Trials of Maya: Discussion

0:09 Hey everyone, welcome back to Board Games Unlocked. And today I'm doing a discussion over Trials of Maya. This is a new MOA style uh skirmish game that is currently on uh crowdfunding right now for GameFound. And the designer of this game reached out to me, I don't know, maybe a week or so ago, asking if I wanted to cover it. And you know, so it's interesting because obviously my channel is not the most popular one out there. So, whenever I do get review copies, yes, every once in a while it's from, you know, wellestablished publishers, but a lot of times it's from uh, you know, lesser lesser known, you know, companies that are asking for extra coverage, which is always extremely appreciated just to be able to cover any type of game that is going to be going on crowdfunding.

1:03 But what's interesting about Trials of Maya, at least for me, it is being advertised everywhere. I'm seeing it on all my social media nonstop. Uh, and you know, it's being advertised to hell on Gamefound. So, it seems to have gotten a lot of buzz. And there's two ways that this game uh or that you know that that can go. In my experience, the games that I'm getting constantly hammered with for marketing tend to not actually be that good. It's they pay they put a lot of money into the marketing and then every time I've fallen for it, the game doesn't end up being all that great. This is just my experience.

1:51 um or you stumble across one that is properly uh marketed and ends up being pretty damn good. And I actually think Trials of Maya falls into the ladder. It this game does have a lot of stuff going for it. And you know, obviously I'm not being paid or anything. Uh, anyone who knows the channel knows I don't do this uh do this channel for any type of uh income. Uh, it's purely a hobby. So, I like and I like to do that because it allows me to remain uh a person of integrity. If I, you know, don't like a game, well, thanks for letting me play it early, but I still hated it. Uh, this is not the case. This game, I think, does a lot of stuff that is really, really cool. And to be fair, it also helps that the prototype copy that they sent me is actually really well done. It still has the heirs of a prototype, but man, it it does a lot of stuff really really uh well because this genre is kind of like with skirmish games for me is hit or miss. There's the MOA style game that I tend to like. Usually is okay. Well, I found one that I enjoy, but I don't really need anymore. Um, Onward was a mobile style game that didn't quite do it for me. Uh, Cloudspire is also one

3:22 that's really that I that I like, but I end up not really keeping. And then you have uh oh, uh, Guards of Atlantis. I was thinking I'm like, man, what other MOA game is is out there? Guards of Atlantis is one I do have because I really enjoy it. Trials of Maya is fascinating because it feels kind of like all of those, but yet still feeling unique uh and stands on its own. So, it uses the chip health system that you see from Chip Theory. It has minions that you can control and you know that you fight. So, they're kind of like NPCs that you can go out and and attack. That also has a little bit of Cloud Spire, but then it has the tower defense um element of trying to destroy your opponent's tower that Onward has. And then it also has kind of like the the upgradeable system and the controlling of heroes that uh Guards of Atlantis has. Uh, but yet like I said, it follows it has kind of all those beats, but yet still stands on its own by being unique.

4:34 It's not, well, this is just rethemed Cloud Spire or oh, you know, cuz there's video games that come out uh, currently I'm playing POW World and it's I'm I'm having a good time, but none of the ideas in that game are original in any way. So, you can run into that issue with Trials of Maya thinking, "Oh, man. They just took three popular MOA games and just ripped and just rethemed it." Nope. It it really doesn't do that. So, I I actually think that Trials of Maya has something very unique here. Uh so, let's start with the heroes. The heroes are probably the coolest part of this entire game. Well, overall Trials of Maya is a themed game that I actually knew nothing about, but it seems from what I have read to be kind of an established IP.

5:28 I think it's either a graphic novel or it's a sci-fi book series. And the only reason I'm thinking it's a book series is because they advertise on their Gamefound page that the audio narrative is done by Hugo Weaving, which is absolutely fantastic. So, it seems to be an established IP somewhere. I just knew nothing about that. But yeah, it's kind of like a simulation battle game. There's an AI that is what what's that movie called? Uh that has Tom Cruz in it. I think it's Tom Cruz. It's one where there are like cops and there's like an AI that can like predict uh future crimes. I'm totally drawing a blink on what that movie is called, but that's the vibe I kind of get is there's this AI simulation that we fight in that the AI is collecting a bunch of data. So that's the overall gist of the theme here. Um but yeah, so then so these heroes that you control have uh three different types of characteristics, have three different traits for it. So uh Propakar the this character this this human man dude he has three different traits and those different combinations give him a unique play style from uh everything else.

