Preview: Age of Comics

1938-1954 is considered the Golden Age of Comics. This is when Age of Comics is set. Players will assume roles of publishers recruiting writers and artists. Players will also send their sales agents across Manhattan to sell their published comics. Players build their fan bases based on the comics they publish. Golden Age of Comics: The Golden Years is published by Lirius Games designed by Sonia Goncalves and Giacomo Cimini and art by Laura Guglielmo.

Age of Comics: The Golden Years is played over 5 month rounds and during each turn players will take turns preforming an action until each player has used all of their editor tokens. Players earn VP by publishing comics, accumulating fans, earning money, generating ideas, improving the print quality and being at the top of the comic book chart every round.

Players will hire artists and writers, develop, gather ideas, print comics, sell comics and gain royalties. There are also bonus actions that players may take after they have printed their second comic book which allow for more bonuses. Players will be publishing Original comics in each of the 6 genres. Players may also publish Rip-off comics that are plagiarized versions of the originals. There are 24 comics will original art on all of them and 24 rip-offs with strikingly similar art (with some minor tweaks). Publishing an original comic book gets you bonuses.

Each player mat has 6 columns to hold 3 cards in each, a writer an artist and a comic. Each player will need all three cards to create an original comic. Earnings for comics are calculated by the amount of fans a title has. The left most part of the board has a chart for each player and each comic title (great little tokens with the art on them) it makes it super easy to add it all up and to see who is at the highest rank at the end of the round for those extra VPs.

There are 24 comics will original art on all of them and 24 rip-offs with strikingly similar art.

The game board is divided up into three sections the left most we just described keeps track of the earnings and fans. The middle section of the board will track a players actions throughout the turn. And finally the right third of the board is a map of Manhattan. This is where the sales agents visit the news stands and take orders to be fulfilled. Agents will move through the map and flip sales order tokens over and collect them based on the space they used (in the middle 3rd of the board) to take the action. This is a great way to increase your fans for comics you have printed or are going to print.

After players publish their 2nd comics they start to get special actions that they may take. These bring in some of the in-depth flavor of comics

After players publish their 2nd comics they start to get special actions that they may take. These bring in some of the in-depth flavor of comics. For example if a player created a comic with a writer whose specialty is westerns and they are paired up with an artist whose specialty is superheros and they published a super hero comic players may then use the special actions re-assign to swap the creatives this could cards on the play mat or maybe in your hand.

Age of Comics has a lot of in-depth strategies that can be played and this we enjoy a lot. Players will not "solve" the game. There is a lot each player can do on their turn and this add to the all in on the theme feel. Speaking of the theme, this game has all the looks and feels of the golden age of comics. The art direction is amazing and the rule book is very easy to understand. Game play is smooth and intuitive. There is a little bit of lag between turns because you can take the action the next player was wanting but we found this did not distract from game play.

Age of Comics: The Golden Years is a great game about the inner workings of the comic industry circa 1940's-1950's. This is a great mid weight game for people who love or appreciate comics and for folks who are not into comics but but enjoy a nice mid weight game. Do not forget to checkout late pledging on Gamefound.

Players: 2-4

Year Published: 2023

Recommended Ages: 14+

Time to Play: 60-110 minutes

A pre-production copy of Age of Comics: the Golden Years was provided to Bert's Tabletop Games for review purposes by Lirius Games. The final product may vary from what we have presented here.