Armello - It's LIke A Game Of Thrones, But With Furries

Games
1

This can be a great game by the time it’s finished, so I wanted to give it it’s own thread outside of the kickstarter thread so we can talk about the game instead of what may or may not be done for backers.

Armello is a board game with cards and dice. The premise is that the King of the Forest (a lion, natch) has come down with something called The Rot, a disease of body and soul, and has 9 days to live. Four woodland creatures are vying to take over the throne. The 4 currently in-game line up with RPG archetypes - the wolf (fighter), rat (thief), rabbit (mage), and bear (cleric). All have different attributes and all play a little differently. There are 4 more animals that are supposed to be available when the game is released.

Each day is split into a day phase and a night phase, so the game is at most 18 turns, and, once you learn the ropes, takes about an hour to play solo (I haven’t tried multi player yet). Each turn you spend AP’s moving around a procedurally-generated game board fighting each other, solving quests, exploring dungeons, and trying to increase your stock of gold, mana, and prestige. Oh yeah, and playing cards to really screw with the other players.

There are 4 ways to win, 3 of which involve getting past the traps in the castle to the King himself (not easy). You can cure his case of Rot with Spirit Stones, infect him further by spreading the rot yourself, or just outright kill him in battle. If nobody has won by the end of the last day, the player with the most Prestige is declared winner.

One thing worth noting is that the game is gorgeous. The cards are all individually animated, and the characters and board look like something out of Ralph Bakshi or Don Bluth. It’s currently in Early Access, and pretty pricey at $25. There are still technical issues, as I’ve only been able to play one game to completion - the rest have been plagued by CTD’s. Other people have reported no problems so if you feel lucky, punk, go for it.

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I was set on getting Armello this month, but I guess it will have to wait. Is it true that you can’t save in the middle of a single playthrough?

3

This looks pretty awesome

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You can’t save your game, although the developers claim they will add it.

Armello is pretty much exactly what it looks like: A fantasy-adventure boardgame converted to digital format. Which means it has all the problems associated with most fantasy-adventure boardgames: it is wildly luck-driven, and it is pretty much the same game every time. It also has the problem mentioned in the kickstarter thread, that of the four game-end conditions, only one of them ever actually happens (most prestige at the end of the game).

On the plus side, it is really very nice-looking, and it really is very board-gamey (this is a plus to me). The rules are all there to see, nothing is hidden. It might be fun to play multi-player, but I haven’t tried it yet.

5

Normally not being able to save mid-game is a deal killer, but this plays fast enough that I don’t seem to mind. As I said, I’ve yet to hear of a game taking more than an hour.

6

Then when they do, I’ll buy it. Thanks for answering, btw.

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So if you were to compare it to a tabletop boardgame, which one would you relate it to? Talisman? Runebound?

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Das24680 has a pretty nice Let’s Play of Armello, which is what made me interested in the game.

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I dunno, maybe more like Prophecy? You don’t roll dice for movement, you just get a limited number of action points per turn. Each character has one “quest” at a time, which generally consists of going to a marked space on the board and passing some kind of skill check. One of the luck elements of the game is hoping that your quests pop up near your current location; but then again you don’t really have to complete your quest, exploring dungeons is just about as valuable.

Oh, and I should have added one more thing to the plus column: the AI seems reasonably competent, which is to say, I have actually lost. Unlike, say, the Witcher adventure game, where, despite the luck element, it is completely impossible to lose to the AI players.

10

Yeah, I meant to mention that the AI seems to be pretty good. One thing I like is that AI factions go after each other, it’s not just everybody piling on the human.

I have yet to fail the skill test for a quest. I don’t know if that’s still buggy, WAD, or I’ve just been incredibly lucky.

11

I’d say lucky. I’ve failed, oh, 30% of the time.

If they can make the other victory conditions more meaningful/possible/likely, this could really be a great game. They’ve got a lot of interesting choices to make. It’s just that any that don’t raise your prestige or lower your opponents’ are bad moves in the long run. As I said in the Kickstarter thread, I’m really hoping can make this happen before release.

12

Is this thing finally nearing completion? I think I first remember hearing about it nearly 3 years ago.

13

Just to close this loop, the developers claim that in the latest build available on Steam, you can save your single-player games. (Actually, your game is auto-saved after each turn).

14

Thanks for the heads-up, JoshL, I appreciate it. I’ll buy it, then. Not now, but soon. Thanks!

15

Good to know - time to dive back in.

16

I have been cautiously watching this one as it looks like fun and I love the artwork. I love boardgame conversions. As with most folks, just wary of jumping in too soon. I think I did that with Chaos.

17

My friend just put this on my radar, as it is due to be released on Sept 1. Have people here been keeping up with the development? Have they ironed out any of the issues that were brought up in this thread? It’s the kind of thing that would probably appeal to me, but there are valid concerns brought up here and I’m wondering if they have addressed them.

18

I checked out the latest build right around the time they pulled it from EA. My crash issues seem to have been solved, and you can now save mid-game (it auto-saves when you quit). A bit more polish has been added, and from what I could tell of the AI it seemed competent. I’m looking forward to the Sept. 1 release.

19

Oh man, thanks for putting this on my radar (tgb123, and then delirium for bumping the thread I somehow totally missed originally). This looks fantastic!

20

I would have bought it this month, but it’s not available to buy right now, alas (and I totally missed the notice that they would stop selling it a month before release). I guess I’ll just wait for September 1st then.