Seasons review

Libellud/Asmodee | Strategy card game | £39.99 | 2-4 players | 60 minutes | www.libellud.com 

You can perhaps see the thinking behind Régis Bonnessée’s gorgeous Seasons – strategy games are popular… card drafting games are popular… so a game combining the two… BOOM! That’s right, rather than learning just one mechanic to grasp the game, Seasons sees you needing to get your head around two. However, the pay-off is certainly worth it because this is a beautifully in-depth card game with some equally lush components.

Players start with nine cards that are divided into triples for the three rounds of the game. The rounds take place in different seasons when a token is moved around 12 spaces covering Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Depending upon the season, the energy tokens used as the currency will either become more abundant or decrease, as those elements become more or less prevalent during a particular time of year.

The season also dictates the type of dice you roll (blue for winter, green for spring, yellow for summer and red for autumn), which have varying symbols on each face. These symbols are then linked to different actions in the game – gain energy, gain crystals, increase the summoning gauge to increase the maximum number of cards a player may have, draw a new card and, finally, turn your stored energy into crystals.

Next you’ll be summoning the power cards you’ve got in your hand, which cost a certain amount of energy/crystals and your summoning gauge must be equal to or higher than the number stated on the card. You can summon multiple cards at once if you meet all these conditions and cards allow you to do things like draw new cards, increase your summoning gauge and also effect other players too. 

The game ends when you pass through all the seasons on the third year and the winner is based on the amount of crystals and prestige points. Seasons is certainly a tough game to master but is well worth the effort.

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