Author: OmegaEXE

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Details

Game Design & Art: Pablo Clark

Publisher: Eerie Idol Games

Player Count: 1-4

Estimated Play Time: 60-120 minutes

Box Size: 13in x 10in x 4in

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Quick Debrief

In this asymmetric betting and bluffing game, two to four players take on the roles of heirs to a fractured kingdom, each commanding a unique faction vying for influence. You win by accumulating the most Influence tokens across a series of rounds, each representing a year of political and military struggle. The core mechanism is blind bidding, simultaneously playing face down cards to contest regions of the map, bidding on powerful Kingdom Cards, and bluffing your opponents into costly mistakes. Simple stakes with a surprisingly deep decision space.

I’ve really enjoyed The Old King’s Crown. Pablo Clark’s painterly illustrations on large tarot-sized cards pulled me in before I even knew the rules, and the game more than delivered on that first impression. The seasonal structure gives each round a satisfying rhythm, and the face down card system generates the kind of tension that makes you replay every decision in your head afterward. My one concern is the potential for random outcomes to frustrate players who take losses personally, something to keep in mind when choosing your game group.

Current Status: Useful Gear (Want To Play Again)

Overall, it’s a strong addition to my collection and I’d recommend it to fans of blind bidding, asymmetric strategy, and games that reward reading your opponents. If you’re comfortable with calculated risk and you enjoy the cat-and-mouse of predicting what someone else will do, there’s a deeply satisfying game here.

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Initial Observations

Pablo Clark’s painterly and atmospheric illustrations on large tarot-sized cards were what drove me to learn more about The Old King’s Crown. I was hesitant about betting and bluffing with face down cards, but the clean design and easy to understand battle mechanics kept me interested. I also enjoyed watching Pablo Clark’s livestreams as he drew new art for the game. I backed The Old King’s Crown on Kickstarter in November 2023 and received the base game and the Wild Kingdom expansion. As a Kickstarter backer, I also received a metal active player token. 

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Gameplay

At first glance, the massive Kingdom Board feels daunting despite its beautiful art. The board doubles as a window into the kingdom and your guide through the game structure, walking you through each season of every round. You take on the role of an heir to the kingdom with a faction by your side (the Nobility, the Clans, the Uprising, or the Gathering). Each faction shares similar card types but comes with unique Tactic abilities and unlockable Advanced Faction Cards that make each feel genuinely distinct from the start. 

Thematically, each round represents a year of conflict, and that framing carries through the mechanics. Seasonal abilities only activate in the phase they’re tied to (Spring, Summer, Autumn or Winter) which makes the annual concept feel meaningful rather than decorative. 

The heart of the game is simultaneously playing cards face down. You use this mechanic to bid on Kingdom Cards, a deck of unique abilities and benefits acquired either by winning bids or stealing from other players. You also place three Faction Cards face down beside each region (the Highlands, the Plateau, and the Lowlands). Adding to the tension, the player last on the order track decides the sequence in which each regional clash resolves. Each Faction Card has a strength value, commands, and traits that determine how it behaves in battle, and some abilities trigger in player order while others resolve simultaneously. Predicting what your opponent will play while also choosing the ideal flip sequence for your own cards creates a wonderfully layered decision space.

There’s a second layer of bluffing even before cards are placed. Placing your Herald, a bonus-granting piece that can also steal points, telegraphs information about your intentions. Did you put your Herald on the Necropolis to recover your key cards from your discard pile? Or to lull your opponent into thinking that’s where you’ll concentrate your strongest Faction Cards? The strategic space around the Herald is rich, before the face down cards even enter the picture.

Once Summer ends and the clashes resolve, Autumn opens up a fun new game space. Players can Govern with Faction cards to activate special abilities in the various Councils. A thematic political twist useful for gaining extra Influence or recovering lost Supporters. The Journey mechanic introduces Lore, the game’s true currency. While Influence tokens may look like coins, Lore is what lets you buy your unique Advanced Faction Cards. These come with higher strength values, stronger abilities, and some arrive as HQ cards, tarot-sized cards turned sideways that grant persistent abilities. Winter, finally, is cleanup time. You reset the board, potentially lose Supporters, and see whose Faction Cards survive into the next year. 

