![]() In order to earn the keys needed to enter those Dreams, players will need to slog through a number of tedious Slumbers. The best parts of Etherfields are all of the clever puzzles contained within Dreams. On the other hand, Slumber encounters start to feel very tedious very quickly. It really gives Etherfields‘ campaign a sense that player choices carry weight. On one hand, it’s fun to see characters from earlier portions of the campaign return as a result of your choices. The Slumber deck is an evolving beast of its own constructed of the shapeshifting horrors from completed dreamscapes escape to. Slumbers will force players to adapt their strategies and take a different approach with each entity. Other entities might run around the map and drop tokens on the board that players need to clean up in order to advance. Some entities can’t be interacted with while they’re in the dark so players will need to find ways to light up dark terrain spaces before they can fight against the dark beings. Each Slumber entity will have a different approach to defeating them and only a few turns to do it in. These are small skirmishes that feature a recurring cast of horrors. As mentioned above, moving about the overworld will trigger Slumber encounters. Both the best and worst parts of the game take place in this area. The upper portion of the board is used for both the Slumber and dreamscape portions of the game. These keys are used to open the aforementioned Gateways and enter dreamscapes. However, in the overworld, they are granted to players whenever the land on a space with a key depicted. Keys – Keys are given to players throughout the campaign in a wide variety of instances as rewards.These Gateways are represented on the map by a circular green swirl. In order to access these Dreams, players will have to go to the Gateway space in the overworld area designate on the Dream’s Gate card and spend the requisite number of resources. These dreams are where the real meat and potatoes of Etherfields lie. Gateways – As the campaign progresses, players will uncover Gates to various Dreams.Others will act as a more traditional event card. Many of these cards will ask players to add a slumber map tile to the board, expanding to size of the skirmish area Slumber encounters. These cards essentially act as the random event cards of Etherfields. Fate deck – Represented by a blue exclamation point, these spaces instruct players to draw the top card from the Fate deck.More often than not, this will direct players to the dreamscape portion of the board for a short skirmish with otherwise familiar enemies. Slumber cards – Represented by a red exclamation mark, these spaces instruct players to draw and resolve the top tile from the slumber deck.There are a number of unique spaces and a few common ones whose function could be considered a spoiler. ![]() The team will move one space at a time one space at a time and immediately resolving the icons on the space before moving on. Players explore the overworld by moving a single miniature that represents the whole team. For ease of explanation of our readers, I’ll be referring to these as the “overworld” and “dreamscape” from here on out. There’s the dream-world map where players wander through an overworld comprised of up to eight map tiles placed at the bottom of the board and at the top of the board is the dreamscape map. Throughout the campaign, players will experience Etherfields in two different areas of the dream-world. To solve the mystery and escape from the trappings of the dream-world’s ever shifting logic, players will need to stretch their minds and look at the world in a whole new way. Players take on the role of four characters (Free Spirit, Gambler, Tough Guy or Specialist) who find themselves trapped in a dream-world, unable to wake up or recall who they are. ![]() While I’m disappointed in my decision not to back the game earlier, I’m thrilled with the time I’ve spent with Etherfields.Įtherfields throws players into the middle of an illogical dream-world where wandering illogical pathways is the easy part. Thankfully for me and unfortunately for my wallet, I was able to find a copy on the second hand market. Etherfields is the newest AR team and I must say that I was enough of a fool to skip it during the crowdfunding campaign and even listed that decision as my greatest gaming disappointment of the year. From Lords of Hellas to Tainted Grailand Nemesis, Awaken Realms has managed to consistently produce beautiful games year after year that have managed to stay on our shelves through many purges. But one success after another has made them an industry powerhouse that’s even taken the next step of launching Gamefound, the industry’s first true Kickstarter competitor. ![]() Awaken Realms launched their first few games through Kickstarter as a small company dependent on crowdfunding in order to create their board game projects. ![]()
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