CGDD4303 Educational And Serious Games Fall 2019 Showcase!

CGDD4303 Educational and Serious Games is taught by Dr. Joy Li.  The student project showcase was held on 12/9 night.  All projects were in collaboration with local educators, including instructors from local schools, Carter's Lake Museum, Augusta University Medicine School, etc.  The deliverables are game prototypes designed for educational purposes, including STEM education, museum visitings, or some interesting topics.  All collaborators including kids who participated in art design and playtesting stages were all invited to the showcase.  Some kids volunteered in student presentations to help demos.  Collaborators were all very happy and showed interest in collaborating again in the following semesters.

Buds, Blooms, And Thorns Preview Of Thalara: The Last Artifacts By Wredespiel

KICKSTARTER PREVIEW

Components and rules subject to change.

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Vitals:
Title: Thalara: The Last Artifacts
Designed by: Alexander Wrede
Publisher: Wredespiel
Year Published: 2020

Kickstarter Price: $15-$24

2-4p | 20-30 min | 10+

Introduction:

I haven't been taking on many Kickstarter previews lately, but when I head about Thalara: The Last Artifact, I was intrigued. I'm not usually a huge fan of two-player dueling style games, but I do enjoy some.  Thalara's fast gameplay and interesting hand-building mechanic caught my attention.  And since we're in the middle of a pandemic, having a two-player game that I could play with my family seemed like a great choice.  So let's read on and see if this met my expectations or left me feeling disappointed.

In Thalara: The Last Artifacts you take on the role of a wizard/sorcerer/magician using the last few remnants of powerful magical energies to battle over the remaining magical artifacts.  Each player has a deck of remnant energy that can only be used once per game, however as you gain artifact energy the artifacts become permanent parts of your hand and return after each round.  The game continues until one player has a full hand of artifacts, or has run out of remnants to use.

Thalara: The Last Artifacts is available on Kickstarter right now!

Blooms:
Blooms are the game's highlights and features.  Elements that are exceptional.

• Fast Play
• Simple Rules
• Great Artwok
• Balanced, but unique assymetric character powers

Buds:
Buds are interesting parts of the game I would like to explore more. 

• I didn't get to play the 3-4 player version, but it sounds interesting.
• Several advanced characters add more complex gameplay.
• Play gets faster and more intense as players get to know their characters and opponents' playstyle.

Thorns:
Thorns are a game's shortcomings and any issues I feel are noteworthy.

• While the 3-4 player game seems interesting, I suspect it would be more chaotic and less tactical.
• Some characters feel unbalanced until you understand how to use their abilities effectively.

Final Thoughts:

I have to say that I really enjoyed Thalara: The Last Artifacts.  The 20-30 minute gametime is pretty accurate - our first games took about 40 minutes, but we got a lot faster as we got more comfortable with the game.  The gameplay is very simple, essentially using numerical power cards (remnants) from your personal deck, which is identical to your opponent's deck except for the card backs, to compete over three other cards.  If you are familiar with games like Smash Up or Ghosts Love Candy, you're familiar with this mechanic.  It's nothing special in itself, but brings about some interesting interactions and decisions.

Each round you create a hand of 7 energy cards, made up from a combination of Remnants and Artifacts.  You start with the same 20 Remnants as your opponents and can choose which of those to use each round, but as you gain permanent Artifacts your hand becomes more defined and you'll have fewer Remnant energy cards to add to it.  The Remnant energy is generally more powerful (with strength ranging from 1-5) whereas the Artifacts are less powerful (strengths from 0-3), but worth points at the end of the game (1-3 points).  This creates and interesting dynamic of deciding when to splurge with your high-energy Remnant cards, even though that might mean winning a lower-energy Artifact.  

The tug-of-war aspect as you battle over the available Artifacts is interesting enough, but it's the character abilities that really make the game shine.  Each character in the game has a set of four spells that they can use each round.  In order to use a spell you must first play an energy card to a conflict, then you can add a spell to a conflict that has the required types of energy in it.  There are five types of energy (denoted by colors and iconography) and spells require one to three specific types of energy to be used in a conflict to cast a spell.  It's the spells that elevate the game beyond just a bluffing/deduction game of combat.  Each of the characters' spells are very unique, yet thematic for each character.  

