Justin Fitzgerald
United States
Black Earth
Wisconsin
-
Summary
I'm always interested in games that average joe players can pick up quickly and have a good time with. Elementalis hits this mark perfectly and has virtually no downtime.
Please note that the reviewer was also a playtester and did do a major rewrite on the rules (which introduced spells and the different types of wizards) but had not thought about the game for over a year. Having just recently seen the final production copy, it is "all but" picking up the game brand new.
Component Quality
The components for the game are well-produced. The box is sturdy and has an insert which ensures that the components aren't flopping around in the box.
There are not nearly enough counters if the players are not casting spells aggressively.
One disappointment I had with the game was there are gigantic cards included which list the spells available to you. It would have been very nice if a basic summary of the spells were printed on the card. With that much space you may not be able to get the entire wording of the spell on there but something like "Mirror Pool" is as simple as "Duplicate the results of one die" and it is enough of a reminder that players won't need to reference the rulebook repeatedly. In addition, I kept fielding questions about "how much does X spell cost?" No matter how many times I said "the 1st spell costs 1, the 2nd spell costs 2" the question kept coming up.
Rules
Despite my concerns about the card, the rules are not that hard to understand. The hardest part to grasp is all the different types of wizards, since the players can select to be any one of three, along with choosing their elements.
After a read-through and a couple mock turns, it was very clear how to interpret the rolls. Figuring out how spells fit into the whole picture was a little tricky. We started out running them like the MTG "stack" first one who casts is at the bottom of the stack.... but after a second readthrough on the rules, heck, they even explained that. The active player always has priority.
The rules could have more graphic examples to explain things... but even with text alone, it was not hard to figure the game out. That always makes me happy.
Gameplay
The basic gameplay is:
1. One player picks up the dice. They roll and interpret results.
2. They can push to increase their results, at some additional risk.
3. And finally, they can push once more, although the final roll is incredibly risky with little chance for gain. (One might call it a desperation roll.)
Part of the fun is interpreting all of the symbols and figuring out what they mean to your wizard. For example, if I'm a fire/air elementalist, I take all my fire dice, group them up. All the air dice, group them up. Then I put my ether dice next to either the fire or air (depending on which I need more mana for). But then the bad part... water dice take away my fire dice (they extinguish). Then the earth dice block my air dice.
There's something basic and primal about the elements... and so even just sorting through the results is fun.
But if you're playing a big game and watching all the players roll dice repeatedly, you very quickly realize that the game has huge downtime. That's where spells come in.
Spells as a Part of Gameplay
Spells can be cast at any point. Thusly, the best players in Elementalis are going to have their eyes glued to the rolls. A fire player, for example, can "Char" away dice away a roll. He can cast each spell once during each player's phase. Every player will have 4 spells available to them and each plays absolutely uniquely. The spells really make things interesting.
The other really awesome thing about spells is they are very true to their elements and even work into the trump.... for example:
Earth is all about holding results into place. So, for example, you get a die with 2 Earth as a result in the first roll. So you "Petrify" it so you can get the same result in the second roll.
Fire, however, is a trump for Earth. They can "Char" away that die.
And while Fire can destroy dice.... Water is able to duplicate them. And since the active player's spells are cast first... fire's attempts to destroy my dice fail because I'm duplicating the die and protecting myself.
Another good example is Air... you can force a player to reroll their dice. This is great way to "evaporate" water's results... but when you try that same trick on Earth, they will "Petrify" the key dice... and they are unaffected by air's trickery.
I can't say enough good things about how the elemental trumps are in play in the spells, even without an awkward mechanic like "Air must pay 1 additional mana to play on Earth, because Earth trumps Air." This is the main reason I want to try Elementalis again and again.
Game Balance
I gotta admit that I have no idea whatsoever whether this game is "balanced" or not. But, because of the nature of the game, luck plays a major factor. The luck balances the game because a player will stop at roll 1 if they've produced a lot of tokens. The spells allow players to pull each other down when they get too good of results.
In the few plays we've had, I was unable to detect a strategy that simply said "This works so well, there is no reason to do anything else." That said, they are times where casting a spell seems pretty obvious. For example, as a Fire player, if I see someone get a 2 Earth result... I clearly want to cast "Char" to destroy that die. I pay one mana to deny my opponent 2.
But.... because there are multiple rolls, it's hard to say whether casting most spells is overall beneficial in the long run. To put that into perspective, Fire also includes a spell called "Burn" which removes one of the die from being rolled whatsoever, before any rolls are made. So you might burn one of their dice that has 2 positive elements away. But, there is only a 1 in 6 chance they would have produced that result. Is it worth it? You tell me. The effect is largely psychological because your opponent starts questioning whether taking the second roll is worth it at all.
I'd conclude that the game is "balanced enough" but your mileage may vary on this one.
Conclusion
Elementalis is a game that will hit our table regularly, largely because it take only a couple minutes to play an entire game. When gameplay is so fast, you only want to play it a couple times in a row, and any perceived flaws about gameplay or balance are quickly thrown out the window.
This game is light fare with immense player interaction. Its theme is about elements, which are universally interesting. Interpreting the dice rolls is a load of fun.
Other than some of my comments on the components, I would have to conclude "What's not to love?"
-
|
|
