▷ Placard Ludique – Shards of Infinity 🎮

Available from the beginning of March, Shards Of Infinity is the new game of deck building from the editor IELLO. The latter was created by Gary Arant & Justin Gary to 2 to 4 players with a game duration of approximately 30 minutes.

Presentation of the game

The game takes place in a futuristic universe where humans have evolved technologically to be able to create the infinity engine. A technological feat, it could have been humanity's greatest achievement if its creators had not harnessed its power to enslave the world. It results in a war of oppression which ends in the destruction of the engine as well as the civilizations populating this world. From this old world emerged four major factions (which will be playable) who can control the shards of infinity and want to fight to control the world again:

The Homodeus : biomechanical hybrids brought together for one purpose - to survive.
The Spectra : Refugees from the Void, they are moved by a dark and terrible energy that keeps their degenerated bodies alive.
Maquis : hidden in the natural refuge that the forest offers, they are determined to give back to nature the control of their world.
The Order : connected by the spirit to the high digital spheres, they seek to preserve knowledge.

The material contained in the box will consist of the hero boards as well as a large deck of cards that will be used by all players. If the player boards are of very good quality with dials for life and mastery points, the cards may lack rigidity for this type of game. I strongly advise you to protect them with sleeves to avoid listening the lifespan of these. Note, however, that the illustrations on the material are very pretty and the various texts are quite readable.

Game mechanics

At the start of the game, each player will be able to recover one of the hero sheets while initializing their life points at 50 and their level of mastery at 0 for the first player (for the others, it will be necessary to add one more point than the previous player) . Namely that there is no difference on these characters apart from the faction he represents or the illustration of the latter. Then, each of the characters will get their starting deck made up of the following cards: 7 crystals, 1 shard reactor, 1 blaster and 1 shard of infinity. Quite common in deckbuilding games (Aeon's End, Clank, ...), the cards that can improve your deck are visible to everyone in the center of the table.

Each game turn will be broken down into three very different phases allowing you to improve your deck, your playing area and attack your opponents. There are of course cards with very specific mechanics allowing you to perform combos with other cards.

The main phase and the concept
attack stage
End of tour interview
The different types of cards

During the first game phase of your turn, you can play different cards and/or activate different effects to gain resources to use in your turn (attack points, shards, masteries, etc.). Any cards played will be placed in your play area even if their effects have been used. One of the most important actions of your turn will be to buy new cards in the buy zone allowing you to improve your deck. The value of each of the cards is indicated at the top right of the latter and they will be placed in the discard pile immediately after purchase to integrate your deck thereafter.

One of the key points of the game will be your level of mastery which can be increased once per turn by your character card or thanks to very specific cards. This level of mastery interacts with many cards by strengthening them or adding additional actions. If you reach 30 mastery points (the maximum) and if you play the Infinity Shard card, you immediately win the game, regardless of the number of players.

The end of the game is triggered when there is only one player left around the table.

The attack phase allows you to spend your attack points on enemy champion or hero cards. You can distribute the points you have acquired during your main phase as you wish. As soon as a game element reaches 0 life points, it is eliminated from the playing area. In the case of a card, it will be put in the discard pile of the player who can reuse it later, whereas in the of a player in a game with more than two, the latter is eliminated.

To avoid this, each targeted player can reveal cards from their hand with a shield symbol to reduce the amount of damage received. The cards revealed by this action are not discarded and can be used on the player's next turn like a classic card. However, a restriction applies to this card because it does not allow you to protect the champion cards in your playing area.

At the end of your turn, all non-champion cards will be put in the player's discard pile and the enlisted mercenary cards will be put under the common deck. Any resources not used during your game turn will be lost. You should know that it is not possible to keep cards in hand to play them during a future turn because these will also be discarded at the end of the turn allowing you to redo your hand at most (five maps).

In the case of a game with more than two players, the next player will be the one positioned to the left of the active player during the turn.

There are three distinct types of cards: ally, mercenaries and champions. Even if they each have a very different way of playing, they are designated in the same way with a faction, a cost and one or more specific effects. It is also indicated in the lower right corner of the cards, the number of copies of the card in the game. This information is important to take into account in advanced games to perfect your game.

Alliés : quite classic card of the game, they have an immediate effect when they are played like the generation of resources.
Mercenary : Mercenaries are somewhat atypical cards in Shards of Infinity because you can either recruit it to put it in your discard pile or enlist it, which will have the effect of directly playing the latter on the field. The other side of the enlistment coin is that the card is put in the common draw pile at the end of the turn. Mercenary cards are recognizable by the red border.
Champions : champions can be recruited as allies but will remain on the field when they are played in the play area and this as long as it has not been destroyed or sacrificed. Much like ally cards, champions are often resource engines. As soon as you use the effects of the card, you must tilt it 90° to indicate that the card has been used (commit action/dull).

As I said before, Shards Of Infinity is a game where four factions are at war for control of the world and it must be said: each has its own characteristics, weaknesses and strengths. For example, almost half of the cards of the Homodeus faction are champions, which will require a long-term vision but above all the possibility of having many cards permanently on the field that your opponents will have to deal with quickly, otherwise you can generate a lot of resources during a turn. The Order faction focuses on defense and mastery point generation, which will allow you to make certain investments profitable thanks to the mastery level.

The Maquis faction is a very nature control oriented faction which makes their gameplay quickly turn to hit point regeneration. Its other strength lies in the number of mercenary cards they have and which will allow you to use their effects and especially card combos at the end of the game without overloading your deck too much with other cards. Finally, the Spectra faction mainly focuses on damage by having cards that can inflict additional damage based on your mastery points and/or cards of the same faction in your discard pile. It is also one of the only factions with which you can clean up your deck to make it more viable.

Conclusion

With a quick set up, Shards Of Infinity is a very good deck building that can easily join the place of your deck building games in your Toy Library. When looking at the mechanics and gameplay, it's very easy to compare it to games like Star Realms. The game has quite interesting mechanics with the mercenary system which allows you to add effects/combos during a turn without having the disadvantages of adding a card to your deck.

I think that the game draws its full potential with two players for the moment because it is always complicated to play confrontation games of this type with more than two because it quickly becomes anarchic and there is more often someone who will take more than the others (and which will probably not pass a good part). Extensions are already in preparation by IELLO (currently in VO) adding in particular a cooperation mode or team games.

Without the fuss and for a very affordable price (about 20 euros), I recommend the latter cheerfully for short and demanding games.