No matter how many clashes you win or how well you manage your hand, what ultimately decides the game are Influence tokens. That clear throughline keeps every decision focused.

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Field Testing and Replayability

I’ve played all four factions at least once, and each felt like a meaningfully different experience. Sometimes I leaned into deploying units, ambushing opponents, maintaining a board presence with Supporters, or controlling the Councils. I don’t have a clear favorite strategy, and that’s exactly what keeps drawing me back in. Learning when to use each faction’s Tactics has been one of the game’s best puzzles. Activate them too early and your opponents may outlast you in later rounds. Wait too long and the game may end before you get the chance. 

The Kingdom Cards add another layer of variability. More than once, I started with a clear plan and then changed it entirely when a new card appeared on the Great Road. A friend built a combo with two Kingdom Cards that created overwhelming chain reactions in clashes that I hadn’t anticipated. A satisfying example of how these cards can reshape the game.

One word of warning to players who lean toward cooperative games, as I do. There is a cooperative mode that pits players against the Simulacrum, but this is fundamentally a competitive game. And it’s a competitive game where you can be as ruthless as you want. There are graceful ways to win and brutal ways to dismantle your opponent region by region. Because cards are played face down, a player’s loss can occasionally come down to chance. I enjoy that element, but I’m cautious about playing with anyone who takes outcomes very seriously. The randomness inherent to predicting your opponent’s moves is part of the experience, not a flaw. But this game needs to land at the right table of players and that will limit when I play this game.

The Old King’s Crown is, at its core, a game of blind bidding. A clean, well-executed  mechanism wrapped in a beautiful world with asymmetric abilities and rule-changing Kingdom Cards that keep each session feeling fresh. I’ve had close matches, including one that required a tiebreaker check. Even when a round swings in someone’s favor, the war hasn’t been decided until the very end. Managing your hand, your Supporters, and your abilities is a rewarding balance across every round. 

You can also adjust the game length to fit your needs or raise the stakes and scores. You simply choose four, five, or six rounds (a short, standard, or extended game).

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Notable Discovery: Kingdom Cards

The Great Road is the game’s auction house, where you can acquire unique powers by spending a card from your hand. The Kingdom Cards are where you’ll find the full variety of Pablo Clark’s art and world-building, and it’s where some of the most game-altering abilities live. There were consistently more appealing options on the Great Road than I had room for on my player board. The limit of two Kingdom Cards at a time is a satisfying constraint. Watching a well crafted combo unfold mid-game is one of the most memorable moments.

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Notable Discovery: Simulacrum

The solo mode is impressive for a game built around hidden information. Rather than defaulting to random behavior, the Simulacrum uses Threat, Fog, Ambition, and Scheme cards to emulate human tendencies, giving you a read on what it might do in each region while still forcing genuine decisions. A solo game against the Simulacrum, while challenging, feels complete rather than a workaround.

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Observer’s Notes

Props to the Eerie Idol team for creating both an Introductory Strategy guide and a Teaching guide (link). The rules themselves are approachable, but developing a real strategy takes time, and these guides do a lot of work in orienting new players toward meaningful decisions. 

My practical note is that I wish the game shipped with multiple copies of the physical player aids. Having only one means players share it, occasionally causing small friction in game sessions.

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Field Report Summary

Current Status: Useful Gear (Want to Play Again)

• Rules Accessibility: The gameboard acts as your guide through each season of every round, and the included player aid covers the symbols and abilities found on Faction Cards well. The barrier is less about rules comprehension and more about building strategies.
• Replay Potential: Each Faction plays differently enough to warrant multiple game sessions, and the large Kingdom Card deck introduces consistent variability. Different opponents change the character of every clash. Expansions add further layers when the base game’s variety wears thin.
• Components: The cardboard tokens are well-illustrated and the metal tokens have satisfying heft. Artwork across the board is vibrant and the materials are durable, holding up well to repeated play.
• Time Investment: Setup and clean up are quick. Total game length depends heavily on player decision speed, particularly during clash setup and resolution. The most variable and engaging stretch of each round. 
• Portability: You’ll need a large table for the boards, but everything fits neatly in the medium-sized game box.

