It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and a large reason for that is the fact that I’ve devoured Thea: The Awakening. That, and the fact that I’ve been really busy at work – someone’s out on maternity leave, and the rest of us are picking up the work. When I’m really tired like that, I tend to grab on to a compelling game and play it to death, which is what I did with Thea.
It’s a little overwhelming at first: there are a ton of options for upgrades, you have a huge world, and the challenges revolve around a card game that takes a little while to figure out. It begins to pick up steam quickly, though – you get a few resources, a few crafting recipes, and you get better at the strategy required for the card game. The reviews all stress that it’s not a “4x” game (Explore, Expand, Exploit, Exterminate), largely because you can’t Expand – your first settlement will be your only settlement. It does have the trademark effect of 4x gameplay, though – you are always saying to yourself “Just one more turn”, and then end up playing for hours.
I started out with a great placement: some wicker was right on top of my base. This resource is key in making the first essential piece of equipment, which is baskets to improve the gathering skill of your townspeople. Gathering is a core task in Thea: you have to send out expeditions to grab more and better materials as the game progresses, or you’re going to be overwhelmed by the wandering enemies.
In what felt like a very short amount of time, I had a “five-skull” (the highest level of basic challenges) Raider’s Lair plopped right along a narrow isthmus leading to most of the good resources – like ancient wood. I couldn’t quite get past it yet, so I had to spend some time training up my townsfolk. While all challenges in Thea are resolved with a card game, the challenges take on different forms. If not combat, then they’re Social, Hex (magical), Strength, and so forth, representing different approaches to solving a problem. I believe I defeated the raiders with Social – I walked up to them and had my townsfolk convince them that they’d be better served picking up and going elsewhere.
The different types of challenge require different skills – and there are a dizzying array of them. Skills like Speech are obviously for a Social challenge, but then you have ones without an obvious use: Folklore, or Sixth Sense. Even though I played the game for hours on end, I am not sure I’d be able to identify which skills do which – they all perform different actions within the card game. Some skills are useful in several types of challenges; others are good only for one.
In the end, you’ll have to have your townsfolk specialize in only one or two skills. Eventually, you’ll unlock enough crafting recipes and ingredients to equip them with great gear – and they’ll start taking on significant challenges, like giants (who are not just white-skull challenges, but orange and red skull). Towards the end, I still felt like I was struggling to collect enough resources, but then I waltzed into a series of quests which must have triggered the end game once completed. The game told me I could keep playing, but it had given me a score and I figured it was as good a time to stop as any.
Not sure if I’ll go through another round of this – it’s a long and slow-moving game. But I’m glad I played it through once. Fans of turn-based strategy would do well to pick this one up – it might move a little slow, but it’s a satisfying ride.