Recent reviews by Narkulus

This is my contribution to the "overwhelmingly positive" review status.

It's very, very, very, very good.

It's Distant Worlds Universe lite, but with a really good UI.
Very addictive if 4x realtime strategy is your cup of tea.
The game will only get bigger and better with Paradox's typical DLC onslaught.

Incomplete, buggy and abandoned. I can remember these devs swearing they would finish and never abandon it. LOL

It is a shame though, because they were on the right track early in development, very attentive, and even had a next update countdown timer within the game. I knew things were going south when the timer was overdue, and finally removed.

Another one got me, lol.

I've got to admit to being a total noob at Twilight Struggle, but I can see it has got some deep strategy and I'm going to enjoy learning the game. Playdek has done a great job with the game and plan on strengthening the A.I., which currently is not a challenge for seasoned players. The only real weakness in my eyes is the user interface, which is acceptable, but it feels like a stepping stone to tablets which is Playdek's forte. I hope they refine it a little more specifically for PC in the future.

I don't want to go into gameplay too much as I'm certainly not an expert and there are some great resources out there you can look at, such as boardgamegeek[boardgamegeek.com] and twilightstrategy.com. But I will say it's an interesting and very different take on a wargame using influence instead of armies, and event cards to place that influence. Some randomness in the game comes in the form of dice rolling for coups and realignments to shift influence and balance in both "countries" and the more important, higher scoring "battleground countries". I could say a lot more about gameplay, but there's so much going on with this game I'd just suggest looking at the links above. I'm glad this great board game has made it to steam, giving players who otherwise would never experience it, the opportunity to play.

A definite 8/10 for me.

Pros:

• It's Twilight Struggle, it's held the #1 spot on BGG for several years.
  
• Chess-like in strategy, but with some randomness too.
  
• A deep, but very different strategy board game unlike anything else out there, unique gameplay mechanics.
  
• A game about the Cold War with each card being an event from that era. I lived thru some of that.
  
• An ok tutorial to get you started and make you thirst for more info about the games strategic layers.

Cons:

• A few bugs, especially if you don't have the game set in your monitors resolution.
  
• Some UI shortcomings.
  
• No PC specific enhancements such as keyboard shortcuts, right mouse clicks.
  
• Can't view all the card's text at once in your hand, you must click each one and scroll thru the cards which is a bit of a chore when your a noob like me.

If you don't like unforunate dice outcomes, stay away.
If you don't like solitaire board games, stay away.
If you like your games easy, stay away.
If you like to win a lot, stay away.
If you don't like being in unwinnable positions, stay away.
If you don't like punishing events, stay away.
If you don't like working with limited resources, stay away.
If you don't like to curse when things start falling apart, stay away.
If you don't like to watch stranded astronauts suffer, stay away.
If you're not willing to consider cannibalism for survival, stay away.
If none of that concerns you, then this may be the game for you.

Space is hard.

edit: Bad dice outcomes can be overcome by utilizing the game mechanics to their full effect. Unwinnable positions are something that you're probably gonna get your self into, don't blame the game for your bad decision making. lol

Paid $3 for a game.

Asteroids on steroids.

Would pay $3 again.

10/10

Great board game conversion.

It has a Stratego style set up, but is much deeper with each piece having it's own powers and a numerical strength, piece placement is very important during board set up. You can see your opponents piece placement, but not what those pieces actually are.

Battles play out on a diamond shaped board with sixteen territories, your pieces can only move forward with some pieces and board spaces having powers that can allow exceptions to this. When you move into a territory with an opponent present, your opponents piece is revealed and a battle begins. Your strength and your opponents strength and power are revealed. You then play an additional card from your hand prior to the battle and then you and your opponent reveal cards simultaneously. Cards can generally only be used once and are not replenished until they have all been used. Your piece strength, special powers and the card you played determine the outcome. Get your Prince to the home territory of the shadow forces to win, or if your'e playing shadow forces, get three of your pieces to the light side home or kill the prince for the win.

Great game. Well implemented. I love seeing these great board games making their way to steam.

Mulitplayer games play out in real time (no async) and the game does have an integrated chat box.

I'm going to recommend this on the fact that it's a nice relaxing game. A good filler to fall back on when there's nothing much else to play. A little bit of a solitaire feel to it due to poor AI and no multiplayer. Some fun can be had chasing the achievments.