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Details

Game Designer: Krzysztof Belczyk

Art Direction: Patryk Jędraszek and Adrian Radziun

Publisher: Awaken Realms

Player Count: 1-5

Estimated Play Time: 120-240 minutes

Box Size: 15in x 13in x 7in

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Quick Debrief

In this cooperative boss battler, two to five Hunters take on a single massive enemy called a Griefbound, alongside its minions and an elite enemy. Hunters lose if time runs out or anyone dies. To win, kill the Griefbound before it kills you. Pick your scenario, build your team, and get straight to the fight. 

I’ve really enjoyed playing Grimcoven. The sundrop miniatures and gothic atmosphere are immediately striking. The game earns its massive table presence, but the scale between the Hunters and the towering Griefbounds puts you inside the fight. The dice placement system is the mechanical heart, and it rewards planning over luck. Each session feels different enough that I finish one already planning the next.

The setup and organization ask a lot of you, especially if you own all the content. The walkthrough scenario is also a poor first impression. Don’t judge the game by it!

Current Status: Essential Equipment (Must Own)

Overall, it’s essential in my collection and I’d recommend it to any fan of boss battlers, cooperative strategy games, or miniature-heavy productions that deliver on atmosphere. If you don’t mind the table space requirement and setup time investment, there’s a deeply satisfying game waiting on the other side.

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Initial Observations

I had been following Awaken Realms’ Gamefound projects for a while after playing Dragon Eclipse and Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition. Dark, Victorian horror isn’t usually my genre, but the combination of grim hunters and large, threatening enemies pulled me in. This game has an immediate sense of spectacle and the miniatures only add to the drama. I backed Grimcoven on Gamefound in June 2024 and received the Special Edition core box with sundrop miniatures. I was happy with my previous all-in pledges so I opted for extra content: 

• Personal Stories
• Hunters expansion
• Forgotten Entities expansion
• Renegade Hunter mini-expansion
• Terrain miniatures
• Companion miniatures
• Acrylic tokens
• Neoprene play mats

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Gameplay

At first sight, Grimcoven is a daunting board game with a large table presence. The giant boss miniatures called Griefbounds genuinely feel threatening, look grotesque, and pull you into the atmosphere. Fortunately, the game helps walk you through its complexity with components like easy-to-read standees guiding you step by step through the enemy phase, so the physical layout becomes your teacher. In this boss battler, two to five Hunters fight one of the many Griefbounds with a variety of elite enemies and minions. If time runs out or one Hunter dies, the players lose. To win, you must kill the Griefbound. Simple stakes, but the road to get there is anything but.

The players are Hunters in this universe who swore an oath to resist the temptation of Lament, a dangerous, corruptive power, while risking their lives to defeat terrifying entities. From the start, this game gives you an impressive number of ways to customize your experience. Each Griefbound comes with five scenarios of increasing difficulty that change the map, cards, and minions, and randomized elements to ensure the same rarely plays the same way twice. Specific terrain and location cards tied to the map offer optional actions that add to the story through secret cards, introduce new obstacles, and can even save you from defeat at a critical moment.

When choosing your Hunter, you also pick their starting weapon and armor, which directly shapes your dice pool. In this game, dice are your action economy. Once rolled, you match symbols on the dice to symbols on your cards and player board. This strategic placement puzzle is where the game shines. It never feels punishing because you’re generally using dice that weigh your odds toward specific symbols you need, and specific abilities allow you to reroll or share dice symbols with other Hunters. 

Turns stay quick and snappy despite the game’s complexity. Each Hunter is limited to two actions per turn before passing clockwise, which keeps the game moving, forces teamwork, and prevents downtime that plagues heavier games. The Hunter phase can still run long as players choose who to attack, where to move to stay safe from the Griefbound’s next strike, and how to split resources like treasure chests and Lament. But when the Enemy Phase begins, it runs on rails. 

