Worlds Upon the Wind

I tried the demo for this somewhat cozy game a few days ago, and decided to buy it.

This is a deck builder where each card has 1 or more glyphs, and possibly a special ability. You are basically a god/explorer founding villages. When you pick a location it contains two regions (plains, swamps, buildings, etc) that determine what combination of glyphs are worth things, and you then draw a hand, use the abilities/glyphs to fill the puzzle, then get a second hand and that’s it.

(The puzzles are basically decision trees. You can unlock A or B or C, and A may have A1 or A2, etc. Taking A precludes B/C).

There’s just enough choice to be interesting … since you can use each card for one glyph (possibly of 2 or more) OR its special ability, and you don’t know all the cards you are going to draw (since you get one redraw, but must discard unused). Since starting one path precludes others, it’s a risk/reward.

But “cozy” … no time pressure, very low key.

Honestly, I didn’t really buy it for the gameplay, although its fine. The game also has classical Japanese Art (and descriptions, history lessons on the art, hi-res versions, etc) and some Japanese Language Practice (which is optional and probably not even very helpful compared to real lessons, but I liked that and I hate taking real lessons). Because of that, I figured I could pay $10 which — let’s be frank — isn’t much.

If I were paying attention I’d learn that “Oh, this terrain gives the same decision tree every time and my deck is good for that,” but I don’t really care enough to put that much effort into it. I’m just exploring it for the aesthetics, mostly.

Rating — A fine cozy game, but honestly indifferent. I suppose if I approached it as a real strategy game I’d probably move my rating one way or the other. I’ll likely play 10 hours, maybe more, but probably not 25+.