Cogswell Creations' Debut Product: Where Tarot Meets Board Games
Thank you for your interest in Arcana Towers! It is a card battling/ resource collecting board game revolving all around the 78 cards of the Tarot. Going back to the origins of Tarot (and playing cards), this game uses all of the Tarot deck. This includes the Minor Arcana which is 56 playing cards split into four equal suits: Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles and the mysterious Major Arcana. The Major Arcana cards, such as The Fool, The Hermit, The Sun and The Tower, are drawn upon from a separate smaller deck of 22 cards. Each of these powerful Major Arcana Cards have a unique rule written directly on the card that can be used to sway the fate of the Four Elements.
Each player is a Magician specializing in one of these Elements and as such, has an unique Elemental Ability. For example, Fire uses the element of Fire to destroy an opponent's points, whereas Earth employs its power to gain more points (in the form of stones) rather than follow the path of destruction. Water and Air have their own unique abilities as well which introduces a slightly A-symmetric mechanic to the game based on each player's board and Elemental Tile.
If all of this sounds interesting, read on and we will run through a short overview of how to play the game!
The first goal is to collect Royalty Cards (face cards) from the Minor Arcana (which is like a deck of playing cards) in order to collect stones (pentacle poker chip pieces) and draw from the smaller deck of Major Arcana Cards. The overall objective is to win the game by collecting 11 Towers- denoted on your red or black dice. You gain Towers a few different ways: by collecting 11 stones of a single colour, by collecting 3 Royalty Cards (placed in one of four Courts on your board), or by the effects of Major Arcana Cards that grant both stones and Towers (as well as other effects). All of your turn options are marked on each player's Turn Actions tile. There is an Opening Action, Main Action (four choices- CAST, BID, FLIP, SWAP), and an Elemental Action (fuelled by a player's unique elemental ability found on their elemental tile),
Use Specialty Cards that may be played before each of the previously mentioned actions in order to maximize your turn economy!
Players take turn after turn until one of two things happens: one, someone reaches 11 Towers, or, two, the Major Arcana Deck runs out of (22) cards, (if the deck runs out one last turn is taken, and the player with the most Towers and Stones wins the game!
Sounds straight-forward enough? Well where Arcana Towers® shines is its unique blend of luck and strategy and its replay-ability. There is strategy involved in maximizing one's turn economy and getting the most resources possible per turn, but in Arcana Towers, your resources (in the form of stones and towers) can be destroyed by your opponent! You never know what cards you are going to draw, or what cards your opponent has drawn, so it could be more difficult to maintain the lead on your quest to 11 towers than you thought!
In a two player game, an Element may have two Courts and gains stones and towers very quickly, but your opponent can send blast after blast of destruction your way, or perhaps they are capable of accelerating their growth faster than you, and you need to knock them down? For 3-4 players it is a slightly different dynamic. it is easy enough to gain stones and towers and take the lead, but if your opponents decide they don't like that, it can difficult to stay there. To complete the quest to 11 towers is indeed a masterful achievement in a 3-4 player game!
For a full rule tutorial video series click the button below:
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