Players must survive a random event card, the activation of up to eight minions, the activation of a powerful Elite enemy that has the maddening ability to return after death, and the Griefbound itself. Crucially, all enemy actions are telegraphed through face up cards, and Griefbound’s next two attacks remain a known quantity. That transparency enables the kind of fun, tactical planning the Hunters phase is built for. 

There’s still randomness to wreck a well-laid plan. Each Hunter must draw a corruption card every round, and Lament, while powerful, raises your corruption level and makes those cards nastier. Feeling hungry? It’s quite possible that you’ll turn on your fellow Hunters mid-battle. 

In games like Power Ranges: Heroes of the Grid, dice determine damage output. I still remember rolling eight dice in Power Rangers Heroes and doing zero damage to the enemy. There is nothing more frustrating than randomness dismantling your carefully built turn. Grimcoven, like Scott Pilgrim Miniatures the World, uses dice differently. They determine which actions you perform, and those actions have fixed damage values. Removing damage output randomness from the player side is a smart design call, and it makes growing your dice pool genuinely exciting. More dice means more options and a richer decision space, not just bigger damage. The game designer was equally clever on the enemy side, tying their damage directly to enemy dice rolls so the opposition stays unpredictable.

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Field Testing and Replayability

One warning before you sit down to play for the first time: don’t let the walkthrough color your opinions of the real game. The walkthrough does a poor job of marketing the fun by throwing you into an uphill situation. I played the playthrough and lost almost immediately. It wasn’t until a proper scenario that I understood what makes the game click.

I expected to feel overwhelmed and reluctant to dig into all the playable content. Playing both solo and as a two player experience changed that. The game is more balanced and accessible than it appears from the outside. The solo mode Deputy mechanic is a good enough solution that a solo game feels as good as two players. I don’t see myself playing at the maximum of five players, but a three player game that will fill my tabletop, or a two player run, both feel right. With each game, you get faster at game setup and more capable against each Griefbound’s attack card. Learning each Hunter’s strengths and weaknesses has been half the fun. 

My current favorite Hunters are the Gunslinger, Keeper, and Technomancer. Each one illustrates how differently a Hunter can feel to play. The Gunslinger rewards positioning. You’re forging bullets and choosing exactly when to spend them for bonus damage or special effects so every attack feels like a decision rather than a routine maneuver. The Keeper is the team’s tank. Slow to move at first, built to absorb punishment, and steadily growing into a damage powerhouse as he assembles pieces of his demonic sword. Watching that sword come together over the course of a battle is its own kind of satisfaction. The Technomancer plays differently from either of them as a complex support character with a unique technology die. She can toggle between powering up weapon or armor attachments depending on what the team needs. Put any combination of Hunters on the table and no turns look alike, which is exactly the kind of variety that makes you want to try a different team the moment a game ends. 

Even scenario one against the Graveyard Dragon has felt fresh both times I’ve played it, thanks to randomized attack cards and landmarks. The portals are a good example of how the game generates memorable moments. Sometimes you don’t have enough movement to use them, or certain effects render them useless entirely. But when you can land a killing blow on a piece of the Griefbound and then sprint through a portal to dodge a counter-strike, you feel like you’ve survived a moment in a larger war. 

Whenever I leave the table already thinking about what I’d do differently next time, I know a game has real replay value. I’ve had multiple conversations after sessions about Hunter combinations and whether we’re ready to push to a higher scenario level. There are also so many minions variants and environment-linked secret cards that a single battle only scratches the surface of what’s in the box. Heavy, cumbersome to organize, but worth it the moment you sit down. 

Difficulty modifiers let you tune the experience in both directions. For a first playthrough, I recommend a few easy-mode tweaks. Most just give you a head start on powering up for round one. The Rapid Hunt mode is also worth considering as a standard game can stretch across a couple of hours. This mode cuts the runtime by starting you mid-fight.

