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Armello is a game of chance, trickery and cards as you try to outwit your opponents at every turn to become the King.

Disclosure: Both of our keys were provided by our PR people.

My thoughts
The opening cinematic for the game was fantastic! Myself and Samsai both agreed we could easily watch some sort of movie as well done as that, really good stuff.

Myself and Samsai played against each other online in Armello recently, and we found it to be a pretty interesting game, and a big time sink. I’m pretty sure our game went on for about an hour, and I could easily see myself playing more of this.

It has a lot of interesting mechanics, and it will take time master all of them. I apparently fail at every aspect of this game. The card system is really quite nice: You have three different types of cards you can pick from armour and weapons to spells and downright devious trickery cards. Spell cards, for example, could remove health from another player, or even place a bounty on their head.

It’s not purely an online game though, so don’t be alarmed. You will get four prologue chapters to complete with a little bit of story in each while they also teach you the mechanics of the game, and then the single-player which is the same as the online mode but with all AI controlled players.

The game is played out on a randomly generated map, so it’s different every time. It wouldn't be so fun if it was the same every time, so being able to replay the game keeps it feeling fresh. This is an advantage of it being a PC game, and not an actual board game.

There’s also a few different ways to win, which makes it interesting to try and outwit your opponents. You can win by killing the king, waiting for him to die with your character having a high prestige, or have four spirit stones.

It’s really quite fun, as no one but you knows what cards you hold. They can either help you, or really annoy your opponents. One way to win is to have the most prestige when the King dies, so it’s nice to have a card to steal prestige from everyone—like I did. Slightly annoying to then lose and gain a prestige during a battle with a Bane because I died.

As expected, I lost miserably, and Samsai gained the crown. Luckily though, our streamed game saw me gain a win, so I’m pretty happy with that.
Final thoughts: It’s a very interesting game, and really quite fun to play with friends. Go check it out!

Check out Armello on Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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8 comments

Keyrock Sep 4, 2015
The art style is phenomenal. I look forward to trying this once I finish either Crookz or Shadowrun: Hong Kong (or both) and I have some time on my hands. The best part is that I can play as a rat, a big plus for a rodent lover, like myself.
mao_dze_dun Sep 4, 2015
Quoting: KeyrockThe art style is phenomenal. I look forward to trying this once I finish either Crookz or Shadowrun: Hong Kong (or both) and I have some time on my hands. The best part is that I can play as a rat, a big plus for a rodent lover, like myself.

Actually, I find it quite reminiscent of Endless Legend (the art style).
Liam Dawe Sep 4, 2015
Quoting: maodzedun
Quoting: KeyrockThe art style is phenomenal. I look forward to trying this once I finish either Crookz or Shadowrun: Hong Kong (or both) and I have some time on my hands. The best part is that I can play as a rat, a big plus for a rodent lover, like myself.

Actually, I find it quite reminiscent of Endless Legend (the art style).

Yeah I got that feeling too, both very different games though.
Avehicle7887 Sep 4, 2015
I admit I underestimated this game when I saw it was also being released for Android, but I was WRONG, totally wrong and I think I finally found a game that catches my interest.

Thanks for the review :)
WorMzy Sep 4, 2015
I tried to buy this after watching the stream, but I couldn't buy it. Steam constantly timed out while trying to buy the four pack, then complained that I had pending transactions when I tried again. I tried cancelling the purchase and rebuying, but kept getting the same result. Now when I try again, Steam tells me:

QuoteIt looks like you've been attempting a lot of purchases in the last few hours. Please wait a while before trying again.

Grr. :(


Last edited by WorMzy on 4 September 2015 at 11:52 pm UTC
metro2033fanboy Sep 5, 2015
What a great surprise..when you do know about some great game...and you go to STEAM to track its price and...to find out that you already own the game!



PS: Total War Shogun 2


Last edited by metro2033fanboy on 5 September 2015 at 1:15 pm UTC
wolfyrion Sep 5, 2015
Have tried to play this game ...
I have played the prologue a bit,
Excited at start that I had a Wolf since is my favorite animal...
Battles,movements and lots of bla bla way too boring for me
After a while Wolf gone and got a Rat
I fall asleep at half way of Rat I wake up after 5 mins ....
I hardly finished the Rat..but Everyone was killing Wolfie...
Then I had a Rabbit.... yawn..
ALT+F4 ....
maybe next time...


Last edited by wolfyrion on 5 September 2015 at 9:48 pm UTC
Mountain Man Sep 8, 2015
It looks like a cool game, but I'm hearing that it's very unbalanced. While there are multiple victory conditions, only one is actually viable (so there's not a lot of variety from one game to the next), certain characters are easier to win with than others, and games are frequently decided by luck. Maybe they'll smooth out the balance in future patches, but this game had a very long public beta, and these issues have persisted for many, many months, so I'm not particularly hopeful at this point.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 8 September 2015 at 12:06 am UTC
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