The king went mad, and the great kingdom of Armello plunged into darkness. In this bleak time, four heroes appear on the horizon who want, if not to save the maddened ruler, then at least to push him towards the abyss and take the throne.
It is with these lines that a great adventure begins in the spirit "Game of Thrones", full of unexpected turns, betrayals and incredibly lucky heroes who are admired and hated with all their hearts. And an elusive fortune is constantly hovering over the playing field, so quick and unpredictable that it will throw you from a prince into the mud faster than someone can say the word “crown”.
This is the debut project of the Australian studio League of Geeks, and the developers tried to fit in Armello everything geeks love: board games with dice, cards and exciting modular adventures in the spirit of Dungeons & Dragons. Well, furries – where would we be without anthropomorphic animals, right??
Adapt, make alliances, betray
Armello – the game you want to return to, even if a couple of hours ago you were wildly angry at it. And every time a completely new battle awaits players, because the world is generated randomly and a strategy often needs to be invented on the fly. Sometimes the scales can tip in the wrong direction at the most crucial moment, so contenders for the royal throne are tensely looking for any chance to elevate themselves and belittle the merits of others until the last dawn.
The game is designed for four participants. Inviting friends into battle is very risky, because it will not be possible to share the crown in a friendly manner, and the throne is too small for two shaggy tails. Alliances in Armello are very short-lived, and the most terrible cards, as a rule, are saved for comrades.
Sometimes opponents keep a single card for a reason until the end of the game… What happens if you steal it?.
At first glance, the mechanics of the game seem confusing, but after the first game it becomes clear that the rules of Armello are very simple. So let’s play?
Then the story must begin again. The king went mad and the great kingdom of Armello fell into darkness.
Clan Rumbles
Currently, 8 standard heroes and 16 more from DLC are available for the game. Characters have different characteristics, unique abilities and, as a result, different methods of achieving goals. For example, the forest bear Sana is defenseless in direct clashes, but fights back from a distance, armed with magic cards. And Thane, although lacking intelligence, knows how to break through enemy shields and literally cut his way to the throne.
Buyable heroes will not make the battle easier, but they will diversify the gameplay and allow you to learn new tactics.
In the character selection menu, you can attach rings and amulets to the hero; the most useful ones are unlocked for difficult achievements. Rare amulets give a huge advantage at the start, but the world of Armello is very unpredictable, and you always need to pay attention to which way the wind is blowing.
For collectibles, there are cubes – a paradise for crows who love shiny "dices" with beautiful effects and sounds.
The developers do not hide how much Armello is similar to the world of A Song of Ice and Fire, so they constantly leave Easter eggs for players.
The road became dangerous, and the tavern was no longer as crowded as before. This only works to Zosha’s advantage – it’s easier to hide in the shadows – and when news of the King’s illness reached her ears, no one knew that an assassin from the Rat Clan was entering into a bloody game.
There had long been a rumor among the King’s pages that the monarch had contacted dark forces. When this rumor was confirmed, no one was surprised. All they did was wait.
Thane heard the news too. The famous warrior now pricked up his ears along with the others, and Zosha knew for sure that such a rival must be respected. Any other member of the Clan would have overestimated their strength long ago, but the wolf is not a beast to which you can turn your back? – chews down to the small bone.
However, we had to hurry. Dawn is coming soon, and a few miles would give Zosha a good head start.
Victory or death
In the world of Armello, everything is relative: the King has become infected with Rot and is slowly dying from it, but the same powerful force in capable hands can do terrible things. At the beginning of the game, the King is in the first stage of the disease: in the morning one health unit will be taken away from him, and one Rot will be added at night. The entire game lasts 18 moves (9 days and nights), which takes about an hour of real time.
The game map is divided into four equal sectors – in each corner there is a hero, and in the center there is a castle with the same King. In the lands of Armello there are villages that give gold, dungeons with unique rewards and infected enemies, swamps, mountains and mystical circles of stones – all this is generated randomly, and each new game is different from the previous one.