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Notable Discovery: Corrupted Hunters

My excitement peaks every time I get to swap out my Hunter miniature for its corrupted form. And the path to get there is one of the game’s best mechanics. Lament, the resource that fuels the Griefbound themselves, is also available to Hunters. Spending it levels you up, unlocking evolution cards that might give you an extra attack, or simply an extra die. One die sounds like a modest reward until it’s the resource that lets you pull off a killing strike or pass a crucial symbol to complete a teammate’s combo. 

Hunters can also gain hunger tokens which force attacks against your allies. Though my game group hasn’t worried too much about hunger, because collecting more Lament is the only way to flip your player board to the corrupted side. New forms come with new abilities and perks that build on the strength you’ve been stacking through evolution cards. That said, higher corruption has real costs. Negative effects become more frequent, hunger grows, and you risk becoming a Pretender where your Hunter converts into a Griefbound for others to hunt. You can sprint towards corruption deliberately or manage it carefully. Both are valid strategies. Both have consequences.

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Notable Discovery: Personal Stories

Grimcoven is not a campaign game with a continuous storyline. Any Griefbound scenario can be played with any team of Hunters, without need to start from the beginning. That said, there is lore woven throughout the Griefbound scenario books and flavor text on the cards themselves. The Personal Stories expansion gives you a way to pull on those threads. 

Each Hunter gets a story booklet with missions tied to their playstyle. Complete the Death Jester’s mission of two successful gambles in a single round, for example, and you unlock new cards and story passages that reveal how that character fits into the world. The characters already have distinct designs and mechanics; Personal Stories add motivation. The unlockable cards also give each Hunter additional replayability. My practical note: the story passages can run long so I recommend treating them as a post-game epilogue like a way to wind down after the battle where the Hunters share what they went through. This will preserve pacing during the game and gives the stories their own time to shine.

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Observer’s Notes

If you go all-in on the content, the sheer volume of components becomes its own challenge. The core box barely fits everything with miniatures, and organizing it without a system is an exercise in frustration. I solved this by buying a custom insert from Etsy, which lets me fit all expansions, add-ons, sleeved cards, and miniatures into the core box and the Forgotten Entities expansion box. Setup is noticeably faster now, and two boxes instead of a pile saves valuable space on crowded shelves.

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Field Report Summary

Current Status: Essential Equipment (Must Own)

• Rules Accessibility: The game looks overwhelming at first, but each step is numbered and approachable. The rules themselves are not hard to understand, which makes for a comfortable learning curve, though small details are easy to miss on a first read of the rulebook. Each Hunter and Griefbound brings its own unique rules and, fortunately, Awaken Realms provides an FAQ and errata (link). 
• Replay Potential: I played scenario one of the Graveyard Dragon twice and each felt genuinely new. Between the variety of Hunters, scenario levels, minion variants, map terrains , and landmarks, you’ll finish a session already planning the next.
• Components: The acrylic component upgrades are a mixed bag. Some look like cheap candy and feel out of place next to the rest of the production. Others, like the Keeper’s metal demonic sword and the Gunslinger’s plastic bullets, are thematic and impressive. The cardboard components are uniformly beautiful and legible. The miniatures do the most work. The scale difference between Hunters and Griefbounds pulls you into the world.
• Time Investment: Pre-session setup is the hard part. Once you’ve laid everything on the table, the game starts quickly. Expect multiple hours for a standard game. As you familiarize yourself with the systems, turns move faster and that improvement is satisfying to feel happen across game sessions.
• Portability: Even consolidated into two boxes, this game is heavy and not built for easy travel. I plan to host when I want to play with friends.
• Recommended Team Size: One to three players is the sweet spot. Fewer players means more frequent turns and more time in the action. More players adds strategic depth and planning that suits harder scenarios. The solo mode Deputy can fill the gap of an additional player well enough that you can easily increase your team size.

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Details

Game Designer: Ryan Farmer

Artists: Elizabeth Kim, Ferenc Patkós, Kasatka Pixel

Publisher: Almanac Games

Player Count: 1-4

Estimated Play Time: 60-100 minutes

Box Size: 12in x 12in x 4in

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Quick Debrief

In this cooperative boss battler, players create a team of two to four characters to encounter a single enemy in a battle. If players can survive without losing all their health points or succumbing to corruption, they win! When you are ready to play, you pick an enemy, create your characters, and get straight to the fight.

