This is a preview copy sent to us for our early opinions. No money exchanged hands. Some art, rules or components may change in the final game. You can follow the crowdfunding page here.
Dragon Dawn Productions is quickly becoming one of my favourite publishers. They have made some amazing trick-taking games, the brilliantly intricate Factory 42, and my personal favourite, Beyond the Rift. I was excited to see what they had coming next, so jumped at the chance to play this preview copy of Beasts & Diplomacy from first time designer Mike Kribel.
Mike also did the art, which was mostly done using an AI tool. Lots of work went into the art after the initial AI-generated images, but it is worth noting the origins. You can tell it is AI, but it looks incredible, as AI art can often do, but with that computer-generated feel. That said, when one person designs a game and does the art as well you can understand this being used. And in the current financial climate, this may become more and more common place. The most important thing, I feel, is that the publisher declares it. And any review or previewer too. So consider this AI mater ‘John D Claired’!
OK, well what is this game all about? This is a card drafting, pattern matching, tableau-builder, with a point salad scoring system, fantasy theme, and incredibly quick game play. I have finished two player games in 25 minutes.
Initially, it looks quite complicated. The rule book is good, but doesn’t look the most appealing, and its very long! But it reads well, with lots of explanations, and everything is laid out in a nice way. I learned it quite simply myself. But found I could teach it a lot quicker than I taught myself, or compared to how it looks. Let me give you the basics.
The game runs over three days (rounds) and each day has five distinct phases. Dawn, morning, etc! The first thing you will do in the first phase is chose some quests. You are dealt two cards you need to pick one from, which will determine a large part about how you will score in the game. We found after a few game, that in this point salad of a game, the quests were the areas we scored this most in. So, pick wisely!
Your choices will be based on two things: the score you get each time you complete the Quests mission, as shown on the top right, and the mission itself, as indicated by the icon on the bottom. Get used to icons; there are a lot in this game! They can come in many different guises, but generally, you just need to collect a certain thing. For example, the Herbitheon Quest rewards five points for every two sets of grass icons you collect in the game. Power rewards three points for completing a level two Diplomat card (more on them soon), and Elegance, that reward three points for every grey Beast you collect.
Each round, you will get two more Quest cards to pick from, and you need to end with one more Quest in your possession than the previous round. This means you can discard the one you chose in round one to keep both of the Quests you were dealt in round two, if you like. By the end of the game, you will have three Quests to score from.
The next phase is where players will draft cards. You start with four workers to do this with, and then in each subsequent round you will gain one additional worker to work with. At the start of this round you will place down six Diplomats, Traders, and Personnel cards, and 12 Beast card. Any remaining from previous rounds are discarded and replaced with a fresh batch each time. So, you wont know what is available until this point. Meaning you pick your first Quests a little blind! But some icons are more common that others, and there is a handy sheet to tell you all this information.
You can make four free picks of any combination of the cards. But you will want to find Beasts that match your Quests icons, if possible, and then Traders that match the symbols of other beasts. You can sell to them, you see. They are looking for one fixed must-have attribute and two other nice-to-haves. If you can sell to a Trader with all matching, that’s a lot of Ore. You will need Ore later. You will also want to acquire Diplomats that are looking to be entertained by the Beasts you are acquiring, as they too will provide you with Ore. There will be six choices of Personnel cards that offer many rule-bending powers.
The first few choices in each area, depending on player count, will reward you with King Favour tokens. Three of these, and you can exchange them for a King’s Medal. These will reward you with points at the end of the game. So, you will want to find the cards you need, in the areas that still have King Favour rewards, before the cards go, the spots go, and other players take what you need.
Once you have made your choices, you can then discard two cards you don’t want or five Ore to move a worker and take another card. But this may leave you short on Ore for later in the round. The first player to pass gains one Ore, and when all players have passed, the game moves forward to the third phase, Noon.
