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Back in the times of gaming being restricted to staying in your own house or playing over Zoom, Jamey Stegmaier designed a small roll and write game as a print-and-play for people to enjoy with him. The game was based on the various Stonemaier designs, such as Wingspan and Viticulture, and was so popular that it eventually became a fully published game with dry erase cards and a ton of promo packs. This game was Rolling Realms and I’ve loved playing this game since it came out. Last year, (boy that’s weird to say as I type this in January), a revised version was released, so here’s my review of Rolling Realms Redux.
So much meta...
Like the original game, Rolling Realms Redux holds 12 new realms for up to six players to play with, but there are a few new features within this box. Along with these realms, some new pens and chunky purple dice, there is a travel box to allow you to take your realms with you and dividers to let you store a whole host of promo cards along with the original set of 12 realms and the 12 in this box. This is great for those who have invested heavily in the original game and want to add something new, particularly as there is a rulebook for clarifying the various promo realms released in the last five years.
The gameplay in very straightforward. Over the course of three rounds, you are attempting to gain as many stars as possible in three unique realms. The realms change after round of 9 turns, and each turn has a fresh pair of die rolls for you to utilise in two of your available realms. Along the way, you’ll pick up resources which allow you to manipulate the dice, or even add new (virtual) dice to your pool.
Let’s have a quick look at the new realms added in this box. Unlike the original game, Redux hasn’t been limited to Stonemaier Games games. As such, they’ve been able to chose from some of the great games released in the last few years… and a couple which are very old… The full list includes:
- Atiwa
- Dog Park
- Flamecraft
- Guild of Merchant Explorers
- Legacy of Yu
- Meadow
- Planet Unknown
- Poker
- Rock, Paper, Scissors
- Spaceshipped
- Tidal Blades
- Wonderland’s War
Each realm has its own unique ruleset on how you score, and I’m not sure I have the word count to go through all of them, but there’s a whole lot of fun to be had in the base game.
Likes & Dislikes
Like: The integration of all new realms
Dislike: The travel box is a bit too small…
Like: Storage for all my realms
Like: New solo mode
Final Thoughts
I’m always going to love playing Rolling Realms because the games are so different each time. I’ve always appreciated the promo system which allows you to pick and choose games to throw into your collection in a way that other systems wouldn’t necessarily allow. Are the 12 in this box ones I would have chosen? I’d have to say yes for at most half of them, but no on the others. But then, that’s the joy of this hobby. There needs to be a variety of games out there for us to play and Rolling Realms Redux definitely gives us that. I can’t really say too much more about the gameplay, since it’s basically the same game as the original, just with more variety, but what I do like is that this box has been designed with two things in mind.
The first is a complete storage solution for the future. The box is quite a bit chunkier than the previous one, meaning you can store even more cards in there, as well as dividers included to let you put the solo mode, player colours and mini expansion content in there without mixing everything up.
The second is portability. Which sounds weird for a game with a bigger box to hold more stuff in. But on the face of it, this is a good idea. Rolling Realms needs a couple of dry erase pens, enough realms to play several rounds and two dice and the included Travel Box can hold all that… sort of. This is my only real complaint about the game, and it’s that the Travel Box is slightly too small. The pens will only fit in the box if you put them in at an angle, which isn’t ideal. It means you can only take two pens in the box, which also needs to hold some very chunky dice and the cards so you’re very tight on space. The box does work, I even took it on my honeymoon to Japan so we could play on our train from Osaka to Tokyo, but I’d like it a smidge bigger.
Overall though, I really like the concept of Rolling Realms Redux and everything in there is a huge improvement on the original box. Especially as you can just shove everything from the old game right into the new one. The only exception I would say is the box art. I’m quite fond of the original box, but hey, Redux is a bigger box storage expansion and who doesn’t like that?
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