I like playing Encounters: Shattered Wastes. The pixel art aesthetics are great. The game size is manageable with a satisfying scale that doesn’t feel like a table hog. Each game feels different and there are plenty of strategic opportunities based on team composition, ability cards, and item cards.

It’s unlikely I will play all the game’s content because of the higher difficulty found in half the enemies. I don’t regret backing the game though. I’m always excited to support first-time game creators and I’ve had fun with this game solo and with friends. However, it’s not a game I will go back to often because I don’t want to invest the time and energy into learning to defeat the most difficult enemies.

Current Status: Useful Gear (Want To Play Again)

Overall, it’s staying in my collection for now and I would recommend fans of boss battles or pixel art Japanese role playing games (JRPG) give it a try.

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Initial Observations

The excellent pixel art immediately caught this gamer’s attention. Both the art and game mechanics reminded me of classic JRPG battles in Final Fantasy games. I backed Encounters: Shattered Wastes on Kickstarter in March 2023 and received the Deluxe Edition with an alternate box cover. As a Kickstarter backer, I received a foil version of the Crystal Elixir item card. 

Additional components in the Deluxe Edition include:

• foil variants of the character cards
• acrylic standees for the characters and enemies
• acrylic activation and enemy status tokens
• a neoprene play mat
• extra dice with a shattered effect 

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Gameplay and Replayability

One of the standout features of Encounters: Shattered Wastes is the replayability. Each game involves creating a unique version of one of the eight characters. The characters have interesting traits and stats that determine their damage output and how to land a critical hit.

Additionally, players are dealt an assortment of ability and item cards that allow for a custom load out each game. It’s fun to pick cards that align with my preferred play style. For example, the martial ability cards offer powerful attacks to overwhelm the enemy while the sorcery ability cards include both big magic attacks and support skills to help boost the team’s chance of survival. The support ability cards are useful for countering the enemy’s rage cards, and the item cards offer powerful effects to recover health points and strengthen characters.

I’ve played the game about a dozen times both as a solo game and with two players. My games have ranged from two to four in-game characters. The game does a good job of scaling the enemy boss by increasing the number of strength cards they start with relative to game character count. While having more characters on your team can mean more opportunities to deal damage, it can mean a longer battle with more enemy attacks to withstand. The enemy boss does not have health points like the players. Instead, they receive more cards in their deck that can lead to battles taking quite a bit longer to complete.

Players must inflict wounds while the enemy shifts between a guarded and staggered stance. This balance of knocking down the enemy to make them vulnerable is rewarding as it requires careful planning to ensure your attacks cause lasting damage. And even when you beat the first form, the enemy will continue to bite back in its injured state. I like seeing the enemy physically change appearance as well as change its battle tactics. The two forms keep players engaged as you need to adjust your strategy for each form of the enemy.

Regarding difficulty, the challenge feels fair and the difficult ratings for each enemy feels accurate. The game rules are easy to understand and the rounds run smoothly with only three phases (Refresh, Action, & Defend). Each character is limited to two actions per turn, but there are plenty of opportunities to trigger special abilities to make for satisfying turns. You can often do more than move and a basic attack. I like that from the start, your character feels powerful enough to damage to the enemy and contribute to the team’s efforts.

While players have to roll dice for most attacks, this is balanced out with the threat level mechanic. Rolling dice felt like more of a calculated risk at worst rather than a constant gamble. As long as you roll a higher number than your threat level, you will successfully hit the enemy. And you can lower your threat level with the recover action as well other special abilities. 

However, you will need luck when it comes to the enemy strength and rage cards. These face down cards can have nasty effects like giving out debilitating affliction cards, hitting for high damage, or massively raising your threat level. Despite this, there are multiple ways to prepare for the face down cards and, as they cycle through the enemy deck, you can begin to predict what is coming next. That doesn’t mean a clear victory is always in site nor guaranteed, but the times I’ve lost felt fair. The enemies don’t feel like they cheat to win, but rather are so powerful that you have to be prepared to endure every strike until the very end. I anticipate the most challenging enemies will be less forgiving of lackluster turns or poor planning.

