It’s been a while since we’ve had some lighthearted games about the world of wizardry. Arcane Alley will tackle the theme of merchant wizards in a slightly comedic and unique way.
One day one of your spells blew in your face and almost destroyed your whole merchandise. Almost. Many items survived, but were affected by the unfortunate incantation. What’s even worse, the authorities of magical world have noticed that something has happened, and have sent their inspectors to find you.
Time to fix the shop, get rid of your wares, earn some gold, and motivate the inspectors to leave you alone with the help of good old bribery.
Time for a bit of Magic
Arcane Alley is mainly a card game, but it uses a simple board to track your progress. The board, placed in the center of the table, shows how much gold do the players own and the amount of infamy points. Each player tracks his or her values with a token of their own colour. The game is played until somebody manages to get 100 pieces of gold after an inspection.
Item cards show your cursed merchandise, and have both price and infamy points printed on them.
Four Phases
Each round begins with stocking new items. This is done by placing 3×3 card grid in front of every player, while uncovering 2 cards only. The remaining ones stay covered until the inspection phase, and nobody knows what they actually have in front of them.
Next step involves selling your wares. Here you’ll have do draw a card, and then either add one to your storehouse or discard one. The goal is to end up with 3 copies of the exact same item. This is where you get the money from.
Inspection is the third phase of every round. All cards are flipped to become visible and players get infamy points according to values on each card.
Final phase deals with bribing the inspectors. Here you can spend your hard earned coins on reducing infamy points.
The Campaign
After reading the rules I can say, that Arcane Alley is much deeper than it initially looks and has tons of potential. Pictures by Janette Ramos add a lot to the eerie atmosphere and look simply charming.
Geeknson Board Game Table | QUESTOWER Ads Sytsem
The Kickstarter campaign is supposed to launch a week after Halloween – on November 8th.
