Armello can be best described by the term Digital Board Game. It is a turn-based strategy game with elements of roleplay, involving die rolls and cards.
Armello is the name of the Kingdom in which the game is set. You play as one of eight different Heroes belonging to four clans, namely Wolf, Rat, Rabbit and Bear. In any game, only four Heroes are in play at once. In single player, these can be controlled by the AI and in multiplayer, they will be under Human control. The map is divided into Hexes with each tile being randomly generated for every game. The five central tiles are demarcated for the Royal Palace, while each of the corner tiles marks the Clan Grounds and starting location of one of the Heroes.
A game of Armello usually lasts about 18 turns and there are four ways to achieve victory. A Day is divided into two turns, namely Daytime and Nighttime, and each has different effects on the game map. The story of the game is that the Lion King has fallen into madness due to corruption by something called the Rot and each clan has decided that the King must be replaced. The Wolf clan thinks it best to confront the King and defeat him in armed combat. The Rat clan tries to increase its Rot to exceed that of the King and defeat him to become the new Lord of Corruption. The Rabbit clan decides to increase its Prestige to succeed the King after his death by mastering the political game. The Bear clan wishes to cleanse Armello of the rot by gathering four Spirit Stones and then confronting the King. Of course, this is what the prologue tells us. However, a player is free to attempt any of these four victories in the game irrespective of their clan or choice of Hero. It’s just that some Heroes are better suited to certain victory types than others are.
Of these four victories, the Prestige victory is easiest, since the King dies of poisoning by the Rot in 9 days anyway. Defeating the King in combat and surviving it is tougher. It’s even harder to gather four Spirit Stones or enough Rot to beat the King. Thus, in terms of balance, the game tends to favour the Prestige victory condition. The other advantage of having the highest Prestige is that at every dawn, the Prestige Leader gets to choose one of two declarations by the King, though this can prove to be a double-edged sword. Some declarations can penalise other Heroes, while some affect the Prestige Leader negatively. Some declarations can also increase the game’s difficulty while others can make it easier. Some declarations can increase the duration of the game by increasing the King’s health.
The Kingdom of Armello is made up of different hexes of terrain such as Plains, Forests, Swamps, Settlements, Stone Circles, Dungeons and Mountains. Each Hero has limited action points per turn to move between these hexes or to perform actions on others in the game world. Forests can let Heroes hide at night, rendering them invisible to all. Different tiles can have different effects for traversing them, except for the Plains. Entering a Settlement captures it for the Hero’s clan and a Hero gets one Gold from each Settlement controlled at every dawn. If two Heroes are from the same clan, the clan flags remain the same, but only the settlement captured by each Hero gives Gold to them. This can lead to a confusing map at first glance and one is then forced to check each settlement for finding the owner. Thankfully, hovering over any tile brings up a detailed description of it.
Every Hero in Armello has four basic stats. These are Fight, Body, Wits and Spirit and determine such things as number of die rolls, health, magic and spell range. There are four resources at play in Armello, namely Gold, Magic, Prestige and Rot that can be spent on the various cards offered by the game. Rot is a corrupting power that can be gained by using Rot cards or by losing a fight against a Bane. It causes the loss of one Body every dawn and will eventually kill the Hero. Rot can be a problem just as much as it can be an opportunity in Armello. Heroes that gain 5 Rot become corrupted. Corrupted Heroes and other corrupted creatures of the Rot die instantly when they enter a Stone Circle, which means a Spirit Stone victory is out of the question. In combat, the one with the greater Rot gets extra dice equal to the Rot of the other combatant. A corrupted Hero gains health when they defeat another creature, but they still lose one health every dawn. Banes do not attack a corrupted Hero either.
Armello uses a six sided die with the symbols of Sword, Shield, Sun, Moon, Wyld and Rot. Sword represents an attack. Shield defends from one attack. Sun counts as an attack during the day and a miss at night and Moon counts as a miss during the day and an attack at night. Wyld counts as an attack and grants an extra die roll on normal Heroes, while corrupted Heroes get a miss. Rot counts as a miss for normal heroes, but counts as an attack for corrupted Heroes as well as an extra die roll. These six symbols also appear on the cards. Cards can be burnt to obtain a die roll that is the same as the card’s symbol. Card types in Armello are Item, Spell, Trickery, Treasure, Follower and Royal. Of these, Item, Spell and Trickery cards are picked by a Hero at the start of each turn based on their Wits and the number of cards in their hand. Treasure and Follower cards are obtained from Quests or from exploring Dungeon tiles. The Royal cards are only available to the King and comprise the perils on the Palace tiles. Cards can cost Gold or Magic to use, though some cost Prestige while a few can increase the Rot of a Hero.
Perils are basically traps in Armello and they can be cast either by the King or by a Hero on a tile. Perils must be beaten through Die rolls to match the symbols, otherwise they will penalise the Hero encountering them. Some perils are restricted to certain tile types. Perils function as a spell if cast on a tile with a Hero already on it. This allows for some defensive play when one needs to protect captured Settlements or to hinder the progress of another Hero.
The interesting combination of Cards, Dice, Turn Based Strategy and a Board Game like fixed Map makes Armello a rather complicated game. The tutorial does a good job of explaining the basics but one must play a few games to explore all its nuances. A game can easily last half an hour and one cannot rush the AI turns to speed up the game. This can get annoying after a few games though you can still play any cards you can afford even when it’s the AI’s turn. Due to the rather large card pool, it’s a good idea to dispose of the cards in one’s hands as soon as possible by either burning them in encounters or by casting them, in the hopes of getting some favourable cards. While the game does offer quests to a Hero, the preferred quest will usually be the one that is suited to the Hero’s highest stat. A small gripe about quests is that the game won’t allow you to preview the quest location so that you can either choose something that’s closer or plan your moves to quickly get to something right across the map. Quests do have a dangerous and safe option with the riskier option offering greater reward, though it’s not very clear how the success of the Dangerous option is calculated. All one can know is that the chance of success is ten times the stat being rolled against.
The Graphics in Armello are nothing special though the artwork on the cards is quite pretty and comes with individual credit for its contributor. The Music is a mix of happy and sombre tones though it can get repetitive after a while due to lack of variety. Sound effects are quite nice to listen to and add to the overall experience.
Armello is a digital board game and thus it’s best played with a group of friends. While the prologue does contain some story elements, the actions of the characters may sometimes contradict it. The main game though is not about the story, but is rather a tactical game of chance. One can try to play to a strategy, but the randomness of the card draws and die rolls keeps you on your toes, having to adjust to the situation on the fly. This is perhaps the biggest draw of Armello, but isn’t quite enough to make it stand out as an experience.