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Field Testing

In a follow-up solo game against the Harvester, I changed my team to the Slayer, Seer, and Arrowmancer, leaving behind the Ronin and Monk from a previous attempt. I was rewarded for changing from pure damage dealing characters to a more strategic team with sorcery and item cards. I only knew to change my team composition after a quick loss to the Harvester once it was knocked down into its injured form.

Encounters: Shattered Wastes rewards replaying enemy battles, which is a characteristic I don’t often like in games. I’m usually not invested in one game enough to learn all of the enemy card effects. I also like picking characters that pique my interest rather than basing my choice on what abilities will be most advantageous abilities against a specific enemy. However, when I can commit to multiple battles during a game night, understanding what strategies will help you survive throughout a specific encounter has been crucial for victory. If you’re serious about winning, remember that you’ll need to be considerate during the character setup phase.

I’ve found the box to offer a lot of variability between the eight characters and eight enemies. Honestly, Encounters: Shattered Wastes offers more content than I’ll ever play because the more challenging enemies offer a higher level of difficulty than I prefer during my gaming sessions. I do appreciate having the options available because I may decide to use everything one day. In the meantime, I still enjoy playing the weaker enemies solo or with friends.

Additionally, there is an official easy mode (and ways to make the game harder). The designer suggests starting each character a relic card. These are powerful items from the journey mode that can give your team a powerful boost. I think having this option can make the more challenging enemies fun and interesting for casual players.

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Notable Discovery: Journey mode

A quick note about journey mode, which I haven’t tried. Encounters: Shattered Wastes is designed for single, independent boss battles. For those who prefer a narrative campaign adventure, journey mode allows for a team of characters to fight through all the enemies back-to-back in increasing difficulty while retaining ability cards, health points, and any relics acquired along the way. It seems like a fun test of skill and would be perfect for a game group that wants continuity between game sessions. It’s also easy to save progress between battles.

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Notable Discovery: The Shattered Mechanic

One cool mechanic I want to highlight is “shattering.” In the land of the shattered wastes, when a character maxes out on threat or wants to avoid losing all of their health points, the player board and character card can be flipped over to the shattered side. While the shattered form can save a character from leaving the battle, it transforms them into a glass cannon.

The shattered form of each character has unique traits and stats that are powerful variants of their heroic forms. But by gaining access to shattered ability cards, you must now manage your corruption value (a new loss condition). And yet, this increase in strength can be just what’s needed to defeat the enemy. Overall, I really enjoy the shattering mechanic, because the enemies aren’t the only ones on the board with two forms. It’s also satisfying to know that each character has a second chance to make a comeback against the enemy.

Everyone in this game is susceptible to losing themselves to the corrupted magic in the shattered wastes!

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Observer’s Notes

Shoutout to Dión Morales who composed background music for each boss battle. I highly recommend playing the encounter specific tracks during your gaming sessions!

Also, while I prefer the acrylic standees over the cardboard version, they are hard to pack away in the provided GameTrayz insert. A helpful guide was provided by Almanac Games, but it can be annoying to need a guide to put your game back in the box.

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Field Report Summary

Current Status: Useful Gear (Want To Play Again)

• Rules Accessibility: This game is easy to teach. However, they may be some complex interactions due to character placement on the board and specific ability cards. 
• Replay Potential: This game offers a wealth of content for a reasonable price, and each battle feels fresh.
• Components: Both the acrylic and cardboard components are great. The pixel art is beautiful and really pops. The cards are sturdy and easy to read.
• Time Investment: Unfortunately, there is a slight delay between creating your character and initiating the battle. Be prepared to make multiple decisions during character setup. This can be fun for some, but tedious for others. Additionally, if you have the acrylic standees, it may take a while to pack up the game properly.
• Portability: All the game components including the neoprene playmat fit in the box.
• Recommended Team Size: Two to three players controlling three characters seems to give the best balance of strength and variability in team composition.