Last night on stream I played two games of Ancient Realm by Button Shy games and designed by Steven Aramini. Is this going to be a hit for the small little Button Shy solo games or is it going to be a miss. Join me on Malts and Meeples as I play, and then checkout the full review below. How good a job as a city planner in ancient times will I do in Ancient Realm?

How To Play Ancient Realm

Ancient Realm is a solo game where you are trying to get your highest score, and there are different levels of score, while building up your society. The game is done by creating this line of cards that is going to be your society. This is a mixture of market cards and wonder cards. You are always able to play a market card, but the wonder cards have a cost that you need to pay that’s either wheat, wood, or stone.

Gaining Resources

To play a card you add it to either end of the tableau that you’re building. Or you place the card above part or all of other cards. Then you activate the cards which you are covering up, or the parts of the card that you are covering up. That is how you are going to get more resources, whether it’s the three above or there is also gold as well that you can get.

However, to get resources, sometimes there is a cost, and you need to be able to pay that in gold. Or if you cover up a mine, you get gold, but all mines have scoring on them, so if you cover it up you can’t score it.

Building Wonders

Then you use those resources to play out wonders. And wonders are going to help you in various ways. The first way is that it gets you more points. But equally as big is that it can make it more efficient to get resources. Plus, and I forgot this from time to time, the market card that is next to be in play has a specific rule on it that you can use as well. That might make it easier to trade resources. Or it might make it so that you can build a wonder cheaper.

After all the wonders and market cards are built or wonder cards are sold for either a resource or two gold, you tally up your score. You want to beat 49 otherwise your land is ruinous. But there are a lot of different tiers to shoot for in the game.

What Doesn’t Work

I really don’t have a negative. I’ll probably talk more about the feel of the game in the Who Is Ancient Realm For section. But the closest thing to a negative might be that there are a few things to keep track of, like the bonuses from wonders and the bonus from that next market card up. But that’s not really a negative, it’s just a learning curve for the game.

What Works

I like the system of covering up cards to activate them a lot. You want to be smart about it, or more likely you need to be smart about it. If you aren’t smart about it, you’ll either get too many resources and have leftovers when the game ends, or you cover up something you need for scoring. So it’s really a good efficiency puzzle to get as many wonders played as possible.

Another element that I think works well is the mines. Gold is great because you can spend two for a resource. But it’s also not great because if you cover up a mine you cover up a scoring opportunity. So you need, again this efficiency puzzle, to be smart on which ones you cover up and cover up as few as possible. Granted, some mines you might look at and realize that you won’t score them or score well on them, so you want to cover up them.

The game is also good in time and space on the table. Now this isn’t the smallest in terms of solo games. Nor is it the shortest game in terms of solo play. But neither make it feel like too much work to get it to the table. And I think that there are ways that you could compact the footprint so it doesn’t get quite as large. Though, the play of cards at the end is definitely going to take up some space.

Who is Ancient Realm For?

I think that this is a good game for people who like puzzle solo games. The game is really that efficiency puzzle. So if someone wants a game that is a bit more open in what you can do, I suspect this might feel like too much of a brain burner. But if that’s what you’re looking for it’s a good and fast brain burner of a game.

My Final Thoughts on Ancient Realm

I enjoyed this game a lot. For the Button Shy solo games, Ancient Realm is one of my favorites. I really like it when a game gives me a good puzzle. Because, a lot of the time, when I play a solo game, I do so to keep my brain engaged. There are a lot of things that I could do to spend time, but so many of them just really turn my brain off. So I like it when I can keep my brain going and enjoy a game as well.

This one also is a tight enough game, see that efficiency puzzle comment, that I feel like I can spot the better options pretty quickly. I don’t want a brain burner of a game to give me too many options. Especially for a solo game. So with Ancient Realm it is a easy to see what might be my options and then what might be the best one of them. At least that’s how it feels. I maybe make the decision too fast, but I don’t want the game to take too long as a small solo experience. And if I play poorly, I can always shuffle up and try again.

My Grade: B+
Strategy: B+
Luck: C

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