This is a good week for tablet gamers who love digital tabletop CCGs.  Pathfinder, the Adventure Card Game finally released and so far plays well with very minor issues and then there is Ortus Regni.  This is the digitized version of the tabletop card game which game out in 2014.

Presentation

Ortus Regni or “Origin of the Kingdom,” is a game that is hardly simplistic that can be simplistically hard.  The reason being is that the cards have no text on them at all.  The tutorial does a decent job of giving you an idea of the game play by showing you what to do in the early, middle and late phases of the game but most players will still feel like they are fumbling through the game.  The object is simple. You and your opponents are vying for control of England.  You can do this through political intrigue, building up armies or controlling the church.  While this is happening a separate deck of Vikings are building up to invade. You can choose to face them head on along with your rival or cut a deal to ally with them.  Meantime, you must maintain your fiefdom to become king and build up your lands while doing everything possible to stop your opponent from doing the same.

Graphically speaking

Let’s talk about the cards themselves.  For this particular game, it’s a closed deck card game, meaning that you are limited to the card types that you can use.  There aren’t that many but the artwork is gorgeous.  Each one looks like a small piece of early medieval tapestry.  So, no wonder there are no words printed on the cards.  One still can’t help that if the text was on the card, it would help as sometimes tapping between card plays to figure out a function is a bit of a hassle. More on that in a moment.

Even though you are limited on the card types, you still can customize your decks.  I have played decks that just let you go all in with building armies, there are decks where you are nearly dependent on the Vikings to fight, others that you are simply forcing your opponent to play and discard certain cards and more.

Even after playing a few rounds I did wish that there were maybe just a few more card types to be had. I feel like there is a world of possibility to open up game play with just 3 more card types.

One other thing I wasn’t too crazy about is that when looking at your opponents cards on the table sometimes you have no idea of what’s there until it’s too late as you cannot zoom in to certain sections.

Gameplay

This is what things get a bit dicey.  My recommendation is to play through the tutorial more than once to get some understanding of how the cards work.  Even though they have no text, you can press a card to see its function.  Problem is sometimes the game gets a bit finicky as you may have to mash on a card to get it to pop up.  Other times, it may pop right up and on 2 rare occasions as it happened,  it may accidentally get played.  Each turn, players get a free move to make any of a number of cards in their deck into defensive towers.  Players will need these to slow down the advance of their opponents and the Vikings as well.  After that, you can play a card that will either help build your land, recruit armies and Vikings or build churches.  As with other card games, deck management is a must.  You only have 15 cards to start and certain conditions may allow you to refresh your hand with discarded cards. Not only can you do battle, you can have jousting tournaments, kidnap princes and steal lands.  There are cards that can counter these actions as well.   Also during the course of your turn you could choose to go to battle against your enemy and that is the part I am still trying to figure out as sometimes I still don’t know what exactly I can and cannot attack.  The game will not hold your hand and will allow you to make mistakes and never tell you what you did wrong.   So once you play though a few times, you will get some sense of what you did wrong and right.  Also during combat, there are cards that come out that modify what happens. An issue is, you can’t pause the game to see what the modifier is until after the fact nor can you counter it.  Your battles are at the mercy of these cards, which in its own way is fair.   Some prevent damage, some allow for normal combat and some increase damage depending if you are the attacker or defender.

Below is a demo of the PC game to give you an idea of how it plays

As you play you will discover that there are many ways to win and game lengths may vary.  I had one game that took nearly 45 minutes as I sent wave after wave of Viking hordes against my opponent and it wasn’t until he died of old age (no more cards in his deck) did I prevail.   Another time a game didn’t make it past 2 turns that my prince was assassinated and it was game over.   I have seen games that have turned on a dime because a good draw made the difference between total defeat and close wins with a few cards left.

The Bottom Line

While the game is beautiful, it’s one that tablet players, and from what I have read, physical card players, may get frustrated in playing.  But the more you play, the more you may get an idea of the mechanics of the game.  Even trying to understand how the Vikings work may be a bit of a chore as their fickle nature can upend a game. In many ways, this game is similar to chess because as stated, while you may not have a lot of pieces, what you do have can make this game complex to play.  You have to think at least one move ahead and watch the board.   It may take some time to get used to but it can be fun as you figure it out.   By the way, did I tell you?  There is a jousting mini game in this as well.

This game is available on PC, Mac, iPad, and Android

3.75 Viking hordes out of 5