6:50 All the the core game comes with four heroes and they all play radically different from one another. Uh but the cool part about this game is the fact that every character has their own unique deck. Well, they have a starting deck that you can play, but then they also have a bunch of cards that you can customize and deck build, which is actually pretty cool because you can play the games, do the the starting deck, and then whenever you've kind of like figured out how your character is meant to play, then you can start crafting. And the the deck crafting rules are actually incredibly simple in in that you kind of just have a few rails. You have to have this many cards. You can only use these types of of cards because like I mentioned, there's three traits. So Propakar is a minutia, a Harrier, and a Vanguard. And that's going to determine what kind of uh cards that he can have in his deck.

7:48 Um, [clears throat] but so that's also really cool because what's neat is the way you actually do your actions in this game. So you start with three cards. It's kind of like a uh the way Vic counts of the West Kingdom is where your cards slide down a track and then the cards that are face up on your board are what you have available to you to do. So, you might have a really really powerful card that you can put down that's going to help you uh do a lot of stuff on the board, but over time it's just going to eventually fall off into into a discard pile. So, uh so I really like this system because what's cool about the cards is they have a lot going on on them, but they're not confusing. This game has managed to do something that, you know, some other uh games of this type have have failed to do in that it's really not that complex.

8:46 It's very simple. Like the rule book that I got was incredibly thick and I was thinking, "Oh no, it's going to be one of these games." And then the words were like massive. It felt like I was 80 uh with how big the text was. So I was going through the rule book super simple. I'm like, "Oh, okay. I that's it. Sweet. But yeah, so the cards have a lot going on. They have an energy cost that you have to uh spend to actually use the card and then all the actions you can get on the bottom. But these cards can also have extra abilities on it. So like this unyielding for uh Propakar has on arrival. So, whenever you play this card down, you gain a defense for each uh each blue action on your mat, each vanguard action that you have on your mat. Um, so that's really cool.

9:37 Like, Provocar has a lot of ways to gather defense and utilize that defense to enhance his attack and also he kind of is this mobile, somewhat mobile tank in that he can kind of push people around and do damage to them while they're there. Um, it's it's actually a really cool unique system which is wholly different from all the other characters that I've played. Um, but that's so it has the uh energy cost on it and then at the bottom it has the energy you gain when it slides off. This is probably one of the coolest and more unique aspects of this game is that if you play a cards, well, whenever you're playing cards, you have to think of a couple things. the lower your energy yield is going to be, the faster you're going to go in initiative because later on when these cards fall off, you're only going to gain that much energy. Uh, so like this whirling weights, whenever it falls off, it's just going to gain me three energy. Uh, and I mean you could save energy from round to round if you're really trying to do this big power play. But if you're tapping yourself out every single time, well, next round you're only going to have what your uh, you know, what your latest card is going to be. There are very few ways to actually generate uh, more energy. Uh, there are some, but there's no kind of innate way. You can't discard cards to get more energy or anything like that. So, you have to plan

11:09 ahead of time to try and set yourself up because if you are really trying to do something super cool, you know, you position yourself in just the right way and then your next turn your card falls off and it only gives you two energy or sometimes zero energy, then you're kind of hosed. You don't have any energy to actually do anything. So, that part is incredibly cool. I also love the free form of actions that you get that if you have enough energy to pay for all the cards that you have face up on your board. You can I mean you can't like mix and match actions. You can't do a move on one card and then do an attack on another. Uh it's not that free form, but the fact is that on your turn it's okay. Well, I'm going to, you know, spend two energy to do my prospecting that lets me that lets me move two and then oh, I'm here. So now I'm next to an upgrade. I'm going to spend the XP that I've gained uh to upgrade some of my tokens so that now whenever I pay three to do my whirling uh whirling weights attack, it does damage equal to the face up uh purple icons that I have.