Myrja, the Fire Amazon, has a collection of spells that destroy energy.  Canto, the Bansinger, has spells that might be considered "artistic" or that have a lot of flare.  Kandhran, the Leader of Albren, casts spells that are pure brute strength, and Accaina, the Time Traveler, has spells that manipulate your hand and the battlefield.  Each of these, as well as the other characters in the game, have very unique playstyles.  They take some time to learn and get comfortable with, but they all seem balanced, interesting, and unique.

I really enjoyed playing Thalara: The Last Artifacts, and feel like it's relatively small form factor, fast play time, and simple gameplay that still offers good depth, make it a winner - a Bloom game for sure!  It'll be a great two-player filler, and could even be fun with three or four players, though that seems like it's be more chaotic.  You can find Thalara: The Last Artifacts on Kickstarter right now for $15-$24 (depending on if you want the full set for four-players or just the two-player set).  For that price, I think this would be a great addition to anyone's collection, especially if you do like two-player games that really feel like a battle of wits against your opponents.  

Buds, Blooms, and Thorns Rating:

Bloom!  This game is great and worth
adding to your collection!  It should be
on just about every gamer's shelf. 

Pictures:

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GJJ Games Reviews are independent, unpaid reviews of games I, George Jaros, have played with my family and friends.  Some of these games I own, some are owned by friends, some are borrowed, and some were provided by a publisher or designer for my honest feedback and evaluation.  I make every attempt to be both honest and constructively critical in my reviews, and they are all my opinions.  There are four types of reviews on GJJ Games: Full Reviews feature critical reviews based on a rubric and games receive a rating from 0 to 100.  Quick Reviews and Kickstarter Previews are either shorter reviews of published games or detailed preview reviews of crowdfunding games that will receive a rating from 0 to 10 based on my impressions of the game.  Buds, Blooms,and Thorns reviews are shorter reviews of either published or upcoming games that highlight three aspects of a game: Buds are parts of a game I look forward to exploring more, Blooms are outstanding features of a game, and Thorns are shortcomings of a game.  Each BBT review game will receive an overall rating of Thorn, Bud, or Bloom.

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ASOIAF: Starks And Lannisters Overview

So.. who's it going to be?

It's probably worth saying that I got into the game fairly easily because my favorite major house in the show is Lannister.  My wife really digs Starks but she has yet to try the game because it looks too nerdy.  Don't worry, it's just a matter of time because I see her eyeing the dinner table that I've fully converted into playing daily games.  It's a good thing that I bought enough stuff to get some variety into the mix so the newer players I'm trying to get into the game can experiment and mix and match units.  Even though I have my favorites, I have probably played at least 40% of my games with Starks because I feel that the best way to learn the game is by playing a lot.

Whenever someone starts with the game, no matter what minis game, I always tell them the same thing:  Go with the aesthetics and look of the faction first above anything else.  With this game, however, I don't think the same principle applies as much in this game because everyone is human (for the most part).  When it comes down to picking a faction, I think one of the things everyone needs to do is examine a bit of their psyche and pick a faction that best aligns with their personality.  It's like picking a color in MTG and understanding that each color represents a bit of your personality.  If you want to go a little bit deeper, picking a faction in this game would be like picking a guild from Ravnica, or even building a character in a D&D campaign.  That is, unless you really really like dogs.  Then I would say just pick Starks and never look back.

Alright, so back to the two starting factions from the Core set.  Since you need this set to play the game and they're the factions with the largest amount of units choices right now, you need to decide if you want to go with House Lannister or House Stark.  Remember what I said about picking the right faction for you, as this will do you big favors because a lot of the game's mechanics are designed around how the houses behave in the books/show whatever.  There's a big chance that if you don't like the houses' personality in the books that you will not like how they play in-game.  It's actually one of my favorite things about the game so far and that's how on-point a lot of book to table translation has been.

Hear me roar!

Alright, let's begin with the Lannisters.  In this game, the Lannisters are the faction that has a lot of panic shenanigans, morale tests, weakens, and counterplots.  Their Tactics cards play heavily with the Crown and Wealth zones on the Tactics Board and controlling those will open up many secondary effects of your cards.  Lannister Commanders come in many shapes and sizes from the destructive and brutal force of The Mountain to the cunning strategist that is Tyrion Lannister (yes, you can take him in combat!).  My favorite Commander for the Lannisters is Tywin Lannister (also my favorite character in the show) because a lot of his Tactics cards and abilities intimidate and Weaken enemy units.  Another Commander that I've tried is Jaimie Lannister because his abilities center around defense, parry, and riposte; turning the opponent's attacks and crappy rolls against them.

