“What about this one?”
My sister is holding up a little square box, about the size of a cocktail napkin, the thickness of a paperback dictionary. The motif is black and blue, with cutely crude hand-drawn artwork. The silhouette of a cat-eared demon peers over a title in block letters: ONIRIM. Is that a real word? I think it’s Hebrew.
The silhoutette of a cat-eared - silhouette
such a strightforward request - straightforward
no different that single-player - than
the various $50 game he’ll - games
there’s plenty or room for - of
It’s called enthuisiasm - enthusiasm
iconography to imply fuction - function
there are aquirium cards - aquarium
the more pertient answer - pertinent
A games takes no more - game
weakness in a nuthsell - nutshell
The seven expanions are - expansions
The idea is try - this is grammatically functional but in context I think you probably intended to put in a "to" in front of try.
Cards in Onimirm - Onirim
a little cat-earned demon - cat-eared
whatever expanions sits - expansions
in a molded trey above - tray
One of the expanions - expansions
that card it the squirrel spies - is (I think)
an opportunity to hanlde cards - handle
you enjoy the satisfaciton - satisfaction
cards as mubers are to - numbers
win the Dreamcastchers expansions - Dreamcatchers (not sure if expansions should be plural here)
Love the review! :)
This was a truly outstanding read.
Way to usurp Mercanis' job as my unofficial copy-editor. :) And this one sure did need a copy-editor. Yikes.
Superthanks, Barac. You are today's MVP!
You're welcome! I think I usually just run into the articles after Mercanis does or I'd probably do it more often. ;)
My younger sister was like Lucy to my Charlie Brown. I'd get a new boardgame, or be dying to play a game that's hardly been touched, gathering dust in the closet. She couldn't be less interested. Except for those very rare occasions, when I'd tried to elaborate just how much she'd enjoy a particular game, where she'd tell me,
"You know what? Set it up, and I'll play".
I'd eagerly dis-embox, and carefully create the requisite piles of cards/ tokens, ships, figures, dice, chits, what have you in place. It could easily take me 20 minutes.
I'd smile at her expectantly. "OK! All set!"
"... nah. Forget it." she'd grin.
Every time.
The original release of Onirim came with 3 expansions -- The Book of Steps Lost and Found, The Towers and The Dark Premonitions. There was also a second game that, so far, has not been reprinted in the new format, called Urbion. (It was originally Equilibrion, but ran into copyright problems.)
I love the new boxes, but haven't yet played much of the games, though I did play Onirim a lot back when it first came out. This post made me go and pull the games off the shelf; I know I'll have some free time later...
Ah, thanks for the correction. Glad to hear the first edition wasn't so bare bones. Although I can't imagine playing without the denizens. I love those little guys. I've heard of Urbion and I'm really curious about it. Have you played it, Roger?
By the way, I've got Sylvion on the table as I type this and Castellion is on the way!
Brutal. Absolutely brutal.
The only one I'd played is Onirim; I bought the reprint and the two new ones right away because of how much I enjoyed that one.
This article got me to try Sylvion, and truthfully, I'm still struggling with the base game -- darn Simoon cards!
"Darn Simoon cards"? I find the Blazes are the real game killers! :)
Urbion is also very, very good, though a little more mathematical than Onirim. My understanding is that it's going to be getting a reprint this year (I think) with the bigger box (and hopefully more expansions, too.)
Great review, Tom. I'm glad you like Onirim as much as I do.
I'm not sure solitaire games were a thing when I was a kid. Other than solitaire. And who needs that? Which is why it's such a shame I dove head first into pokemon cards in the third grade. I loved those things. Collected hundreds. Immaculately organized them. I never really found anyone to play with. So I'd play against myself. A lot. What's surprising is how much I cheated against myself. But maybe not so surprising. I'd only cheat if it would lead to a truly spectacular play, as though all the stars had aligned. I'm sure I'd understand that a little artistic license is worth a spectacle of a game.
Wow, I'm glad you got to it first!
Today I learned about Onirim and onanism. I learned a lot about one and enough about the other.
Typos:
"some solitaire game he’s learning ." (extra space)
"partiularly"
"people who actually want to play an actual games [sic]"
Thanks for this great review! I'm can't wait to have this game and reading reviews like this, make me more crazy. What expansions do you prefer there best? And what combos?
You ended up ordering Castellion and Sylvion? For when a review? =P
Onirim is out now on iOS and Android, and only $1 at launch. It seems like a decent port so far.
No expansions are included, though perhaps they will be future IAP.
I am hopelessly addicted to this. I win about 10% of the games but this gives me the ‘just one more game’ itch like nothing since, well, Imbroglio. Which wasn’t that long ago. But you get the point.
I’ve seen a number of people saying the game is way too hard or saying their win rate is super low. I really don’t get why. Are you discarding again and again trying to finish a set? Are you not using keys to finish sets? Are you not using keys to banish nightmares? Using keys to see the top of deck (esp if mult keys in hand). If your win rate is that low you must be missing something.
I’m no expert, but happy to try to help.
I’m not doing the first. I don’t start a set until I’m sure I can finish it, either with cards in my hands or cards I know are coming up.
I am rarely using keys to finish sets. I tend to want to preserve them for their other uses.
I am using keys to finish nightmares, and very pro-actively using keys to look at the deck (prophecy) so I can weed out nightmares and set the order of the other top cards.
I may be exaggerating when I say 10%, but it is certainly no more than 20% of games won. Many come down to the wire and it seems like just bad draws doom me. But I don’t find those losses frustrating, for some strange reason.