Developer: League of Geeks
Publisher: League of Geeks
Rrp: £14.99 (Steam), £14.99 (Humblebundle)
Released: 1st September 2015
Available on: Steam and Humblebundle
Played Using: Mouse (Keyboard optional)
Approximate game length: 30 minutes – 1 hour per game
“The King is dead! Long live the King!” Ordinarily in the world of Armello such a cry would be one of sorrow. However the King has been corrupted by an ancient evil only known as ‘The Rot’ and has become a horrible tyrant. Time is growing short for the King and the several members of the clans Bear, Wolf, Rabbit and Rat are all vying to become the next ruler. Who will you choose?
Digital board games seem to becoming a lot more prevalent in recent years from conversions of existing physical board games such as Ticket to Ride and Smallworld to games that really could only be realistically handled by a computer such as Gremlins Inc. Armello is one such of those games, there’s so much happening under the hood that there is no practical way this could work as a physical board game. Especially with the way that the game is being constantly updated (thus why I’ve included a version number because what I say now may not apply so readily to the next version).
The world of Armello is made up of hexagonal tiles that the players will move across. Each map is randomly generated which exception of the clan grounds for each player being in the corners and the Kings castle that lies in the centre. Like with games such as Catan each hexagonal tile represents a terrain type or location. Most of these tiles apply a bonus or penalty specific to its type. For example a swamp tile will remove a point of health from your character upon entry.
In this game there are four ways to win. Killing the King, having more prestige than the other players when the King dies, killing the King and having more rot than him or finally collecting the four spirit stones and bringing them to the King. Each comes with its own set of challenges.
As a default there are eight heroes to chose from each hailing from the four clans of Rabbit, Rat, Wolf and Bear. Each hero has their own set stats and special abilities. You also get to equip your hero with a ring and an amulet which give you all sorts of extra bonuses from stat increases and passive effects. At the start only one ring is available but more can be unlocked by completing games using a hero of that clan. More amulets are also unlocked through completing games but also with specific win conditions.
Each hero has four stats (as was mentioned earlier) those being fight, body, wits and spirit. Fight determines how many die you roll in a combat encounter. Body is your health. Wits determines how many cards you can have in your hand and finally spirit dictates your magical ability.
Your hero starts each turn with three action points that allow them to move to other tiles, moving between tiles usually costs an action point (although mountain tiles cost more). During your turn you can play any cards that are in your hand, assuming you have the resources to do so to affect the map, yourself or others. You draw new cards (up your hand limit) at the start of your next turn.
If your hero is killed they will be resurrected back at their clan grounds at the start of your next turn with full health and all equipment (unless an effect said otherwise).
As you play you’ll be offered quests, of which you must choose one. If you arrive at the location of a quest you will again be confronted with a choice. Do you take the safe option that guarantee’s some gold and prestige or will take the more dangerous option that if successful will also give you a reward on top what you would get in the safer option? However if you pick the dangerous option and lose you lose some health and perhaps a little more.
It has to be said though, it seems like that any quest you take will always end up being on the other side of the map, in all the games I played not once did I get a quest that I would consider ‘close by’. This made the quests always feel more risky than I would like, don’t get me wrong the reward (if you succeeded) was nearly always worth it in the end, but the cost in time sometimes felt a bit unfair.
The game includes a day and night cycle, with each period taking up a full turn and having affect on most aspects of the game from die rolls to certain pieces of equipment.
Every dawn the King will reveal two declarations to the player with the highest prestige. This player will then choose which declaration will be enacted. This will only last one turn unless the declaration states otherwise, which are uncommon. The King also loses a health point at every dawn and gains a point of rot with each passing night.
Combat is resolved through rolling six sided die. The number of die that you get to roll is usually determined by your Fight stat and will gain modifiers based on your characters abilities, equipment and followers. You can also chose to burn the cards that are in your hand to assist you before you roll the die. Each card has a symbol in its upper right corner that will dictate what that card would give you if you did that, bear in mind though that doing so will automatically assign one of your die to whatever symbol was on the card you burned.
Die rolls are also used to determine the outcome of perils (which are events that get placed on tiles around the map), in these events you must match a specific set of symbols or suffer the effect of the peril.
Each face of the die is different and has their own effect on the outcome of the battle depending on certain variables. A great example of this is that during a turn that occurs in the day the sun symbol will count as a successful hit in combat whereas the moon symbol would not, but at night this is reversed.
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