Designer: Rudiger Dorn (Arkadia, Genoa, Goa, Istanbul, Istanbul: The Dice Game, Jambo, Karuba, Las Vegas, Louis XIV)

Artist: Dennis Lohausen (AquaSphere, Camel Up, Carcassonne: South Seas, Coal Baron, Dominion: Intrigue, A Feast For Odin, Fields of Arle, Gaia Project, Glass Road, Hansa Teutonica, Hawaii, Merlin, No Thanks!, The Oracle of Delphi, The Quacks of Quedlinburg, Rajas of the Ganges, Terra Mystica, Village, The Voyages of Marco Polo)

Publisher: Queen Games (Alhambra, Amerigo, Aton, Chicago Express, Escape: The Curse of the Temple, Fresco, Kingdom Builder, Lancaster, Merlin, Roma, Shogun, Thebes, Wallenstein First Edition, Wallenstein Second Edition)

Genre/Mechanisms: deck building, hand management, resource management, set collection

Funding Status: At the time of this posting, Rune Stones is already fully-funded.  In fact, pledges currently total almost 14x the initial funding goal with 2 days left to go on the campaign!

Player Count: 2-4

Solo Mode: no

Complexity: medium-light

Risk: medium-low

What It’s About:  Players take on the roles of druids competing to prove their magical skill by summoning magical creatures and benefitting from their abilities, searching for precious gems, and delivering said gems to dwarves to craft into artifacts, which in turn increase the power of the druid’s Rune Stone.

How It Works: Rune Stones is played over a series of rounds until at least one player has scored 65 points. This triggers end-game scoring following the completion of the current round. Each round, in player order, the active player chooses one of 3 actions: Summon Creatures, Utilize Abilities, and Forge Artifacts. After completing the action, the player may exchange artifacts for power points and one rune stone; then the player refills their hand up to 4 cards from the draw pile. Summon Creatures allows players to use the magic points from cards in their hands as they discard them to “summon” creatures from the card market; and as is usually the case, cards in the far end of the market (that have been out the longest) have the cheapest magic cost. Utilize Abilities allows players to spend 2 cards from their hand (never a single card) to exchange resources as notated on the cards. And Forge Artifacts allows players to forge up to 2 different artifacts from 2 different smithies, spending gems as picture on the board location to do so.

When exchanging artifacts, player have the ability to score 3/6/10/15 points depending on the number of artifacts exchanged (2/3/4/5). In addition, players will score 1 point in the end game scoring for every 3 gems, wild gems, and/or ore still in their possession. They’ll also score for artifacts in their two rows of power using the same exchange rate as when they exchange artifacts during the game.

Comparisons:  Rune Stones is a medium-light game bordering on the very light, with the design of the game centered around 4 basic actions (the 3 main actions and the exchanging of artifacts) and resource management. There are slightly more mechanics at play here than in Century: Spice Road, but not by much. Fans of Azul may also find some similar things they like here, though there’s no kind of tile drafting. And while not mechanically identical, some other similarly-weighted Rudiger Dorn games include Istanbul, Istanbul the Dice Game, Karuba, Luxor, and Monatana.

What Should I Pledge?:
$45 Rune Stones: Base Game
$65 Late Bird: Rune Stones Bundle: also includes the expansion Nocturnal Creatures and the Exclusive Queenie: New Stones.
$110 Fantasy Bundle: the Rune Stones Bundle, plus the Skylands Base Game & Skylands Queenies 1-5.
$130 Designer Bundle: the Rune Stones Bundle, plus the Luxor Base Game, Luxor Mummy’s Curse Expansion, and Luxor Queens 1-5.
$170 Kickstarter Special 3-Game Bundle: combines everything contained in the Fantasy Bundle and the Designer Bundle.

Add-Ons:
None.

KS Exclusives:
The Queenies are little exclusives from Queen Games that are only ever available through Kickstarter campaigns, at conventions, and directly through the Queen Games website.

All-In Total: Assuming you’re not interested in bulking up your pledge with the Skylands or Luxor items, then in the continental U.S. you’re looking at $65 for the Late Bird: Rune Stones Bundle plus $12 in shipping for a total of $77.

Rune Stones completes its Kickstarter on Friday, August 23rd and tentatively ships in October 2019.