12:19 Oh, and I just paid for some purple icons. So now this attack will do three damage. Oh, wait. You know, just things like that that some games of this type are really restrictive of. And I love that. I love the fact that not only are you unique in what you're going to be able to do, but the fact that you are able to manage your own action cards uh in the way that you think is going to be the best strategy is amazing. [snorts] And not only that, but they did something that's even more awesome in a game like this. And that would kind of be enough for this game. It'd be quick. It'd be snappy just to be able to play cards. All the cards, like I said, have unique um have unique effects on them. The whirling white uh whites, the whirling weights has for each enemy that you moved with a push, you get a defense and get to draw a card. They do something that I feel is not in a lot of games.

13:18 One, they have what's called relic cards, and these are slot upgrade cards. So, whenever you actually put a relic down, uh you can have when you activate that slot, the relic also pops off. And they're typically modifiers or potentially actions that you can put down. Uh I love this. I love the fact you could only have a relic slot per or a relic per slot. Uh but they're there until you die or you choose to replace it. So like this uh ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V ver V vera I'm sorry Verod Vaja plate Mhm. is if you have an action on your mat with defense attacks deal plus two damage. So so if you do an attack or if you activate a card that this relic is under then oh I do have a defense on my match. So now this prospecting card that was one damage is now three damage.

14:22 Or if I'm inside a colony, which his colony thing is like these these tokens uh that spread out, anything adjacent to it is is a colony attacks deal plus one damage. So just by having that relic and this one card, um you now for a two energy cost, you would get to do four damage, which might not sound like a whole lot, but that's one card on top of another, which hey, okay, I'm going to do this uh prospecting attack and then I'm going to do my whirling weights attack and oh, damage inflicts bleed. So now anytime you do an action, you're going to take damage. It's it's so freaking cool. I really love the uh the relic system in this game. And that also would just be enough. But they put again something in here that is just never touched on in a lot of these kinds of games. One, well, I keep saying that, but there's spell cards. So, you might be wondering, okay, well, if you can only play one card around, what's the point of drawing cards? Well, there's no hand limit. So, the more ways you're able to draw, the more options you have.

15:37 And two, there are spells in this game. Every character or deck, you know, deck building has spells that can either let you directly affect the board. It could let you like uh the I can't remember the name of it. Uh Maruvi, this flying like robot bird. He has a spell that allows him to do because it does a bunch of pierce attacks. Uh it has ways. Oh, hey, your next ranged attack can actually go through walls. And that could be set up because I know that this uh character has a card that hey, if you don't move, your attack gets plus two damage. Oh, and it does damage based off of these icons. So, if you just stand still and you can shoot through uh for range of five and do eight damage just because you did not move. Hey, you can actually shoot through walls. Uh, and that's going to affect everyone that it actually can hit in a straight line. So, really cool things like that of being able to draw into spells that will help you with your strategy.

16:41 But the thing that I keep alluding to that they don't ever do in these kinds of games is they actually have reaction spells. So many of these games end up having a I do everything on my turn, which is how this game is. Is I do everything on my turn, I'm done, it is your turn. So if I'm setting myself up, if I'm trying to do something, but I didn't quite get to do it, I'm have to do it on my next turn, and I have to watch you kind of undo all of that. This game actually has reactions that if someone does something, you could if you save the energy similar to Magic the Gathering where if you saved your mana that now could, you know, some people could look into that and think, okay, he kept a lot of energy. Is he wanting to do something on his next turn with a really high energy cost card or does he have a a reaction like a counter to me?

17:42 There's one in here um that I remember looking at. Yeah. Uh slipstream. It's a two energy spell reaction and it's basically it's meant for the the flying character because it's the only character that can fly. But if targeted in flight, you get to move. So, if someone's coming up and they're about to do this really big powerful play that's going to be 18 damage, which would just kill you anyway. Um, and cause bleed. Oh, okay. Well, actually, I'm going to spend I'm going to spend two of my energy and I am flying, so I'm going to move one away because you could typically only attack if you're adjacent, unless, of course, the card has any type of range. And even then, the range is potentially uh always in a straight line. So, even if they do have range, you can just kind of move over to the left and Okay. Yep. So, now you miss. I love that stuff. I think it is so cool and underutilized in a lot of games cuz you can react to a reaction.

