This is a sponsored post. Prototype featured.

How we played this prototype

We only cover scenarios 1-2 of this prototype, and 2 player was not available to play. After beating the campaign, I went back and tried playing as the 1 available creature I didn’t get to try yet.

Need to learn how to play? Or want more reasoning for our points? Our review video’s got you!

Component Pros

• Very functional and gorgeous playmat

• Minis are sundropped in Awaken Realms style, feel great to move around

• Card tray & deck box to help organize with dividers

• Creature study binder works to easily slide cards in/out (design will get changed though)

• Elemental, silver, red, purple tokens all great

Art Pros

• Awaken Realms knocks it out of the park

• Locations, Items, Combat cards all look beautiful

• Arena is gorgeous

• Original designs for all of the creatures

  • Look goes in line with flavor text and gameplay

  • Feel quite compelling

Easy to Start - Pros

• Not sure how the actual rulebook will be

• Skimming rulebook and opening up scenario 1 was easily enough to get started

  • Scenario runs you through opening text, setup 1st combat, setup adventuring

Gameplay Pros — Combat is simple yet great

• Capability to use bonus actions (creature + elemental) before/after action leads to surprising amount of options

• 6 elements all provide 1 unique special ability

• Need to time passive cards (last for one round)

• Knowledge of enemy’s next action lets you plan smoothly

• Enemy’s eventual special ability that activates on card 2-3 is more to plan

• Some creatures put things on map to benefit them, so need to finish combat in timely manner

• Different arenas with different terrain

  • Trees to take up space, Berries to heal you, exploding spaces to deal damage

• Items to use during combat almost always relevant

• Need to win comfortably because damage taken carries over to next combats

• Option to tame or defeat enemy is fun decision

  • Sometimes just have to say, “screw it, too hard, win through sheer force”

Gameplay Pros — Creature Diversity

• Windraiser: moves around like crazy like good tutorial

• Firble: creates puddles on map to blink (teleport) to them

• Golomo (my favorite): slow hulking dude with 1 movement, whopping 24 health

  • Low attack at 2

  • Creates tremors on board, tremors can activate to do damage

• Emberling (Starting companion): Hits hard, but no healing/armor possibility

• Iceling (Starting companion): More balance with healing/armor

  • Water element inherent abilities let you heal

Deckbuilding Pros — So Easy to do!

• Really easy to do with simple cards

• Every creature has 3 cards + unique abilities + special ability to deckbuild around

• Later have upgrade actions and ways to play off of discard

Adventure Pros — Good for its weight

• “Where’s Waldo” minigame in seeing hidden script numbers in locations

  • Further draws you into the location as you survey every nook/cranny

• Adventuring super smooth to do: just look at script number in the booklet

  • Bookkeeping managed by A/B tokens

  • Long term consequences noted by secret cards, constantly new secrets

• Locations feel well timed with time sometimes going down during a script

• Story is decent, but feels like extended tutorial at just 2 scenarios (out of 12)

  • Laid out a solid foundation so far, opening text of starting city (Caerhern) is enough to get a decent grasp

  • At end of scenario 2 is when you can start branching out more

• Lots of flavor text for combats give combat more weight, feel like mini-bosses at least

• 2 creatures didn’t get a chance to fight in our playthrough, so decisions in booklet really matter

  • Will not taming these creatures have consequences later on? Not sure.

Rulebook Cons — Prototype Woes

• Confusion on doing item checks

• Confusion on creature health between scenarios (it doesn’t carry over)

Component Cons

• Tokens don’t have room to stay on spaces if larger mini is also on space

• Card divider sent to us fell apart during shipping, glued back together

• Small player aid for combat could’ve explained more terminology

  • e.g. Rush, Retreat, or “Deal” damage

• Will eventually have a bunch of tiny cards in front of you (items + secrets)

  • Same problem as in Tainted Grail, luckily haven’t seen any yet that need to happen at a specific moment

  • Just messy playing area, feels inherent to game because checkboxes to mark like in TG

Gameplay Cons — Balance with… Foil cards?

• Fathomable Tide attacks every enemy on board, moves them all by 1 space, then deals 3 wounds

  • So much value out of just standing still

  • Compare to upgraded neutral attack that only lets you attack twice if you pay health, no range

• Concern with power crept cards because never costs anything to play, no negative for using them

• No limit of foil cards per deck? Could combats become too easy?

Gameplay Cons — Combat overall balance concerns?

• Weird matchups might make some combats too easy?

  • Beat a fairly strong “predator” with armor, would that be too good to use? (Locked for demo)

• Water upgrade of “Opalescent Bubble” to give attack at range 3 hits almost entire map if stand in the middle. Just feels overstatted.

• Ending of Scenario 2 felt a little easier than preferred

• Maybe more restrictions to deck building would help avoid busted decks

• Would creatures evolve over time to prevent this?

Gameplay Cons — Last minor things

• Items being capped at 4 feels too low

  • Constantly getting items throughout scenario, so have to discard items

  • If use items aggressively feels like a waste

  • Capping at 5-6 would be better

• Can’t modify creature decks during scenario. If modify deck incorrectly (like trying new creature), could be screwed.

Nitpick — Lack of Initial World Building

• Feels too barebones of drop in of fantasy world

  • No story about generic protagonist tamer, not much info about world

  • Don’t know their motivations, rather just exploring to see what the heck happens.

• Not too bad because game is meant to be streamlined, but can cause issue with immersion

• No overall map, no name for the world you’re even in

• No art for any human in the game

• Compare to Pokemon: See Trainer walking around to at least “Catch Em All” and defeat Gyms

• Very possible for this to be expanded, but current campaign manager is all about creatures + cards