Throughout the game, the heroes will draw cards, engage in battles with guards, Reptiles and each other, and also complete quests that allow them to obtain equipment and level up their character before meeting the King. There are 4 types of victory in Armello:
Collect four spirit stones to cure the poor guy. After such an intervention, the King will die, but the hero will receive the crown for his efforts.
Collect more Rot than the King and defeat the ruler, winning the title of the most rotten and darkest person.
It sounds simple, but the beast war is complicated by merciless randomness and players who will in every possible way slow down the contenders for victory. That is why in “Armello” it is very important to calculate the steps ahead, to be able to keep your cards up your sleeve for the time being and play the best ones in time.
What’s that in your pockets?? Map?
It’s easier to win if you have a set of artifacts at hand. Some give an advantage in battle, such as providing additional shields/swords, others increase magic or give out free prestige.
Zosha was about to leave, but as samilandcasino.uk/ soon as her paw with several coins landed on the table, the old innkeeper made a guess:
– The mercenary wants to try on the golden hat?
Zosha was not going to answer, but the one-eyed Shchurak knew her like a shell. Where there is gold, there she is, and the King definitely has something to profit from. Looking around furtively, the innkeeper reached behind the counter and thrust something hidden under a dirty rag into Zosha’s paws.
“Here,” he said, nervously twitching his mustache. – From our mutual friend, just don’t talk about it in front of everyone.
Zosha was surprised to find a half-empty vial with dark blood under the rag. But not an ordinary one – this one immediately rushed to the walls of the vessel when the rat stroked the cloudy glass with its paw. It turns out that even darkness can be bottled.
Side quests and leveling up in board games? I’m in
During one game, the player can complete four optional tasks, one in each sector. Rewards and location are chosen randomly, by the dictates of luck you can receive both one piece of garbage and real treasures.
Do you want a valuable reward?? Play roulette – this mini-game will test one of your characteristics (attack, strength, intelligence or spirit).
Each task, even if it fails, improves the characteristic being tested – in this case, it increases intelligence. When choosing a quest, you decide what is more important to you: attack affects the number of dice in battle, strength is the amount of health, intelligence allows you to take more cards from the deck, and with a high spirit value you can use expensive and deadly magic cards.
After completing all four tasks, the hero will acquire connections and will be taken to the palace to meet the King (whether you want to kill him or cure him, no one will figure it out there). Don’t want to jump around the map and complete quests? You can enter the castle on your own, but prepare your cards and dice in advance, because every mistake threatens you with loss of health.
Dark Side of Rot
In a fair fight against Thane, Zosha didn’t stand a chance. The vial with dark blood lay in his breast pocket for a long time. The mercenary remembered him every now and then and touched the vessel with living matter with her paw.
It was scary to call Gad – the rat only knew from rumors who they were and what they were capable of. And when the dark bird fluttered out of the broken vial, turning either into a viscous, stinking slurry, or into a clot of dirty feathers, the mercenary could not even move from her place.
The battle was short lived. Zosha either gave up even before the bird rushed down with its beak, diving at her with a clot of ancient and dark magic, or heard the song of Rot. Be that as it may, by dawn the body of the famous mercenary had already cooled down.
Death in the game is conditional. The incompetent is returned to the starting position and prestige is taken away. It’s good when death comes in handy and you don’t have to run across the entire map on a mission. It’s bad when you have to get to your quest three or four turns. And if other heroes simply kill, then the Reptiles will also infect them with Rot. It’s not easy to recover from this.
Cards for animals are not toys, but weapons
There are three types of cards in Armello – weapons, spells and traps. Each turn begins with a set of cards from different decks, all of them lie face down to the player, so you just have to hope for your luck.
Weapon and trap cards often require money (they can be stolen from players, found in dungeons, or received for capturing villages). Using spell cards costs magic. These are replenished resources: in the morning all players are credited with money (for settlements, contracts, blackmail), and at night – magic. Therefore, you need to think in advance which card and when to use.
There are downright bad cards in your hand? Feel free to burn them in battle, during trials, or use them to make room for new ones.
By the way, the cards in the game are amazing. The lion’s share of time can be spent just looking at animated pictures, especially when someone else is making a move.
