Last week at the shop we learned Journey: Wrath of Demons! In this cooperative game, you and other players take control over the 4 pilgrims, attempting to save ancient China from fierce demons! Choose to attack or cleanse the demons to shape the path and stories of your Pilgrims. Journey is played over a series of chapters, with ten in the box. We will go over the mechanics and overview of the game, as to not give spoilers to the main story.

Journey can be played with up to four players. If there are less, players will take control of more than one pilgrim, as all 4 need to be in each scenario every time. Each pilgrim has their own character traits and abilities, so you’ll need to utilize each one’s strengths. Once everyone has their characters, open the chapter book to the scenario you would like to play to learn how to set up the game. You will also learn more of the story, as well as the victory and loss conditions for the players.

Once the game is ready to start, players may start to defeat the scenario at hand. Each character has their own traits, which dictates their health, movement, attack range, karma and action point tracker. Balance each character’s actions based on their traits to complete the scenario. The game will have directions on controlling the enemies, you will follow these after all Pilgrims have taken their actions.

The Solo Journey Wrath of Demons

Each scenario has its own set of rules and victory conditions, so time played varies between each one. However, you can expect them to last from anywhere between 30-120 minutes. Journey includes a solo variant, which allows one player to control all four pilgrims. This is a challenging feature of the game, since you cannot rely on other players to collaborate with on strategies. It is also interesting that choices you make throughout the campaign have an effect on demon spawn rate, player abilities, and equipment. These are able to be tracked on your player mat, so two playthroughs of the campaigns could have different outcomes for the Pilgrims.

Next week we will be taking a sneak peek on Corinth, which will be released later in early July. Corinth is akin to roll-and write games, but without the writing! Dice are instead placed on your chart, rather than being written. There is an economy within the game, that can increase the value of your rolls, as well as construct buildings to influence your victory points. After a number of turns, the game ends and victory points are tallied! Join us next week to throw down some dice!