Preview of 52 Realms: Adventures
Updated: 5 days ago
Postmark Games has been churning out print and play games since their debut game Voyages in 2021. The newest print and play game in Postmark's lineup is sure to please. 52 Realms: Adventures is a playing card driven dungeon diver game. Players will take on one of four roles and explore the 2 maps that come with the kickstarter edition. As wih other Postmark games additional content created after the original game is included for the backers.
Setup
52 Realms: Adventures is a print and play game so the first thing you should do is print out the maps and charecter sheets. This is a few pages worth of printing and low ink versions are included with the kickstarter pledge. The Artwork and design that Rory Muldoon brought to the game gave me all the old school dungeon crawler drawn on grid paper vibes. The Charecters are an amazing mix of classic playing cards mixed with the charecter classes. Once players have the map and charecter printed all a player then needs a standard deck of cards without the jokers, (we dont have time to deal with jokers) and 3 markers (Coins, cubes, small rocks) to track the players movements and the monsters.
There are two maps that are included with the kickstarter, "Tomb of the Ever-Wandering Soul" and "The Eternal Midnight Forest". Players can choose from 4 initial charecters Barbarian, Seer, Fell Kight, and the Druid. As with other games from Postmark Games its expected that there will be more maps and charecters after the sucessful completion of the Kickstarter. Once a player has paied up their hero with the map they have chosen, they will slide the hero sheet under the map so that only the hero they chosen is showing.
The Player will shuffle the deck of cards and deal out 2 cards to be items on the right side of the charecter sheet. The Items are sorted by suit, the number dosent matter for items. Aces are set aside to be suffled back in at setup. Next the player will draw cards one at a time and place them in the equipment area below the charecter sheet. The player will keep placing cards there until their total value meets or exceeds 20. The Aces if drawn get shuffled back into the deck. Aces are curses and have special effects when drawn latter in the game. The player places a marker on the start area on the map. The player is now ready to face the dungeon.
Game Play
Like most dungeon crawlers players will choose the path they take through the dungeon. There are path connecting each room or encounter area, on these paths players can encounter a skull with a letter on it indicating a enemy and its strengnth or they may encounter a doorway icon with a number on it indicating the cost of equipment to get through.
If a player chooses the doorway then they must exhaust (turn sideways) that value of equipment from their inventory. For example if the number is four then a player could exhaust a 3 and a 2 to get past that doorway.
When a player faces a eneny in the coridor then they will draw the top card of the deck and determine the strength and kind of enemy. For example if a player travels into a coridor with an A on it they add 5 to the value of the card. To determine the enemy a player draws 2 cards (a 10 of hearts and a 3 of spades in this example). The higher card is the enemy card and the lower is the reward for winning the battle. In this example a player drew a 10 of Hearts for the enemy, so they add 5 (for level A enemy) to the 10 to get 15 hit points for the enemy. If we are playing the forst map then this means that the enemy is a Wight.
Now the player knows what they are fighting.I really like how the random generation of enemies is reall good. It ads a lot of varaity and really fits the bill for this dungeon crawler.
Thoughts
52 Realms: Adventures is another great game from Postmark Games. Its elegant gameplay is paired nicely with the artwork and iconography to create a satisfying solo dungeon delve. I kept coming back to this game especially if I managed to die in a previous attempt. I also loved trying to go to as many rooms as I could in each adventure this really isnt part of the game its was just a personal sidequest.
52 Realms: Adventures is the perfect stocking stuffer (its December when we are writing this) and great last minute idea. This solo game packs a good punch and is short enough to be played during a lunch break or when ever you find yourself with 20 minutes to spare. Postmark does a great job with their elegan rules that take you through the game and get a player going quickly into their adventure. Be sure to back now and you will get the inital 2 maps and 4 charecters also if and when there is additional content (Postmark really does like the additional content) then you will have access to that as a Kickstarter backer.
Players: 1
Year Published: 2024
Recommended Ages: 8+
Time to Play: 10-20 minutes
Bert's Tabletop games was provided a review copy of 52 Realms: Adventures. The game depicted here is a promo copy the actual Kickstarter version may vary from what is presented in this preview.
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