To be the most powerful, the most dominating ruler of a world is a dream of yours and all other rulers in the realms. Developing the most powerful kingdom is all about finding the way to be stronger than everyone else out there. Sometimes that is with an army, and other times it may be with a natural phenomenon or collection of strong and mystical objects. Ultimately your goal is to rise to the top, and there are many paths to victory. This and so much more can be explored in the game Fantasy Realms!
Fantasy Realms is a game designed by Bruce Glassco and Illustrated by Octographics with Graphic Design by Patricia Rodriguez and Editing by Summer Mullins. It is published by WizKids. The game is designed for 3-6 players and plays around 20 mins in length.
The components for the game are simple, it is a small box game with the following parts:
-53 cards
-1 rulebook
-1 score pad
Gameplay
In the a game, you draw cards from a common deck or discard pile with the intent of forming the best combo possible. Each card contains basic information that is important to know when it comes to playing and scoring it. The structure of each card is as follows:
The name: Each card has a unique name.
The suit: Each card will belong to one of 10 suits. There are ten total: Army, Leader, Wizard, Weapon, Artifact, Beast, Land, Weather, Flood and Flame and 3 wild cards.
The strength: Each card has a base strength that is between 0 and 40.
Bonus/Penalty: Every card has either or both that is based off of the other cards in your hand.
Gameplay involved dealing every player seven cards, choosing a random player to start and going clockwise. During your turn you will chose to draw the top card of your deck or take any card from the discard area. The game will end when there are a total of 10 cards in the discard area total. The player holding the highest scoring hand wins and in the case of a tie the highest base strength wins.
Scoring is done on the provided score pad to determine the overall score of each player. There are also included variants for 2 players and chaos rules for 3-7 players.
Impression:
Things that could be better:
Length of game: This is a shorter game and one player can start to really drive the end game quickly, so you will need to be able to balance that out as other players at the table.
Score pad: I do like games with multi point scoring but I wonder if it would be better to have a dry erase board for the scoring pad. I don’t see us getting through it any time soon, but it could be an issue.
Things I liked:
Set collection: This game takes set collection to a unique level of card collection with the way the cards each play off of each other in positive and negative ways. It is a fun look at the specific type of game without being too foreign for those familiar.
Style: I really enjoy the clean style of the cards and art presentation. The drawing are solid and the cards are laid out very well making it easy to understand.
Overall:
Fantasy Realms brings a unique and fun look at set collection and card drafting pitting you against others at the table trying to put together your most ideal powerhouse of strength. Being the top ruler in the realm is a challenging game of back and forth, finding just that right card to help your set while at the same time keeping it out of the hands of potential rival. Fantasy Realms plays quick and is a fun, light game to get the competitive collective juices flowing!
