Armello Preview: Taking Tabletop to the Laptop with Impressive Results

Armello began as an idea by League of Geeks .

. After bring their idea to Kickstarter, which succeeded with flying colors, the game is now available on Early Access. What a ride! With the simple story and basic mechanics one would expect of a board game, the strategic mindset required for a card game, and a set of oft-admired graphics, Armello is one to watch, for sure. I quite enjoyed it, aside from a couple of annoyances (and that’s really all they were), and I come from a background of not having played many tabletop games, let alone tabletop-inspired PC games.

Some bears just want to watch the world burn

The story goes like this: The king, a mighty lion, is sick from a rot that has infected the kingdom. Four heroes of dubious motivation are trying to earn their ascent to the throne by any means necessary. Through a victory in the field that outlasts the king’s (quite short) time left, or by besting the king’s guard and the king himself to take the throne by force, players must choose their strategy carefully based on the attributes of their character (four classes are available), and the resources they come across along the way. Cards are put into play as buffs or traps on the board itself, and can be used in battle to aid the player against either other heroes, the guards, or the banes (evil creatures) that attack at night. The execution of these cards takes some getting used to, but overall it’s pretty solid, so far.

Where the game runs into a bit of a problem (at least, for me) is in the movement of the mouse, and how it interacts with the board. I don’t like to see my mouse cursor in the middle of the screen while action is occurring, so I’ve developed a habit of moving it to the side so I don’t get distracted. While on the map, which is the default screen for pretty much everything, moving the mouse to the side results in the map panning to that side. Since movement around the map is supposed to be dictated by either clicking and dragging, or using the WASD keys, this caught me off-guard, and resulted in a lot of frantic pressing of “F” (to snap to featured character, e.g. the one currently acting) and the space bar (to snap to my character) to be able to keep up with what was going on. There is helpful text at the bottom of the screen, so you’re not required to see everything that happens, but when you’re used to tabletops, you’re used to seeing AND hearing, so losing both of those (reading takes over for hearing) isn’t very comfortable. It’s a small thing that made a big difference.

The in-game tutorial is very thorough, with lots of information that tells players exactly what to do and expect. Even for those experienced in these types of RPGs, there may be a period of adjustment when it comes to the timing of card play, their use in battle, and how the turn-based system works in general. It’s a little like Fluxx , as well, with a new “law” being put into place every day that the king is still alive (and this law is chosen by the player with the most “prestige,” which is awarded through deeds and victories on the field). Keeping everything in mind is a bit difficult for those who may not be used to this sort of thing, and it’d be nice to have reminders of buffs and whatnot on-screen (even little symbols like those in open-world MMOs would be nice). There is a way of looking over cards in the game (through the menu), so that you can learn what they do and keep the functions in mind, but knowing them and remembering that they’re there are two different things; a bit of help for those who need it, to make it a bit more accessible to new players, might be nice.

Apart from those two things, I literally have nothing else to complain about. The graphics, as many know, are superb, as is the overall design. I would call it worth the $24,99, even in Early Access. While the price may seem steep at this point, I’d argue that if you’d spend that much on a physical table-top game to play with friends, you’re getting the same thing with a much wider pool of players to choose from. I’m not a regular tabletop gamer, but I enjoyed this enough that if it also happened to be available as a board game in the future, I would buy it.

If you’d like to find out more about Armello , you can visit the website. You can also contact the devs on Twitteror Facebookwith questions, or to get more news about Armello and future League of Geeks projects.