The Hungry Gamer's Trials of Maya First Impressions
Transcript
Ooh, that looks tasty.
Welcome folks to the Hungry Gamers back with another mini preview and today we are talking about Trials of Maya designed by Ananda Gondi and Zane Mennon. And I do apologize if I'm mispronouncing any of those names. Well, this was an interesting one to me. When they reached out to me a while ago and asked me if I was interested in covering it, I hesitated. And I hesitated because this is a MOBA style game. You know, you have your heroes and there's minions on the board and you're leveling up and beating on each other. And that's not my jam. It just isn't. It's not my style of game and more importantly, I have a very very hard time getting that style of game played. Really, really hard and so I just wasn't sure if I should do it, but I was intrigued because this game has a lot of lore and it looks cool and it's not playing off of cultural themes that you see all the time. In other words, it's not generic fantasy. It's not generic space. It is clearly coming from a different cultural base and that is just interesting as heck to me. So, I was like, you know what, let's do it. And it's been very hard for me to get played. But, that said, I do have some first impressions to talk about with you and hopefully this will help you kind of figure out if you are interested in backing this game or not. And so, at its core, this is, as I said, a MOBA style game. You're going to have your hero and your hero is going to have a deck of cards and there'll be minions out on the
board. There'll be different scenarios that you're playing. But, at its core, what you're going to be doing each turn is you're going to play a card onto the left side of your player board. And then everything else is going to well, has already slid, but will have already slid off the board. And the card that slides off the board is going to be how much energy you're going to have to then activate the other cards that you have out on your little tableau. And you'll be able to get experience which will allow you to level things up. There's skills that you won't have that you'll be able to get access to as you go through and then power those up. You'll be able to play other cards out of your hand that will then kind of slot under your tableau to power those abilities up as you're going through and you know, beating the crap out of each other. At its core, that's what you're doing. You'll be pursuing different objectives and every time someone will choose an objective on a turn, they'll cycle in and out. But as I said, at its core, that's what you're doing. Now, there's several different scenarios that you'll be able to play, several different modes of game you'll be able to do, and a lot more heroes than I got to check out.
But if you are familiar with MOBA-style games, be that Guards of Atlantis II, Cloudspire, even though they play differently, if you're familiar with that style of game, you're familiar with what's going on here. Now, with that being said, what do I like about this game? First off, I love how much lore and love has gone into this game. They sent me a book of lore, and it it is a novel. It even has 3D glasses, which mwah, love that. So, I love that there's so much lore behind the game, but more importantly to me, that says love of the world they're creating. I really like that, and I think it shines through as you look at the different cards and those kinds of things. Next thing I'll say is intensely promising production.
For a prototype, this thing is spectacular. Spectacular. And for you mini painters out there, they're pretty darn good-looking minis. I will say one of them has big old wings that aren't attached, and I don't quite know how that's going to work, but details, it is a prototype, so there you have it, but really promising production. I'm very excited about it, and even though it's a huge box, I mean, it's a big old Hawken box. It doesn't take up a ton of space on the table and I always really, really appreciate that. I also really appreciate that it has different scenarios. And even within the same scenario, because the way the objectives are coming out and the way the characters play, you're going to have a different experience. But the different scenarios, again, they just do different things and it just gives you a good amount of replay. It reminds of a game like Omicron Protocol, which I'm a big fan of as a kind of mini skirmish game with all the different types of scenarios you can do.
It's going to make the game play different every single time. And while this one doesn't have as many as that, it does have a good healthy amount already. So, that's very, very promising as well. Next thing I'll say is, for a game that has a good amount of variety to it, it doesn't have too much complexity. There's not so many icons that you have to learn and figure out. There are some icons that don't apply perhaps to some decks, but it's not overwhelming to learn. The challenge of the game becomes in how do you counter what they're doing with your character? How do you put characters together and deal with that? So, that's where the complexity is. So, for a game with the amount of variety that I think it has in it, it's not overly complex and I really do enjoy that. Next thing is, it's a decently snappy game. I wouldn't call this a fast game. Some of the scenarios suggest it'll be half an hour per player.
