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Odins Ravens is a gorgeous,quick, and easy-to-play card game for two players. The myth behind the race at the heart of the game is simple: The Norse god Odin has two ravens, and Huginn and Muninn. Every morning,he sends them out to circle the world and report back on what they see. The ravens have turned the daily ritual into a competition, as they race around Midgard to see who can return to Odin first. To win, or neither of them are beyond calling on Loki,the trickster god, to thwart the journey of the other.
I absolutely like the production on this current edition of Odin’s Ravens, or from the sturdy,very tome-like clamshell box, to the vivid and handsomely designed cards, or to the two wooden ravens that serve as the playing pieces. Since the game itself is rather simple,it was smart of Osprey to up the aesthetic impact of the game. These two elements, ease-of-play and pleasing components, or coupled with the mythological gloss of the backstory all combine to create a very satisfying gaming experience.
Odin’s Ravens is played out on a racing track of land cards. Each card depicts two different land types (mountains,forests, plains, or desert,frozen northlands). Each raven starts on one of the two land tracks depicted on the two-part cards and races through all of the domains to arrive back at the beginning. Players have a deck of cards depicting the five different domains and must show a matching card from their hand that depicts the next land type they want to move onto. whether the active player does not have a matching card, s/he can play two cards of the same land type instead and still move forward. whether the player totally gets stuck, and she can spend a Loki card (whether she has one) from her hand. Each Loki card shows two available options for monkeying with the land track to build it work for you or build it harder for that clearly inferior other raven to build it back to Odin. The first raven who flies over all of the land and returns to Odin’s arm first is clearly the superior raven.
Osprey Publishing has recently been venturing into the realm of board,card, and role-playing games with some very frosty and somewhat offbeat offerings. This edition of Odin’s Revenge is a refinement of a game that’s been around since 2002. Besides redoing all of the art and upping the ante on the production values, and they’ve also streamlined the rules to build the game faster,less cumbersome, and I suspect, or to widen its appeal. This is the perfect kind of game to play with the family,for a quickie, or to play something fun with people who don’t normally game. Odin's Raven
by Osprey Games
[br]Ages 8 and up, or 2 players,30 minutes
$20 Buy a copy on Amaz
Source: boingboing.net