There’s a surge of chaotic elemental energy emerging from The Rift, and four terrifying beings are ready to lay waste to your world. Can you work together to keep the world safe, or will chaos spread throughout your magical land, infecting the world with destruction?
Note: Phase Shift Games has re-launched their campaign on October 1st, and the new campaign will be found here.
What Is Aetherspire?
Aetherspire is a cooperative game of dice rolling and tile placement with variable player powers for 1-4 players, ages 8 and up, and takes about 45-60 minutes to play. While it is a co-op, the suggested age may be a bit on the low side considering the strategic decisions and number of rules in the game. It’s currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, with a pledge level of $59 for a copy of the game. There are two different early bird spots available, dropping the price as low as $49.
Aetherspire was designed by Tim Mierzejewski and published by Phase Shift Games, with illustrations by Vic Corbella.
New to Kickstarter? Check out our crowdfunding primer.
Aetherspire Components
Note: My review is based on a prototype copy, so it is subject to change and may not reflect final component quality.
The game comes with the following:
- Game board
- 10 large floor tiles
- 12 medium floor tiles
- 16 small floor tiles
- 16 elemental boss cards
- 9 hero cards (6 normal, 3 solo)
- 8 dice
- 60 pillards
- 4 walls in 4 elemental colors
- bag
- 40 invader/shard tokens
- 5 aether core discs
- 1 invader track marker
- 4 spire toppers
- 4 spire gems
- 4 spire completion bonus tokens
- 4 player aid cards
- 1 active player token
The game board has a stylized artwork that shows off the 4 different elements. The very center of the board has a space for the aether core discs and the 4 walls. Surrounding that are 3 spaces for large floor tiles. In the upper left corner is the Elemental Wheel, which shows the communal spells every player can cast as well as their component costs. On the right side of the board is the invader/boss track, which also functions as a timer for the game.
The cardboard floor tiles come in 3 different sizes. They have outlines showing the size of tiles that can be build on top of them. Some of the tiles also include one-time abilities that are triggered when the floors are built. There are two sides to each tile: a regular side, and a multi side which matches any element.
The game comes with eight 8-sided dice, and a minimum of five of them will be rolled each turn. The sides of the dice show the four different elements, a wild element symbol, and blank sides. While the prototype white dice use stickers, the custom dice in the Kickstarter campaign will be color and printed.
When building levels of floor tiles, you will expend rolled dice to place pillars. Once you complete an elemental spire, you will then cap it with one of the spire toppers, with a gem of the matching element nestled inside. While the prototype pillars and spire toppers are 3D printed, the production pieces will have similar detail but be made of translucent plastic.
Each player at the start of the game will choose a hero to play. The heroes are asymmetrical, with each having its own special abilities that can be used on the player’s turn. The ones with the diamond next to their names are the starter heroes.
Similarly, you will select 4 bosses, one of each element, to randomly place on the game board during setup. These bosses also have their own abilities, which will take effect once they enter play. A boss is defeated once you complete a spire of that boss’ element.
Aetherspire comes with plastic tokens, which will be drawn out of a bag to either represent invaders or shards. Invaders can block pillar spaces, destroy walls, or even destroy aether cores. Shards are the resource used to cast spells.
How to Play Aetherspire
You can download a copy of the rulebook here.
The Goal
The goal of the game is to work together to build four 4-floor spires, one for each element. Each of a spire’s four floors must be of the same element.
Setup
Place the board on the table. Shuffle each of the floor tile stacks face down (multi-floor side up) and place them near the board.
Place 2 aether core discs in the middle of the board, and the four walls around it.
Select one boss for each element, and place them randomly face-down in the slots on the right of the board. Place the red invader token on the “start” space at the top of the invader track. Place the spire completion bonus tokens at the top right of the game board.
Place the other components within easy reach. Add the invader/shard tokens to the bag.
If this is your first game, draw one large floor tile multi side up and place it onto one of the three platforms on the board. Then, draw 2 random invader tokens from the bag and place them standing up on any two of the spaces of that floor.
Each player selects a Hero. Choose a starting player, who will receive the active player token with the “Reroll Any” side showing.
Gameplay
There are 3 steps to a player’s turn: Supply, Build, and Invasion. After a player completes all 3 steps, they pass the active player token to the player on their left, with the “Reroll Any” side showing.
Supply Step
- Draw the top floor tile from any of the three stacks, turning it face-up. Place it into the Reserve, which is an area on the board or table that you’ve dedicated for unbuilt floors.
- Optionally, you may discard any one tile from the Reserve, and then draw a new tile of that same size to replace it, adding it to the Reserve.
- Draw 3 tokens as shards from the bag. Place them onto their matching elements on the Elemental Wheel.
- Roll 5 dice.
Build Step
The build step is where the majority of your decisions will lie. You can take as many actions as you have resources for, in whatever order you choose. You may take actions from your hero card and/or the basic actions available to all. These basic actions are: build a floor, place a pillar, cast a spell, reroll any dice, and complete a spire.
