So this week, our resident Wookie lover and slick scoundrel (Yep, an Empire Strikes Back reference), Chris is on vacation with his fam. Normally, it is a "no work" zone around anyone on vacation, but with our Wild Realms™ launch coming quick and Gen Con right around the corner, there were a few things I needed to get from Chris. So we talked the other night and he told me about the lovely time he had tubing on the river, until...
I'm going to leave this right here and come back to it at the end. (Yes, it's worth the wait. Ha!)
Throughout our time play-testing our premier tabletop game, Wild Realms™, a few things have become apparent. One is that people don't always understand (they do now after some simple changes) that an Animal's Class actually provides a direct clue as to what type of "Special Ability" the animal has. This can get a little confusing, so bear (pun intended) with me as I explain.
What is a Class?
A Class in Wild Realms™ is a type of categorization for (non-Legendary) Animals that serves two purposes. The first (and most obvious) purpose of a Class is to allow you (the player) to know when to "lock a Realm" in your Kingdom. This is important and apparent, because locking your Realms is the way to win. Woot!
The second (and much less obvious) purpose of Animal Classes, is to signal to all Players the type of attack each Animal can perform. About this time in the conversation, you might be thinking, "Wait...what? I thought all Animals attacked the same by rolling three dice?" The answer to your question is "yes" and "no." While the "default" attack is with three D12's (12-sided dice) rolled once, it is superseded by whatever the Attack Icon and Special Ability text on the card say. This is where the Class gives a huge clue as to what you can expect from any given Animal's attack.
Animal Classes and Attacks
There are five Classes of Animals in Wild Realms™. They are as follows: Growth, Adapt, Swarm, Lethal, and Decay. Clearly these are based-off of natural occurrences. For example, all living things grow and ultimately decay. What we have done is apply those terms in a way that suggests the "power" of each animal. Most of the terms are intuitive as to what they could mean, but here is a simple list (with definitions) of the five Classes:
Growth – Allows more card draws or card “resurrection”
Adapt – Modifies rolled dice values or Animal placement
Lethal – Bypasses dice rolling for aggressive, targeted removal of an opponent’s cards
Swarm – Allows multi-attacks and “spread” attacks
Decay – Depletes an opponent’s resources
This shows the begins of how strategy works in Wild Realms™. Many people are shocked at the depth of the "pretty animals game" that they agreed to playtest. We love this! We wish to make not only beautiful, but also engaging board games with replayability. But enough about the game, let's get back to Chris's vacation!
So I know you are dying to hear what happened on the river, while Chris was tubing with his family. Well, it was great, until Chris came around a bend and was caught by a current. Normally, not a problem, but in this case it pushed him toward a large tree overhanging the river. A few friendly tubers just downstream called out to Chris to warn him. He couldn't quite figure out what they were exactly saying, so he pushed off of at a knot in the truck...and that was the problem. The "knot" was a very large wasps nest!
As you can imagine there was splashing, swatting, and maybe a little screaming, but thirteen painful stings later...the drama had subsided. Ouch! From Chris's post-traumatic description, each wasp was the size of a large finch. Haha! Seriously though, thankfully he is not allergic and doing just fine.
He finished his story with a final note—"I now know 100% that out pick of Swarm as a Class was spot on." Hahaha! If you want to explore the great outdoors, be careful of tree knots. Yikes! If you want to to enjoy a facsimile of adventuring in nature and only experience virtual swarm attacks, then enjoy a game of Wild Realms™ and mind your Animal Classes. Vorp!