18:43 You It It does the stack limit of, okay, now you're going to move and I'm going to do this. So, it's uh it's just amazing. I really think that the card play in this game is honestly its bread and butter, but that goes in hand with how the heroes play because what's also awesome is I mentioned XP, spending XP. There are objectives you can aim for and there some of them what's really nice is the two starting objectives that take a little bit to uh go away. They're kind of always giving you XP. And then there's other objectives that might be a little bit more difficult. Like this one called please nerf is oops is if you deal 12 damage in a single turn, you get four XP. And it's kind of a first come first serve uh kind of thing. But I like how oh if you move two spots on your turn, gain an XP. you know, they're just pumping you with a little bit of it because to upgrade your character is really not that expensive.

19:45 Uh, and that's also a really nice thing. There are some stuff like the wild icon costs four, but you can just save up for it. Uh, but for the most part, a lot of times you're spending how much energy you gain whenever a card slides off, how much your max health is. Uh, but every character also has unique skills that when you flip become level one and then uh if you can upgrade again to either its A or its B side. And I think that this is just amazing as well. uh like this uh this character is if if you're in your colony, you just gain two defense. And defense can be huge uh especially as someone who has played one of the characters that just doesn't have defense, just pretty much has no health and gets one shot for a majority of the game. Um it's such a cool cool extra element.

20:45 these characters could have just had their abilities. Uh, you know, cuz not only that, not only do you have skills, you also have passive abilities that kind of go with your character's uh traits. The minut Minutia, the Harrier, and the Vanguard. Those are your starting things. Um, but yeah, you also have now skills that you can upgrade. It's I mean, the characters are absolutely amazing. the best example of characters like like I mentioned these characters feel closest to how the characters are in Guards of Atlantis uh where they feel wholly unique and when you're leveling up you're building your your hand in different styles uh but you feel so asymmetric from everyone else. This game feels just like that.

21:35 So the characters are amazing. the uh and then the game play is pretty straightforward. I mean, honestly, it's positioning yourself to be able to attack uh you know, and destroy your opponent's tower. Now, the really cool thing is that you know, the game has different modes. One v one siege, uh 2v2 siege, and then a head hunters, which is kind of a victory point style uh game. The really cool thing is that when your character dies, you're not out of of the game. you respawn, but when they die, you take a death token and you place it in this death token spot and then your tower takes damage equal to the number of death tokens you have. So, it's it accumulates over the course of the game as you start to die, you know. So, I died once, now I've taken now my tower takes one damage, I've died a second time, now it's taken two, I died a third time, it's taken three. So, overall, it's taken six total damage, uh, which is half its health. And your tower can also be attacked like normal. So if someone can get to the other side and start attacking it, then uh that's also a way for you to to win the game. So the game is never going to be prolonged because if your heroes are getting in the way, from what I have found, there's not a whole lot of ways to heal yourself, if any. Uh in fact, I don't think I came across any uh ways to heal. [snorts] So, your characters are naturally going to start dying and which I think is a

23:06 good thing for this kind of game because it's not a hero battler. And it also doesn't have any type of player elimination. So, naturally, you're just going to start to die, which is good because, hey, in this game, I got your character out, but your character comes back immediately. So if even if I haven't had a chance to go, you know, if if I play a high initiative card and they go and they they kill me, okay, yeah, maybe I was far, you know, close to the their tower, which obviously makes sense that they would attack me. But beginning of my turn, I just get to respawn immediately, full health, ready to go. You don't lose anything for actually dying except that your tower has taken more damage. I think that they have somehow managed to balance a really fun puzzle high, you know, high strategy but not sweaty. You're not sitting here thinking, okay, my opponent, what can my opponent possibly do? Ah, okay. If they're going to do this, they might do their red card. So, if they're going to do their red card, that means I should do this. Oh, wait. I need to think of what my teammate might also do. Uh it it doesn't have that that level of [clears throat] I'm not I'm not really having fun because I'm just high stress. It doesn't have any of that. Uh it's meant to be quick but not too quick where it feels things are just way too random.

24:30 Um and yet it's still super fun. I think that finding that balance is really impressive, especially for a game that I, you know, or a company that I've never heard of, a designer I've never heard of. Um, and watch someone's going to come in and be like, "Uh, dude, this designer is like well established. He's made 500. He he's made all those prototype games or all those MOA style games." Well, great. I didn't know that. I don't think so. Uh, so, so yeah, the one thing, so if we're going to go into any type of negatives or complaints that I have about this, um, I think is purely production is that I am playing on a prototype, but there's a few things that I wish could be in here. So, one, uh, I hope the these chips become like chip theory chips. Uh, you know, actually poker chips that are weighted, cuz right now they are plastic and they suck.

