Picture this, there are monsters all around us, they are everywhere. No one else can see them, but you can. These are the monsters that lurk at the edges of our consciousness. And now, they’re gearing up for another apocalypse.
Apocrypha: The World is an adventure card game from Mike Selinker and Lone Shark Games. Those names should sound familiar to those of you that enjoy the Pathfinder Adventure Card, if you have played and enjoyed that, then the, Apocrypha will be familiar. At times you feel like you’re playing a reskinned PFACG Game, You will explore locations (“nexuses”) composed of randomly assorted good and bad cards (“gifts” and “threats”) plus scenario-specific baddies (“masters” and “minions”). To get new loot and fight the big bad, you will be rolling dice. Making stat-based checks, and the ultimate goal is to “seal” all the nexuses by clearing them out or defeating the masters or minions within.
But this just not a just a rehash of PFACG. There is a new dice rolling mechanic, Each check, you’ll build a pool of six-sided dice based on the “virtue” (stat) you’re testing against. No matter how many dice you roll, however, you can keep only three to add together as your check result. It’s streamlined and intuitive while feeling new, but it’s also self-limiting: the band of potential results is narrow enough that the checks feel less diverse than they should.
Of course, you have a unique band of player characters you can guide through the world, sk8r grrrl Ruby Doomsday, flower child “karmacologist” Ophelia Willows, unlicensed necrosurgeon Dr. Zeez, and Diana Jones, the “World’s Luckiest Grandma.”
The thick storybook introducing the core setting of Candlepoint, a town in Wisconsin that happens to be a nexus for all things supernatural, and descriptions of the nine introductory missions do a nice job of depicting something sinister lurking beneath the seams of reality. The core box also includes the Skinwalkers chapter, which takes the game to a Chicago overrun by shapeshifters, There will be more to come as new boxes are added on. I think one of the ways that Apocrypha’s shines is in its nonlinear campaign, where you can play any mission from any chapter (and gain its lasting rewards) in any order. It opens up more options, or you can, of course, go through in order to build the story, the choice is up to you.
Each of Apocrypha’s missions lasts about one to two hours. Over the course of the 20-scenario campaign, players will be able to build their decks with upgraded cards to combat the apocalypse and the horrors that you will face.
There is Additionally, a companion iOS and Android app or Amazon App Store for Apocrypha, When you play Apocrypha, you can use this app to create choirs of saints, equip those saints with gifts and fragments, send those saints on missions, and record their victories and losses. The app contains a full gallery of every card in the game, plus a rules section so you can check the latest updates. And since the game takes place on the day you play it, every day you will get a new temporal mutation that will change your gameplay in a unique way for that day only.
Artwork
This is another place that game shines, like a diamond in the dark horror apocalypse you find yourself in. The art draws you in, the colors they used all skirt the line of the horror theme. Wonderful use of the art to help flash out the world.
Final thoughts
Apocrypha expands on Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and takes it to a new level with the theme of monsters that only you can see. Rules are easy to pick up, the book is well written, as is the story itself. If you enjoyed PFACG and enjoy a dark world of monsters and horror, I think you will feel right at home here.
You can find Apocrypha at your FLGS, or Via Amazon
Thank you to Lone Shark Games for sending us the review copy used in this review, this had no effect on the outcome of the review.
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