Biggest problems:

AI is just too easy to beat, not much challenge at all.

No Multiplayer.

Update: Multiplayer has been added.

When I'm bored with everything else, I can always come back to TTR and find a game.

Multiplayer is always available.

Edit: Originally not recommended, it was borderline. After many plays, the game is in fact a lot of fun to play and the characters add a lot of variety. My gripes with the game still stand though, some crazy RNG, user interface issues, lack of options, easy AI, slow pace with no current way to disable animations.

Here are the selling points from the store page and my breakdown of said features.

◘ Easy to Play but Hard to Master - Armello is an intuitive game, easy to pick up and experience but with deep and emergent strategy. Full release will include a tutorial mode.

Emergent strategy basically means that there is no long term strategy, things change from turn to turn, a new card draw with less than stellar cards means you may have to try and burn them off rather than continuing to your quest marker so maybe you'll get a better draw next time. The card draw is one of my biggest gripes in the game. There are a lot of different cards in the deck, so you can never really plan on what you want to do with your character based on equipment and spell cards, you just have to develop a new plan based on each draw. I wish the game gave you a little more control over the card draw.


◘ Fast & Thoughtful - Adventuring in Armello is fast-paced fun but filled with deadly tactical and politically complex decisions requiring careful forethought and planning.

The pace is simply not fast, you have to wait for your opponents to finish their turn and it takes forever. You can occasionally play some cards off turn, but it's rare. Planning is thrashed by card RNG, if it works against you, your opponents will quickly outpace you in stats and equipment. Poltical descisions are not complex at all and you basically choose between a or b, prestige in the game is relatively easy to get.

◘ Multiple Playable Heroes - Full release will include 8 playable Heroes. Each unique Hero possess a special power, stat line and Ai personality. Also heroes can be customised with Amulet and Signet Ring load-outs to match your play style or counter an opponents strategy.

Fair enough.

Edit: I didn't elaborate, but characters are all very different and require different tactics. My favorite to play at the moment is Amber (dungeon RNG reducer) . Upcoming Bandit Clan DLC will also add to the variety with new characters and different buffs.


◘ Dynamic Sandbox - Armello features a gorgeous dynamic world which procedurally generates a new map each and every game, complete with a dynamic quest system ensuring no two games of Armello are ever the same.

I don't feel like the quest system was very well fleshed out. Pick the stat you want, travel to get it, a random dice roll risk if you want a little extra.
Random map generation does not really help replayability because of the small map size and a small handful of different tiles, I feel a larger map with increased action points and more tile variety would have been more immersive. I feel like I travel the same tiles, and take the same route over and over.

◘ Turn-Based Day & Night Cycle - Armello features a fuzzy turn-based system, cycling between Day and Night phases. The fuzzy turns allow you to still play cards and do certain actions when its not your turn, and when it is you use Action Points to move around the hex board.

I wish there was more to do when it's not your turn, this is less of a problem late game though as players begin to rush the palace.

◘ World Class Music & Audio - By Michael Allen, internationally acclaimed artist Lisa Gerrard, Stephan Schutze and Jacek Tuschewski.

The audio is outstanding.

◘ Animated Cards - Armello will feature over a 120+ beautifully animated in-game Cards, from artists all over the world.

They do look nice. No complaints.

Edit: The game is truly gorgeous to look at, I mentioned it in my ea review, but didn't mention it here, the all around atmosphere of Armello is near perfection for a game, I don't think there are many games in my library that come close.

◘True Tabletop Feel - We spent months making sure we cherry-picked the best parts of the tabletop experience, like our custom physics-based dice!

There are some things that are not consistent with a tabletop feel. During a King's decree, the camera locks and I can't even scroll the board. I want to look at my card descriptions while trying to figure out a quest, nope, not happening. The devs have reduced the fog in the game for better visibility, but I just want to zoom out more and see the whole board at once, but the devs are obsessed with the artistic atmosphere and zoom is nerfed.

Multiplayer makes the game a little more fun, as the AI is not great and makes some puzzling decisions, but the pace slows even more and it's agony if you've fallen behind.

For me, Armello could have had some more strategic choices (especially card draw mechanics) and less battling with the RNG. I do play quite a bit because RNG games have a place in my library. I will also continue to play in the hope of seeing some improvements, but I'm afraid this is the devs final vision (except for some tweaking) and it's not gonna change much.