25:33 But again, this is all prototype. So, I'm not really going to harp in too much on the quality, but this uh these really these tower things that are kind of your respawn points. They're magnets, which I think is neat. Uh, but they have these suction cups on the bottom and sometimes they don't stick. Again, purely prototype, so I hope that that's fixed. Uh, but I will say the minis, they look really cool. I actually think they should be smaller because if we're going off the size of this mat that I was given in the prototype, they kind of get in the way. Um, you know, they uh they they look really cool. I just don't think they need to be this big to to actually matter in any way. It could be shrunk down, still have the detail, and not be such a a pain to actually move around this board where it takes up everything, and you're knocking into these towers that as of right now don't suction cup the best. Um, and yeah, that happens all the time. So, again, purely prototype. I hope the miniatures get shrunk a little bit because they just don't need to be this big.

26:42 Um, and the other thing is they have like kind of these three different rule books, which give or take on, you know, they have the rule book, they have the reference book, and then they have the game modes book, which I know like other games do that. Uh, I kind of like my my books to all be all be in one. So, I'm not looking for something in the rule book, realize it's not in here, and then have to go to the reference book. Uh but there are some edge cases that just aren't 100% clear. Uh for example, the fly uh keyword says that you're always considered to be on a higher ground um in this. But does that mean high ground? Because this game does have high level and low ground, which really only matters in terms of hey, I'm on a I'm on a higher ground. I deal one more damage with my attacks.

27:36 But is if someone's on a high ground terrain tile, but yet someone else with the other character is flying, am I still higher than them? It says I'm always considered to be on a higher ground. So, does that mean I'm still getting my damage even if they are on a high ground space? Thematically, that would make some sense. I'm flying. So, yeah, if I'm on the top of a mountain, but there's still a bird above me. Oh, well, it's still higher than me, you know. Uh, but then like it wasn't I know with one of the characters flying was kind of the big uh question mark on okay so I know some cards tell me I can do something to be to exit flying but yet my uh the skill that it has says if isolated you become flying. So, does that mean I could be flying, do the action that lets me exit flying, and then immediately go back to flying? Cuz it doesn't say once per turn. A lot of stuff does say once per turn on it. So, that that it's there isn't stuff that's super clear that I think could easily be fixed uh whenever the game is actually published.

28:50 Um, but in terms of stuff that isn't prototype, uh, that I think is something that I wish it it's a it's a double-edged sword because the characters, like I mentioned, are wholly asymmetric. They feel radically different from one another. And that's really cool. And hell, even uh, the prototype has their own compartments, which I think is awesome. and I hope continues to be the case where the heroes and all of their unique tokens and cards and stuff is all isolated to um a uh a compartment, but uh I do wish that you didn't have to stick with their traits. So, like I mentioned, Praikar in front of me is a minutia, a harrier, and a vanguard. That's what's printed on his board from what I can tell. Now, they might change that or it might be something that's just not in the prototype that I have. That is how he is built. That's going to be that's he's always going to have these starting skills and those are the only way that he can be built. Now, like I mentioned, it's a double-edged sword. He has all those because that's what's going to make him wholly asymmetric. But it would have been kind of cool if Well, I don't know. May maybe maybe not actually. Maybe maybe that completely ruins the point of having asymmet I was going to say it'd be cool if you could mix and match. Like maybe Propakar could

30:21 have could have a different different trait to go into his deck building. But honestly, now the more that I think about it, then if you could do that, then what's really the point of having unique uh characters? So, so maybe my my uh my wish is more in that because they're tied to these skill uh tokens, I wish there was just more than just these three that you had maybe two of each. Maybe there are two Harrier skills, two Vanguard, so you can kind of differentiate even more so with those, but still be limited on the deck building. But maybe that's part of it in that if you really want to make him feel unique, then that's where all the deck building comes in. I I don't know. I don't know. So, uh the other thing would be the map is the boards that I have are just the boards. Uh it is here's the two-player board. Here's the, you know, 2v2 siege uh board. And I almost wish I wish the boards were modular a little bit so that you know kind of the way Cloud Spire does it where the tiles can be unique and that will not change it so drastically that it feels like some of the maps lend itself to be better for other factions.

