The creators of Oracles Game: Civil War have made a bold decision. So far, projects merging Augmented Reality tech with board games kept on failing. Are we going to finally get a product that could meet the expectations of players?
The Adventure
Oracles is a game that can be played in a group of up to 10 players. Whatever their number is, people have to divide into two teams, and each player will be able to control more than one hero (there’s a 10 of these available per team). Controlling heroes is done through dice rolls. The game is played in real time, and dice can be passed to other players to support them and aid them in their actions. The gameplay is shaping up to be fast and exciting, but may end up chaotic, instead of more strategy based. We can only guess at this point.
The cooperation between party members is really important here. We win as a team, and we lose as a team. You can achieve victory in two ways: reach your rival’s tavern or reach the time limit chosen at the beginning of the game, and then: have more strength among all of your heroes comparing to the opposing team.
The heroes will move through the map, attack each other, fight monsters and open mysterious chests, that allow them to increase their stats. Each hero will have a skill set of his own, that will differentiate him from the rest. Movement and combat is performed by rolling dice. It’s getting quite obvious that Oracles Game, doesn’t offer much innovation, when it comes to miniature based titles. So what makes it unique?
Augmented Reality
Oracles is a game designed in a way, that allows interaction with augmented reality. Only the leader of each team will have a pair of “goggles”, that will make him see the hazards on the map. He will be tasked with helping his friends with avoiding these. Leader will also control 2 special characters, that aid the entire team.
It’s not the only game mode available. The view of the “augmented” map can be given to all the players, and if you don’t feel like using this kind of technological solution, you can also play the Oracles Game completely without these.
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Oracles on Kickstarter
The Kickstarter Campaign is supposed to launch in late February. We don’t know much details about how it’s going to play out. According to some comments from the creators, we shouldn’t count on getting a special pair of AR glasses. The game will utilise a mobile app, and the creators are thinking about a solution that will help players avoid holding phones in their hands all the time.
“Well, good to hear that. I’m not a fan of games with mobile apps used all the time. Well, maybe except Chronicles of Crime. That one’s really neat.”
As of now, board games merged with AR weren’t too successful. Can Oracles Game change that? The creators promise, that they’re listening to the players and will take lessons from failed projects made by competitors. What will be the result of that all? We’ll learn in the first quarter of 2019.