Players will now place down all Diplomat cards they have in their hand that they want to welcome to their play area. Place them down in a vertical pile, with the bottom part still visible, so you can see what type of Beast each Diplomat is looking to see.
Play then moves to the afternoon in the fourth phase, where players will now play all the cards in their hands that they wish to play. Any Beasts introduced this way will instantly gain you Ore rewards for any Diplomat in your area looking for any matching symbols. You will also need to house all Beasts into an Environment, or your one starting Cage. Any new environment bought will cost three Ore. You can buy as many as you like, but you cannot leave any empty after this day is out. Any previously placed Beasts can be moved at this point, to maximize the efficiency of your environments, and any powers they have. You can now also sell any Beasts you wish to any Traders you acquired in the draft phase, instantly scoring the Ore from the matching symbols, and then placing the Trader into your completed trade pile for more end game scoring. Any Beasts you cannot sell to a Trader or house must be sold at its maintenance cost or two Ore, whichever is lower. You can also play any Personnel cards you wish to at this point to gain their powers. This is all turn in turn order so each player can watch what each player is up to!
The Beasts you house have multiple symbols that may be required by your Quests and wanted by Traders and Diplomats, as seen on the right of the card. Each Beast has four attributes, a colour, and a Habitat symbol. It also has its end game points on the top left, and maintenance cost on the bottom left. You need to be looking at all these symbols on all cards as you play. And each round you have 30 new cards to study!
When all players are done, the phase moves to the final fifth phase, Evening, where players will now count up and pay their current exhibitions’ maintenance cost, as shown by the maintenance cost seen on all Beasts and the environments that they are in. Some Personnel adding powers to your beasts may add to this too. If you cannot pay your costs, you must take actions to reduce your cards or gain more Ore. Once all players have paid their running costs, the round ends. Players will play three rounds/days and the person with the most points after three rounds is declared the winner.
The game runs very smoothly through these five phases. The game board shows you what to do on the top left and there is this handy sheet to use for each player to reference. But after a few rounds, you will be flying through without the need of this. It is all quite intuitive. Draft cards, sell some of them. Collect the others for points. Everything is based around matching symbols on cards and find cards that work well together. Particularly the Quests. You will end the game with just three of these and the bulk of your points could come from these if you manage to fulfil them all a few times. Finding cards that work with your Quest, but also the cards you want to sell too, and the cards you want to impress to gain the much needed Ore is crucial. The better cards require more Ore per round to keep them running. But Ore is scarce. And getting more may mean you need to sell more. Each round you need to delicately balance these needs and find cards that fit all your goals. And of course all the other players will be trying to do the same thing!
This game quickly becomes about hand management, tableau-building, and efficiency. Finding the best cards that work well together to maximize your Ore production and end game points. The player that can do that the best will win the game.
If you enjoy pattern matching and efficiency based card game, then this could well be a winner for you.
There are so many cards in this game. This handy guide will help you with working out what each one does. The symbology is clear, but sometimes the cards will have unique symbols, and if you only see that card once every three games or so, and play this game every few weeks, this guide will quickly become essential. I sometimes wonder why cards can’t just have written on them what they do. It’s not like the text on this sheet is much bigger than it would have been directly on the card!
You can also see the frequency of each type of symbol on the game on the left of this. Very handy if you want to work out the likelihood of a certain thing coming up in your early games. And this is where the game can be a little frustrating. There is a small element of luck to this game. Sometimes the cards you need come up. Other times they don’t. They can be frustrating. But it’s a quick enough game for this not to matter too much. And as they tell you the percentages, you can manage your own risk and try to hedge your bets as best you can.
This will be an interesting Kickstarter to follow. With all that is going on in the world right now with tariffs and shipping affecting productions like this, and the potential backlash to the AI, I will be hoping for a simple and successful process for this game. Because it is a lot of fun. It packs a lot into a short sub-hour game time. And I enjoy the challenge of trying to maximize the few cards I will get to use each game.