31:43 But I would like to see some variety in the maps because these kinds of games do very well based off the different rules of the terrain that you're going into cuz the maps themselves don't necessarily have a whole lot of rules to them. There's some areas that have a spike in it that could deal a damage. The void areas are basically just dead zones. You can't move through, you can't shoot through, you can't lob over, you can't whatever. Um, I think it would be cool to see modular maps. Uh, but that's really just kind of uh just looking for something of of variety because again it's the game play is all about the characters and the maps are just there as a form of, you know, ways for you to win.

32:31 Um, the other thing that I guess I haven't really talked about are the minions. The minions are kind of neat. I like how they're managed because they're they're there. They uh they're usually nothing except if you end your turn next to them or you attack them, they aggro against you. And but once you kill them, so every time you deal damage to them, this is actually a really cool aspect I haven't seen before. When you attack them, the damage you deal, you take their health and put them into an HP bank. And this bank becomes a currency for you to use for minions. I mentioned this is the mobile style game, but I never talked about the the mobs that are rushing towards the tower. Uh Onward had had adequate mob movement. Uh Codfire doesn't really have it, but um Guards of Atlantis has kind of a uh its own version of the way mobs work in this game.

33:31 When you eventually kill a mob or in a two-player game, you start with one, uh you on your turn can choose to summon them by taking some HP from your HP bank and putting it uh you know, and summoning it onto a into a spot that now you can control. But what's really cool is that as you know you can move them like this this warden of knots can either move uh move to or can attack at a range of three. It can actually do a projectile just for one damage and a route. Um they uh they now become an extra asset of yours. And the one you start with in a two-player game is really powerful because he can move two and lob two for four damage. It's disgusting.

34:21 But I really like this. I like the fact that the mobs are kind of enemies, but not if you don't want to. If you don't want to mess with them, then you don't have to, but uh you might want to so you can start getting some HP. But then whenever your opponents are attacking them, then they start siphoning the HP pool. So you're doing this weird kind of trade of HP that if hey, if I kill that minion, it's now in under my control. Except for in a two-player game, the elder come is always yours. Uh but for the other minions that are out on the map, they you just start kind of trading these minions. I think that's really neat. It's something that I haven't seen before. Um the minions because there's not a million out on the map, they're not fodder. It's not just, hey, I have five minions out and they all die in one hit. It's no. Hey, if I really want if I really have value of, you know, this warden of knots because I do extra to someone that has statuses and he gives me uh he lets me pop root on someone. Cool. I'm just going to pump a ton of health onto onto this guy to keep him around as much as possible. I think that that's neat. I think the minions are extremely serviceable. They're valuable, but they're not in the way, which is a really good thing. So, yeah. I mean, overall, this was a game I was completely blown away by uh for its prototype. I will definitely be backing this one because it it just does so many

35:55 things right. Uh, my only complaints, not even really complaints, my only wishes are just a little extra variety on, you know, potentially different boards or maybe uh extra skills for the characters to make them even more asymmetric. Uh, but that's me being greedy. I uh I mean, again, all these characters just feel wholly different. And I think if you back it, they have two expansions that have four heroes. I want to say there are 12 heroes available, which is insane. That is for the level of depth that you get uh for the characters just by themselves with their starting deck and then with the capability of customizing their decks, uh you have tons of variety. So, it's it's really really cool. Uh I like this one quite a bit. And that's it. That's my thoughts on Trials of Maya. On a scale of 1 to 10, you know, prototype, artificial number, whatever, uh, I would give this a nine if this came out with honestly as is with obviously better production. Um, I would give this a nine. I think that they they really did an awesome job for this kind of game that I I really because I I only have one mobile style game in my collection and that's Guards of Atlantis. And this one

37:26 I think would just be way easier to get to the table because it's not as sweaty and it has a better two-player version than Guards where you don't have to control two heroes. So yeah, that's it. That's my thoughts on Trials of Maya. Let me know what you think of the game in the comments below. Other than that, like, comment, share, and subscribe, and have a wonderful whatever time of day it is for you.