Don Quixote and his Sancho Panza
Zosha hated company, especially when she stuck to her like a bath sheet. But it’s easier to agree to the Bard’s company than to argue. The mercenary guessed that he would still be useful.
Who was of no use was the mangy Cat, whom the travelers found at the pass.
“I know a lot,” the Stranger said in an ingratiating voice, trying to get behind Zosha’s back. – I know a lot that others don’t know.
Separate three slots in the inventory are allocated for companions. Usually they come across useful allies, but the “lucky ones” always pull the Stranger out of the dungeons – a special companion whom you can’t kick out of the squad even with a wet rag. At the beginning of each turn, this comrade will take you to any neighboring cell. It’s not a fact that you need to go there.
The kindest King in the world
Due to the infection with Rot, the King’s mind has become clouded, so he chooses one of four heroes as an adviser, namely the character with the highest prestige. Every morning this lucky winner will choose one of two random orders.
For example, he can strike everyone in the castle with lightning. Or send rain from the Rot. Our wise ruler has limitless imagination.
Fights without rules
In Armello, all means are good, so you can use anything (if you are not afraid of losing friends). Before the battle, it is advisable to weaken the enemy, throw some kind of “debuff”, take away cards and cubes, and, to be sure, finish them off with a hatchet. But even this does not guarantee victory, because in the world of Armello there is only one higher power – luck.
First a swamp, then several days of endless wandering. The cat led them and led them, and on the third day the travelers came across an ambush by Thane. Zosha saw the spiers of towers on the horizon behind the sparse trees when a jagged sword cut the sky above her in two. She had never seen a castle so close. And I’m unlikely to see him again.
The weak and the lucky believe in luck
It was too late to start over. Just bad luck. Zosha reconciled herself when she lay dying in a tavern, dragged to the bottom by a dark illness. Through delirium and dreams I heard the Bard talking about Thane. According to rumors, the Stranger took him into the dungeon with Gad, and after a difficult battle he simply robbed him of everything. But there were still plenty of contenders for the throne.
The next rumor was even more interesting – the King died, struck down by his madness and something otherworldly.
Rot whispered terrible things to Zosha: the voice said that by dawn the darkness would take her life if the mercenary did not urgently find a new victim to the ancient deity. Before sunrise, the boots of the royal guard clattered down the corridor. The purebred dog looked at Zosha without a hint of disgust and read out to her the last decree of the King.
She became his heir, as the most devoted and loyal to the Crown.
Zosha couldn’t read, but she asked the royal guard to come closer. Only at the last moment did he notice how a blade flashed in the mercenary’s hand. Today the ancient deity will receive a sacrifice one way or another. And the kings of Armello don’t die so easily.
The end of an adventure or a new beginning?
Every game in Armello is unique, and a hard-won victory often turns out to be the sweetest. The game makes you vividly imagine not just a playing field, but a real fantasy world in which the battle for the throne is gaining momentum.
Each game leaves a pleasant trail of impressions: here the game helped, but here the opponents tried to interfere, but could not and are now clearly furious. At first, fortune follows the player, then stubbornly turns away – so Armello and generates exciting stories. At the end of the game, you can only be proud that you were able to take part in one of them.
Zosha’s story is just one hour-long game in Armello. You can create your own adventure, gain allies and make enemies. It is treacherous to walk along the animals, as if on steps, and get close to the much-desired pedestal. The crown is waiting.
Pros: nice character design and table decoration; the opportunity to collect cute cubes; despite the fact that random elements play a big role, a lot depends on logical thinking; the game makes you think about your moves no less than “Civilization”, and constantly keeps you in exciting suspense.
Cons: the game experience depends on the players, so it’s more enjoyable (and more reliable)!) play with people you know, not random Armellians.
Armello
Best comments
I’ve played for about 150 hours, we usually have no luck with randoms: they either fly out or leave when they are prevented from winning, very often we come across cheaters lately. For the sake of winning this game, I will betray my friends, so I usually don’t have problems with this: B
1 – you just need to be able to play for someone, someone is easier to play, like Fang – just know, run and bite everyone on the side first until you get hit in the forehead with lightning. Some, like Amber or Jordana, require a more delicate approach, the right set of rings and amulets, and a bit of luck with cards. Until now, not everyone knows that there is a direct dependence on what card you throw into Jordan’s cauldron and what you get.
