Rulebook Only 12 pages with a ton of illustrations, so this is not a rules heavy game. If you removed the pictures and illustrations it might be 1-1.5 pages of rules, and I like that a lot. Really great job by the publisher on the rulebook. Components Again, I mostly like them a lot - artwork is really well done. The player/score markers are nice chunky wood, while the first player marker is gorgeous (also wood). The "magic stones" are standard cardboard and they are begging to be upgraded to acrylic or something similar. The boards and standee are regular cardboard fare. Gameplay You're essentially using card play to tame and then summon creatures and things to get the most points. It is a lot of fun to play. The creature cards, I'm calling them creatures, have different effects on them that trigger at certain times - some instantly, some stay in effect, etc. You are basically trying to get them into your hand and play them at the optimal time. Game ends when someone scores 60 points or 10 rounds have passed. Rounds are played over three phases. Simple on the surface but the depth is there as you try to put together the best combos. It can be kind of long (> 1 hour) your first time through as you figure everything out, but it smooths out nicely around game 2-3. I would highly recommend this if you like card games and using the card abilities to affect the outcome. Read more

By the time I got a hold of this game, it had already generated a fair amount of hype. So I was very excited to get it to the table and see what I thought. In this game, there are two factors that constrict your play, often causing you to make difficult decisions, choosing one option over another. Most reviewers seemed to love these elements of the game, but I was worried they might spoil it for me and seem arbitrary. As it turns out, they are core to this game, and make it work beautifully. But, to back up... this is a card game, where you play cards in front of you to score points and (negatively) affect other players. Cards can be brought ("tamed") into your hand for free, each player claiming ("hunting") an available card one at a time, but you must pay their printed value in order for them to enter play (be "summoned") in front of you. You must pay using colored stones. There are three varieties of stones, with values of 1, 3 or 6. The limitations of the game are that you may only have a number of cards in front of you equal to the current round (there are 10 rounds), and you may only have four stones in your possession (unless you have a card that lets you keep two more). Furthermore, when you pay stones to bring a card into play, if you overpay, there is no change given. You must discard stones that equal or exceed the value of each card you play. So you can quickly end up in a situation where you have more cards in your hand than you can afford to play, and/or no available spot to play them. I won't detail the rules, but there are many clever aspects to the game I've not seen elsewhere. There are cards that are valuable at first to play, but once they sit in front of you, do nothing but take up space. The rules allow you to pay a cost equal to the current round's number to remove cards. So that creates a tension, whether it is worth it to pay stones to remove dead weight. When initially choosing cards, you have the choice to either take them into your hand, or sell them for a value determined by their suit/type/faction. And as in many card games similar to this, there are powerful combinations of cards that can suddenly and dramatically turn the game around. Plus there are some cards that essentially attack your opponent. Some cards you play for their powerful immediate effects. Some you play because they create a new game-state for you (for example, increasing the value of your stones). And others form an engine, with effects that are triggered once a round, during what is called the "Resolution Phase." I played this many times as a two-player game with my son. He's the type of person, when playing a card game, who will sit down with the whole deck and try to figure out possible combinations. That definitely left me at a disadvantage for a while. He developed an endgame strategy that was usually devastating - collecting cards of each type in his play area and then playing the "Eternity" card, which grants you four points for each of those types. That resulted in a sudden 20 points for him, shooting him past 60 points (triggering the end game) and leaving me in the dust. Although I caught on to this after a few games, in a two player game it is still difficult to thwart this strategy, because you only have a 50% chance of claiming the Eternity card when it comes out (essentially, "hate-drafting" it). Though it is possible with some cards to try and throw off his game, really for this reason I prefer this game at a higher player count. At three players, it is much more difficult to pull this off. Obviously the game designer is aware of the power of this Eternity card, not only naming the game after it and putting Eternity (a dragon with antlers) on the box cover, but including with the game a (purely) decorative Eternity standee. With only a little soreness over the power of the Eternity strategy, I enthusiastically recommend this game. The rules are quite simple and innovative (as far as I know), and there are some dazzling combination card effects that are a ton of fun. The component quality is fantastic, with some really nice engraved and painted colored disks, and the art is colorful, if a bit on the young side (think Pokemon). Solid five stars. Read more

This game is great for 3-4 players, people that love fantasy and video game like play in boardgames - it is a lot of fun but the first couple rounds are very much about learning how rules and strategies are needed. Read more

Excellent game with great components that gives a big game experience from a little box. Wonderful choices and combos develop as the game progresses, lots of depth and replay ability. Read more

This is a fun game, with three or four players, but we did not enjoy playing with two people. Read more