Another temporal pairing writeup, I was given the low-down on all things Wise Wizard Games right after stopping by the Dead Alive Games booth. Wise Wizard Games talked me through the drawing party game Caution Signs and a kids version of Star Realms, Star Realms Academy. Both are launching under a new Wacky Wizard Games label. Star Realms Rise of Empire, a legacy game, should be out soon as should their back-to-their-roots 10th Anniversary set which is the original deck with art spanning entire cards. Hero Realms Dungeons is a new campaign and brings along with it new character decks and adventure decks that supply everything needed to take characters from level 1 to 24. New products include Sherlock Solitaire which is a 1 or 2 player co-op game of managing card placement. It has a similar vibe to traditional solitaire but with some thematic elements. The final big discussion was about Draconis 8, a full-on trading card game complete with starters and sealed decks. Each card is digitally printed to be unique (mostly number changes) and scanning in a code will bring your recently purchased pack into the digital version of the game. Regarding Dead Alive Games, I was able to get a short rundown on last year’s medium-weight economic game Lunar Rush and their new family-friendly campaign game, Cyber Pet Quest, where players are pets roaming around the house trying to search out their owners.

Dead Alive Games

Cyber Pet Quest

Cyber Pet Quest has players as pets off on an adventure to save their owners. It is a casual or family campaign that takes place over 11 chapters. Players move their pets around the house, interacting with things via a small stack of cards. Players can move quickly, or sneak around which slows you down but makes it easier to be healed. The game has a player and enemy deck that is shuffled each round and used to determine who gets to move next. This keeps everyone on their toes and reduces quarterbacking issues somewhat. Enemies come in four levels of difficulty which also determines how many steps they can take around the board. They move and attack everyone in their path, with players granted a die roll to try to avoid damage. Players also earn luck tokens on some rolls which can be spent on charms – used in later games. “Cute” items can be found in the game which are the one-time-only items that are very powerful. Each chapter of the game has a maximum number of turns rather than a player elimination mechanic so players who are knocked out can simply be revived.

Lunar Rush

Released last year, Dead Alive Games was showing off Lunar Rush – nominated for a Dice Tower Award for small publishers. Lunar Rush is a 1-4 player game of resource management where time itself is (in a way) also one of those resources. The game has players using an earth base and a moon base to build up their personal empire and score points. Players need to send materials to the moon to be turned into goods, but must then ship them back again to sell them. If goods spend more time on the moon you will have more goods to ship back. However, when a player sells goods their price will drop. Do you leave your goods up there for a longer time and risk them dropping in price or do you ship them back quickly to crash the price on your opponent’s incoming shipment. Most of the hard decisions lie around when to ship and when to wait. The game has a lot of simultaneous play and so even though it has some weight to it, it clocks in at around 60 to 80 minutes. There are lots of optional modules that can be added. Beginner cards can be used to help new players in a specific direction to go and challenge cards can be used if more experienced players want to mix up their game. 

Wise Wizard Games

Wise Wizard has created a special label, Wacky Wizard Games to distinguish a new line of games that are lighter weight and suitable for gamers of all ages.

Caution Signs

Caution Signs is a party game of drawing and guessing. One person is a guesser. The rest of the players (up to eight – there are eight sketch boards included) will be drawing. The drawing players receive two keyword triangles that fit top to bottom to make a yellow sign – the top word is an adjective while the bottom is a noun. Players then have 20 seconds to create a drawing that matches their sign. The triangles are mixed together and are handed to the guesser along with the drawings. The guesser then tries to assign all the sign cards correctly to their drawings. For the drawers, each single-word matched is worth one point while a perfect (both words) match earns three. The guessing player scores two points only if they manage to match both words. The game ends once everyone has had a chance to be the guesser.  Younger or non-native speakers are encouraged to take the option of discarding any unfamiliar words. In the case of the guesser, they would look ahead at the upcoming triangles and toss out unfamiliar ones before dealing them out to the players. The game is out in stores now and runs around $25.

Star Realm Academy

Star Realms Academy is a new version of Star Realms, designed specifically for the Wacky Wizard line. It is a 2 player only, slimmed down version of the Star Realms deckbuilder. It is its own game and isn’t compatible with the original Star Realms cards. Gameplay has been adjusted to make the game easier to play for the younger set. Due to the extensive use of iconography, reading is not even a requirement. The game remains very close to the earliest Star Realms release. Players play out ship cards to earn money or damage their opponent while base cards are similar but are kept in play after the end of a turn. Do enough damage (tracked with cardboard tokens) to your opponent to win the game. There are now only three colors of cards, with the Star Realms red cards that thin a player’s deck a few simplified options. Players track their health and their monies with cardboard tokens. This means players can keep money accumulated for future turns. This is perhaps the greatest change from the original game, as players can save up for big cards and get them into their deck sooner. The game will run around $30 and should appear in stores in September.