2 – “stupid spells like “reconnaissance until the end of the turn”” Now Zosha is already preparing her daggers to kill the next daredevil who came out at night 😀
And after such words “items that add rot as a cost”, you get the strong impression that you are not familiar with the game at all. What about the path of Rot?? But what about the Spiritwalker, who uses rot cards at the cost of health, but without desecrating himself? There is a whole layer of mechanics and nuances tied to obtaining Rot.
3 – level nitpick – no matter how you complete the game, you will see the end credits, a minus for this.
Or what’s about to happen? The king suddenly takes off his crown and leaves the kingdom? 😀
armello is incredible, I had a chance to get stuck into it before with a group of 4 people, it was fun
The main thing is that among your friends there are no vulnerable ones. A friend suggested we play several games of this game (the three of us played), so after ten games he refused to play anything else with us for a week. This game is largely about risk, and it was because of his careful play that he suffered defeat at the last moment. So it’s better to play with randoms
I still remember how Armella was beaten by Grow home in the elections for the game on ps+. And it’s still a shame that people missed out on such candy..
Thanks for the review. The game is really great, I spent 700+ hours in it, I don’t agree about the game with my friends. It’s more interesting with radoms, you can’t beat up an acquaintance somewhere, but you’ll completely knock down a stranger if the situation requires it.
1 – on steamcommunity they say that your favorite game is bad, don’t play it anymore. Isn’t it easier to try it yourself and then actually speak your mind??
2 – Wow. I can tell you a couple more examples why reconnaissance is needed. And you obviously don’t know this, since you described the example with Zosha. Chance you say? Well, let’s figure it out, the chance that Zosha is standing somewhere where your quest is, so you accidentally run into it 50% every turn. Oh, you are weaker, so with the help of reconnaissance you will find her and just throw a hatchet and a couple of debuffs at her, and now you are stronger. And luck can turn away from you, and now your strength has become your weakness, and Zosha keeps throwing out rerolls, simply destroying you. You smell it, yes? There are already three options for the development of events from just the introductory. And there are much more of these introductory notes in the game.
“Items with rot may be necessary, but there are too many of them for one single path that uses them” – about 15 cards that give Rot from a total pool of 170 cards is a lot? Start playing the game already, and not think based on steamcommunity 😉
3 – yes, they stupidly saved money, like the developers of a bunch of other games with the same ending. Only here there are 16 endings. Four players and each can get the crown in four different ways. There is also a secret ending for the most patient.
hmm, as far as I know, no, t.To. this is difficult to implement) Much of the game depends on stealth, heroes can hide in the forest, apply invisibility cards to themselves, etc.d. Cards will also be scorched, which will significantly spoil the whole intrigue)
(of similar games I can recommend For the King, they reviewed it on the website. You can even play there with three people on one computer, and it’s designed for co-op)
With us, as a rule, everything happens civilly :’D we try to respect each other as much as possible)
– Ju, you’re standing on this cage in vain, now we’ll fight.
– Well thought? Sure?
– Yes.
*exile card*
The only problem is that sometimes we play while in the same apartment. And for this you can get not only censure, but also natural real lyuli x) So, vulnerable friends are better than such xD
The game is very good, I wish we could organize a stream batch based on it… but who will go? This is actually a desktop. Well, maybe Vanya… probably Melyazev..
Juby said it right, but the main factor why it’s not possible is that during the opponent’s turn you can still play your cards, that is, in fact, while one is moving, three can play cards, which is clearly not possible to do on the hotsite 🙂
And for For the King plus. It’s much more interesting to play in a group than to run for three people alone.
I suggest the game Typoman for the section “We missed it in vain”. A very solid logical platformer in a dark style with an emphasis on composing words whose meanings help you interact with the environment. The only negative is that the required knowledge of English is slightly higher than the minimum