When it comes to NCUs or their Tactics cards, the Lannisters focus heavily on debuffing and control elements that limit the opponent's options.  Pycelle's Weaken effect and Cersei's No Confidence are prime examples of debuffing the opponent or making them worse for morale tests, while tactics cards like Counterplot can outright stop an opponent tactics card from going off.  I tried to get some examples of the kind of tactics the Lannisters can employ and I think this lot sums it up pretty nicely.  For the Lannisters, they are all scheming masterminds with several abilities that kicks players while they're down.

Kick 'em while they're down.

As for Lannister units, they are well-supplied and fairly diverse to take on a large breadth of enemies.  The Mountain is its own unit just because he is, Lannister Guardsman are slow with lower attacks but has an excellent defense and a great ability (Lannister Supremacy) that only gets better with attachments, and Lannister Crossbowmen are no joke.  I've recently started playing them and having a unit that just hits units with ranged attacks on a 3+ with Sundering from Long Range is incredible.  Lannisters also have some interesting unique units like Pyromancers that can toss their Wildfire from ranged or in combat and it ignores defense saves while suffering -2 to the defender's Panic tests through Vicious.

While the Lannisters have a solid lineup of units, I would say their strengths come from their debuffs and stopping your opponents from what they want to do more so than just strength of arms.  For that, you want to get into House Stark.  If you're looking for a faction that doesn't care about the subtleties and just wants to beat face, you've come to the right place.

Winter is coming.

When it comes to striking hard and striking fast, Stark is the faction to do it.  One of the many things I enjoy about the core set is that you have two factions that have radically different playstyles.  Just like it is in the books, the Starks and the Lannisters are probably the two houses most different from one another.  While the Lannisters rely on debuffs and abilities that stop your opponents from doing what they intend, Starks are all about battlefield combat and maneuver.  They see an opening and go for the jugular just like the Dire Wolf, their house sigil and in doing so, deliver massive damage to the enemies and leave them reeling.  With Commanders like Robb Stark who can take maneuver warfare to the next level, or Roddrick Cassel and his ability to exploit the Vulnerable enemies, the Starks are the faction you want if you want to destroy the opponent's army rather than play the more drawn-out  game of politics and scheming.

Of course, this doesn't mean that the Stark units or playstyle are just centered around this niche.  With both the Lannisters and the Starks, there will be Commanders and units that will change the regular composition from what you expect from the two factions and that's always a good thing.  For example, on one side, you have the fast-moving and lightly-armored Umber Berserker that has built-in Sundering (-1 to defense saves) and their attacks increase when you lose ranks rather than decrease.  You compare this to the rock-solid Tully Sworn Shields with the Shield Wall ability and good luck trying to break their 3+ defense saves from the front.  This unit variety not only keeps different playstyles fresh and exciting but also gives units legroom to perform depending on the game mode that you play.  Either way, when you think about Starks, their humble foot soldier in the form of Stark Sworn Swords move 5, have excellent morale and rolls 8 dice just because they can.  When you pop Stark Fury on them, they gain +1 to hit and Critical Blows on their attacks (6s deal 2 hits) at the cost of D3 models to your own unit.  If that's not a healthy representation of angry Northmen I don't know what is.

Winter is seriously coming.

When it comes to Tactics cards and NCUs, Stark is pretty straight-forward:  It's all about Combat and Maneuver and taking those zones will be extremely rewarding.  Catelyn Stark can remove a condition from an afflicted unit while buffing them so they're attacking with max dice, and Sansa Stark can instant tutor for any tactics card you need, even if it's a previously discarded card.  That is great tactical flexibility and I have her in almost every single one of my Stark lists.

Well, that's about it for the high-level overview of which armies you will get in the core box.  With so many different commanders, tactics, NCUs, and units to cover, list building deserves its own article.  I'll take you guys through the basics of list building and show you a couple of Lannister and Stark lists tomorrow so you can better grasp some of the things discussed today.