Seeker Chronicles
- Board's Eye View
- 6 hours ago
- 2 min read
Seeker Chronicles is a thematically strong sci-fi two-player tussle. It's designed by Fulvio Flamini, Hendrik Poulsen Nautrup and Lea M Trenkwalder and it represents a contest between two competing teams of scientists.
There are six scientists in the box and players start each game by drafting their choice of the three who will form their team. Each scientist has their own mini-deck of cards and these are shuffled together to form a player's 'library' (ie: draw deck) of 30 cards.
The game is published by OneStone Studios and Wise Wizard Games but unlike most of Wise Wizard's other combat games - for example, Star Realms - players aren't deck building and trying to reduce each other's points total. Instead, in Seeker Chronicles, players are each setting up powerful combos that let them recycle their cards first into their 'archive' (discard pile) and thence to replenish their library. The game is won by the first player to recycle their library (draw deck) three times. That said, players' scientists are lined up against each other and there is a 'research' contest which feels somewhat like combat; if your scientist's research points exceed that of the scientist opposite them then you get to move cards from your library into your archive, so hastening the triple deck recycling needed to win the game.
You don't need to be a rocket scientist or a quantum physicist to play this game - it's easy to teach and learn - and there's obviously a significant luck factor over the cards you happen to draw. The depth in Seeker Chronicles comes in how you optimise your use of the cards in hand and on the table, choosing which cards to exhaust in order to meet the power cost of linking or 'hyperlinking' (taking from your hand rather than from the cards played to the table) other cards to the scientists you have in play. In making your choice of which card to link or hyperlink, you'll need to weigh up the benefit of the card's often powerful text effect and for the increase it gives to your scientist's research strength.
With its card art from Roman Roland Kuteynikov, Alexander Rommel, Simon Seene and Janna Sophia, Seeker Chronicles is beautifully presented, and it's packaged by Wise Wizard in a slim pocket-sized box. That makes it a great choice to pack in your holiday suitcase, tho' the slim box doesn't lend itself to accommodating sleeved cards nor any expansions. The team at Board's Eye View are hoping to see more scientist packs appear but we'll need a bigger box!