Sherlock Solitaire

Sherlock Solitaire is an inexpensive (around $10) cooperative card game (it can be played solo or with 2 players) where players are tasked to track down and defeat Moriarity and his minions. Draw 4 cards and then play two of them to the left (the crime scene) and two to the right (the office.) Threat (bad) cards are assigned a letter while investigation (good) cards are a number  between 1 and 4. To solve the crime, a player needs to get specific sets of cards into the office. However, cards played into the office need to alternate between investigation and threat. Placing a pair of cards at the crime scene triggers an event. Matching investigation cards give the player a little ability like moving cards between areas or reclaiming a discarded card. However, if you can’t legally use the bonus you get a wound anyway. In a two player game it is important to try and manage who takes which triggering event. Matching threat cards will straight-up cause a wound. Take three wounds and the game is over. The game has two different scenarios to play and three levels of difficulty. It should be said that it takes a cue from card solitaire and one can expect to lose more often than not. The game is out for purchase – it’s available on Amazon. There is an implementation available for iOS and Android, free to try and $4 to unlock the full version which allows the second scenario Dr. Watson, and the higher difficulty levels.

Draconis 8

Draconis 8 is a new tactical trading card game where players combine to place their decks of 8 cards down to create a 4×4 grid. The world is ruled by dragons who are super smart and magical, but they are territorial and solitary. Player decks contain 1 dragon and 7 champion cards. The square cards have terrain values on all four sides which are compared to their neighbors to determine the high ground. Players have a two card hand, choosing one they simultaneously flip their card over. The higher initiative gains a point and gets to play first. When you place a card, numbers are compared. The higher number will be given a red bead. Cards can have all sorts of abilities, like being immune to combat on one side. Some of the possible attributes include: Fear – rotate adjacent opponent, Rooted – cannot be modified, Stomp – cannot be played over, Flight – bonus if combat won by 10 points or more, Aura – bonus points for winning more than one battle, Command – rotate adjacent or diagonal friendly unit, Confuse – rotate diagonal opponent, and Range. Each card is digitally printed to be unique. The base card (its initiative and traits) determines the artwork but the other aspects of the card are randomized using a formula that is supposed to equalize the general usefulness of cards – some will be better in particular decks than others. The game will be released as a starter set with four decks and some beads for $25-$30 but will also be available as $5 sealed decks of 1 dragon, 7 creatures, and 1 terrain card. Each deck will be unique and the back of each terrain card in a pack will have a code that can be scanned and used in the digital version of the game. Like most trading card games, the game can be played with three sealed decks, drafting, and full constructed decks but it can even be played in a single sealed deck format. The game should appear up on Kickstarter this month.

Hero Realms

Hero Realms, the fantasy themed Star Realms continues to grow. Hero Realms stands out from its sibling due to its opportunity for cooperative play (you can do VS games) and an associated campaign style play. (After each game, players’ starting decks can be modified and a player’s hero may gain additional upgrades.) In addition to three new character packs there will be a new box set, Hero Realms Dungeons, containing two new characters, a dungeon, a new market deck, and a 12 part solo or co-op campaign – playable with up to 5 players. Adventure decks are releasing for each character. These contain everything needed for that character to level up from level 1 to 24. They contain 20 treasure cards, 6 skill cards, and 8 ability cards – plenty to power up your favorite class. Look for Hero Realms Dungeons and the adventure decks to appear in Q1 2025.

Star Realms 10th Anniversary

To return to what started it all, Star Realms is getting a reprint of the original deck of cards with full-card art (all the way to the edge), scoring dials for up to 4 players, all in a spiffy new travel box.Star Realms Rise of Empire

Star Realms Rise of Empire

The Star Realms of most interest to me is the legacy campaign-style Star Realms Rise of Empire. Yes, it is an actual legacy game – you open envelopes and put stickers on the cards as you play through the twelve campaign games. However, players can also opt for the Infinite Replay Kit which has the card equivalent for any of the stickered cards. Instead of stickering, one removes the card to be stickered and replaces it with an upgraded version – no sticker needed. In either case, the final deck of cards after 12 games continues to be replayable. The campaign focuses on two new factions but because playing duplicates of a color is so important the ally feature is toned down a bit. To make up for it, some of the cards now provide a “when purchased” ability (often a way to upgrade the card in the first place!.) The campaign itself is for two players but once it completes gamers will have everything needed to play games of 2-6 players.