Elder Sign: Omens Review
It seems that H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulu mythos has seen an incredible revival in past few years. It’s everywhere. Fantasy Flight Games (FFG), creators of the card\board game Elder Signs has made an app version of the game available for iPad\iPhone called Elder Sign: Omens. As the license holders for Lovecraft’s works this is another in a long line of Cthulu based games they’ve released. In addition we’re seeing Lovecraftian flavors creeping into other genres. Not only is there the RPG based around the same mythos, but also Pathfinder has an Adventure Path called the Carrion Crown that constantly pays homage to his work. So all that to say it’s everywhere.
PS: if you want to get me a stuffed Cthulu, I wouldn’t hold it against you.
Elder Sign: Omens is a single player game where you have to enter a museum as a team of four investigators to prevent the awakening of Azathoth, the infinitely powerful elder one. Sound familiar? Well it should. If you’re familiar with FFG’s other games, like Arkham Horror or Mansions of Madness, then won’t be any surprises here. In fact it’s very much an amalgamation of the two games.
The object of the game is to overcome a series of encounters with your four investigators to collect enough Elder Signs to seal Azathoth away for good. Or at least until he rears his ugly…eye stalks? Anyway, there are sixteen investigators to choose from, all with various skills and starting items that you have to use in conjunction to beat the ancient one. As to be expected some of the investigators seem more useful than others, but play style and preference will likely play into who you pick.
Game play is pretty straightforward. Once you’ve picked your investigators the game starts, with a really creepy intro might I add. Each investigator gets to select a location on the map, you can check to see what the challenges on that location include and what the rewards are. This is important because from my experience it is almost necessary to just pursue the locations with the Elder Signs as rewards in order to actually beat Azathoth. Once you’ve decided on the location encounter you want you just tap the magnifying glass and away you go.
Encounters are pretty simple. Each challenge in a location has a requirement of a combination of glyphs. The four “glyphs” are: Magnifying Glass, Scroll, Skull, or Tentacled Monster Thing. And there can be a varying number of those glyphs required to beat the challenge. For example, there are three challenges on this location. One requires three magnifying glass glyphs to beat, the next you need a skull and a scroll, and the third you need two skulls.
You attain glyphs by “shuffling.” There typically are six glyph spaces, if none are locked (a special condition that occurs occasionally), plus the special yellow and red glyphs that you can gain by use of skills or items. From the glyphs you shuffle you drag and drop them onto one of the challenges you want to beat first. This is where planning comes in. In most instances you can only ever beat one challenge per shuffle. But once you use a glyph, that slot is gone. So you don’t get another one to fill that slot next shuffle. So if you have the above-mentioned challenge that requires two skulls, and you use to single skull glyphs to beat, then next shuffle you’re now down two glyph slots. Instead of nine you now have seven to work from. Rinse, wash, repeat.
After beating a location encounter then you get the goodies. Yaaaay! That is after all why we delve into these deadly places isn’t it? Loot? Sometimes there are effects that occur through out the game when you beat or fail a location, midnight strikes, or other conditions are met. Effects like causing drain of sanity or stamina from you investigators, raising the Terror Level (the thing that will wake up Azathoth and generally give you a bad day), spawning monsters, opening Otherworld locations, etc.
Monsters are fought throughout the game much like encounters are over come using the glyph system. The difference is that monsters will drain stamina and\or sanity when you fight them and fail. They also will be destroyed from that location unlike challenges. Typically if you go to a location encounter and there are two challenges, you’re able to beat the first but fail on the second. When the next investigator goes there, then you’ll still have to beat both. But if that same location had a monster as well, and the first investigator beat the monster and first challenge, the next investigator would only have to beat the two challenges. The monster does not respawn.
To win you have to collect fourteen Elder Signs before Azathoth awakens, which happens when the terror level increases to a certain point. In general the game is pretty challenging. This isn’t like a Ticket to Ride or some other light game you can play quickly. It typically takes about 30 minutes to an hour depending on your analysis paralysis. There is solid replay based on the variety of investigators, however as of right now Azathoth is the only boss to fight and the map doesn’t change, so I can see this as becoming a bit limited in value over the long term.
Overall it’s a lot of fun, especially if you like games where you start on the short end of the stick. Which admittedly is most of the Cthulu games! It’s reasonably priced at $6.99. The artwork is typical FFG and is great as is the sound track. It’s very creepy. So if you’re into Lovecraft then it may well be worth giving it a shot. If you’re on the fence about his mythos, or are looking for a lighter game, take a pass on Elder Sign: Omens.