Yeah, it's about right. Maybe a little bit quicker if you both know how to play, a little bit longer if you don't. But it's definitely not hitting the hour per player mark. And so, for this type of game, I think that's pretty snappy for one that's kind of chunky and kind of meaty, so I like that. Moving kind of into the mechanics of the game, I don't want to highlight too many things. While I do very much appreciate the way that you can power yourself up, especially sliding cards under your tableau, I love that. What really makes this game feel interesting and unique to me, again, in a genre that I'm not huge on, is the way that you're powering up your other abilities by the card that slides off the tableau. That's cool. That makes it so interesting as you're trying to figure out what do I want to play cuz now I have to think a little bit ahead as and start to wonder, "Hmm, well, I'm going to have this much energy this turn, this much energy the next turn, but then I'm going to have this one, so I need to play it something that I can get the energy from this card that's going up now, but then in the future." Really clever. I really like how that works and that feels pretty darn unique to me. And then everything else is just kind of general MOBA stuff.
It's fun and cool to kind of chase down the minions, but of course that's what you do in these games so you get your XP and whatever. It's neat that you're able to do that. It's particularly cool that you if you're the one that kills a minion, you can actually spawn the minion later. I like that. That's very neat. But chasing down the minions is neat. The way that you level up and power up is neat. And more importantly, the way that each of the different heroes plays differently. I also really enjoy that. That's very, very cool. So, with that being said, what are my quibbles with the game? First thing is it's a big old box and it's probably going to be bigger. So, this is going to take up a lot of space on your shelf. This is making me think of something like Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor. It's going to be a big old boy. And I know that there's more heroes coming. They just aren't in the prototype. So, it's going to be a big box and so shelf space is always a thing. So, I do want to make sure I point that out. Next I'll say this is kind of a game of skill.
And what I mean by that is if you're playing as someone who's played before, you're going to get wrecked your first turn. Learning how the different characters plays is huge. If you've played one character several times and you try a new one, you're probably going to get wrecked. It's not so much so as a game like Guards of Atlantis 2. That is intensive. That's a super game of skill. It's not quite that much of a game of skill, but it definitely is. It's not particularly forgiving. And so, just understand that that's how it's going going the first few times that you play. Next thing I'm going to say is and this is going to it will sound harsher than I want it to, I think. I don't think this is changing the genre. Right? I think what's happening here is you have another cool MOBA style game that is doing something one thing that I don't think the others are doing. I think again that kind of river tableau, I think that's very very clever. I have not seen that before.
And because of that, I think it's a new entry into that genre that is worthy of being there. I think of Guards of Atlantis 2. I think of Cloudspire. Would I put this on my shelf if I already had those two? My answer is yes. I would because it's doing something that I think is clever and it feels different and it looks different. Is it changing the world in some way in the MOBA space? No. Is this going to make you like MOBA style games if you don't? Probably not. But if you do like them, if you're like me with dungeon crawlers, you're going to be really interested in what this is doing, especially again when it comes back to the lore, but it's not changing the world.
The last thing I'll say is I wish it had a solo. And not just a solo, I wish it had a solo that could also be a bot. So perhaps if I wanted to, we wanted to do a two verse two thing and there was two of us, I could put two bots out there and we could play. Or we're on two sides and we each have a bot on our side. Oh, if it had that, it would just be popping. And I believe that there is a solo mode kind of in the works. It wasn't available for me right now, which is a real bummer to me. But I think it's in the works and I think it would really be popping if it had that. But there you have it, folks. That is Trials of Maya. I was not inclined to love because of the style of game, and I was very pleasantly surprised. I think it really is doing something that I like in the space, and I've mentioned those other games several times because those are the two MOBA-style board games that I like. And I think this one sits right up there with them. I enjoyed it. I'm still reading the book.
Sorry, next person who gets the prototype, I'm keeping the book cuz I want to read it. Don't know what to tell you. Sorry, Zane. My bad. But, there you have it, folks. As always, if you found this video useful, please like, subscribe, share, maybe become a channel member. As always, thank you so much for watching. Have a wonderful, wonderful day.