. From the Tharsis region on Mars is received a mysterious signal. Quickly a crew is gathered and sent to investigate. On millions miles away from home their ship is struck by a meteor storm and it is severely damaged and two crewmates are dead. Now it’s all in your hands.

Or at least this is what the game wants you to believe. Actually you control very little in the game. Tharsis on its own is very simple. You have four crewmen each with its own special ability and number of dice. That's right you are rolling dice in this game, but let me continue. Tharsis is turn based game in which every turn your ship is struck by different misfortunes (events), to fix those you will have to complete their dice threshold. If you don't manage to do this there will be negative effects which can vary from minus dice for your crew to minus food, more stress, direct damage to the ship or to your people. 

Other important thing to know is that every section of the ship is different and important. There is a medical bay; there is a garden which produces food, flight control, and life support and operations room. Each of those sections can give you some bonuses if you send someone there to roll. This will force you to choose do you want to repair something or do you want to get something. And this I like, its a strong strategy element which can really change your game. 

Let me go back to the damage and fixing it. When a section of the ship is damaged, there, depending on the section will be some negative effect which will affect your dice and make them...malfunction. For example they may get in stasis and you will not be able to re-roll them or even be directly voided and disapear, other effects include things like wounds which equal the rolled number. When all of your astronouts have spent their dice and all unsloved events are resolved you will be given choices regarding the dispensation of resources like food, dice, stress and hull integrity.

It’s a lot like a boardgame honestly. And it really well manages to create the feeling of desperation and doom with things getting harder and harder, more crew dying and in the end...even eating some of them if things get extreme. There is also a solid dose of mystery with the signal from Mars and with advancing in the game you will receive more messages from the Red Planet. Definitely creates its own atmosphere. 

But..

Tharsis doesn't really know what it wants to be. It gives you hard strategic options and in the end the only thing you can do is rolling dice, which you cannot really manipulate. True when you see the dice almost getting the number you need but in the end failing its really frustrating and it creates the feeling of desperation that I mentioned but relaying only on luck to get you through this voyage is...optimistic at best. 

If you like space games and the travel to Mars interests you Tharsis definitely have something to offer, but only if you can endure the sheer randomness of the game.

Where to find it:

Official site

Steam Store

Humble Store

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. 

Concrete Jungle - Decisions, decisions

City-building always has been a genre towards which I had mixed feelings. It's very interesting and it is very satisfying to watch my city prosper under my leadership. But because of its nature (imitating a city) when one thing go down everything follows. That infuriates me so much that I usually stop playing for some time. But I always return to the genre.

My come back this time is with a small game called Concrete Jungle. Work of the small indie studio ColePowered Games the game appeared on the market on 23th 2015 and while almost no one spoke about it, it turned out to be a hidden gem.

Welcome to the Jungle

Concrete Jungle is deck-builder. With a twist. In most deck-builders you have constant market from where you buy new cards for your deck. Here you don't have this, instead every time when you collect certain amount of "money" you are present with the option to choose one card or to take one "ability" which most of the time is also a new card. The difference is that the abilities give more control over what you get. Unlike the market where the cards are random.

The game has 8 characters with different abilities which give you plenty of room for experimentation and creation of different decks.

The idea of the game is to get certain amount of points by reaching block thresholds which is done by building different buildings. The trick is that only certain buildings collect points while others buff building squares and there are such that even debuff squares, but provide other things. You also gather points from blocks only if previous blocks are collected. You can force remove blocks, but it costs lifes and doesn't give you points.

Add to this the strong puzzle element that Concrete Jungle has with all the building fitting in the most harmless place and you get a game that will make your brain hurts.

The game features more than 200 cards which you will unlock gradually trough the campaign where you will try to save a city from its foolish mayor. And when you beat it there are other mods to try including competitive local and co-op play as well as versus AI mode.

Concrete Jungle is also a good looker and has a decent sound plus fully voice acted story mode. And mentioning the voice-acting most of them sounded really fake and forced to me and while it is probably done to add to the funny story that goes through the campaign, in the beginning they were rather annoying to me.

Conclusion

Concrete Jungle is interesting mix between a city-building and deck-building game, where you will have to carefully plan your moves or face the consequences. The main objective of the game is to reach certain thresholds and clear blocks by placing point collecting and manipulating buildings. At the start you will build simpler buildings but by advancing the campaign you will unlock fancier things like business towers, military bases and skyscrapers.

But while it is colorful and relaxing at first Concrete Jungle will make you use your brain in later levels where you will need every trick you have to complete your tasks.  

If you're into puzzles and city-building there is no reason not to try it. You will thank me later.

Links:

Official site

Itch-io

Humble Store

Steam