Build a Floor
Place a floor tile from the reserve into the “fortress,” aka the play area. A large floor tile can be placed directly on an empty platform space on the board. Later, floor tiles can be place on rooms that have pillars on every space. Those rooms must match the size of the tile you are placing on them, and be empty of any invaders.
Floor tiles with special effects will have those effects trigger upon building the floor.
Place a Pillar
You can place a pillar onto an empty pillar space by discarding a rolled die that matches the symbol shown on the space. Some of the spaces require two matching dice discarded, as indicated by the “+”. A multi floor requires star dice only.
You cannot place a pillar onto a space with an invader or another pillar.
Cast a Spell
Discard the indicated number and type of elemental shards shown on the Elemental Wheel to cast one of the 5 spells. For the spell Floor Crafting, you can either discard any 2 shards to draw a face-up floor tile into the reserve, or discard 3 shards to draw a multi floor.
Reroll any Dice
Once per turn, you may reroll any number of unused dice once. When you do so, flip the active player token over to indicate that ability has been used.
Complete a Spire
If your fortress has 4 floors of the same element, one on top of another, then your spire is ready to complete. Place the spire topper piece on top of the top floor, in a small room. Then, place the element’s gem on top of the spire topper. Once the spire is complete, the following four steps take place:
- Defeat the boss. Remove the element’s boss from the board.
- Check for victory: If you have completed your fourth spire, then you have won the game.
- Take a spire completion bonus token and use the one-time ability.
- Diminish the elements: remove 5 tokens of the completed spire’s element from the bag and set them aside on the defeated boss card.
The Invasion
After you have done everything you want to do during the build step, you then enact the two stages of the Invasion.
- Advance the invasion token. Move the invasion token one step down the track. This will awaken a Boss if that Boss card is linked to the new space on the track.
- Pull the invaders. Draw a number of invader tokens from the bag that matches the number shown on that space of the invasion track. Invaders will go onto a pillar space if available, and only into into a room of its own element. If there isn’t a space to hold an invader, then the invader will attack the heroes. It will destroy a wall of its element as well as itself if there’s one available, and then if there isn’t a matching wall, it will destroy an aether core.
After the Invasion, any unused dice are discarded and play passes to the left.
Game End
The players all win if they are able to complete all four spires. The players all lose if one of these conditions is met:
- The last aether core token is destroyed.
- The invasion marker reaches the final space on the track.
- You run out of pillars to place.
Solo and Advanced Modes
There will be both a solo mode and an advanced mode available in the final game, but these were unavailable with the prototype.
Why You Should Play Aetherspire
Aetherspire is a tower defense game meets Pandemic. There’s no understating the importance of protecting those four walls and the aether cores, because as soon as you lose all of your cores, you also lose the game. There are a couple of ways to rebuild walls and acquire more aether cores, but they’re few and far between. As far as the prototype goes, there are only two tiles that allow you to gain aether cores, and just one of the spire completion bonus tokens allows you to rebuild a wall. I would argue that it’s almost mandatory for one player to take the hero Glenn, who alone amongst the heroes has the ability to discard tiles in the reserve in order to rebuild walls.
Ultimately, in Aetherspire you’re in a race to build your spires before the invaders can destroy your cores, or the invader track reaches the end. The invaders are not just a danger to your aether cores, but they also block your building. Thankfully, players have several spells and abilities to allow them to either destroy invaders, or “crystallize” them, which turns the invaders into shards. But there’s a constant push-pull between managing the invaders and building your spires.
There’s a lot of randomness, between the dice rolling, the drawing of invaders/shards, and the drawing of floor tiles from their piles. However, there’s also a good amount of mitigation baked into the game. Everyone gets a free redraw if they don’t like the tile they pulled, as well as a free reroll. And there are spells and abilities that will also help you to change dice results, draw additional tiles, and more. These allow players much more control of their ability to execute their strategies.
However, much like any cooperative game of this type, things can still go south for the players. A bad draw of invaders can quickly lead to walls and either cores getting destroyed, as it did in one of my first games. It’s the nature of a board game like Aetherspire that bad luck can derail a game. Thankfully, setup is fast, so it’s not a burden to simply reset the game and try again.
There’s a certain visceral pleasure in building your spires up vertically. As the game starts to progress, you end up with a very striking table presence which is sure to draw interest when playing in a public space. Overall, the visuals are simple but bold, and have a pleasing aesthetic that doesn’t distract from gameplay.
Aetherspire is a cooperative game that’s got a lot to offer. There’s a good amount of strategic thinking involved, as you will need to build up four different elemental spires but with only 3 platform spaces to start from. The game encourages discussion and group planning, especially as each player has a character with unique abilities. And there’s something very satisfying in placing your spire topper to complete a spire, dropping the elemental crystal on top like a cherry on a sundae.
For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Aetherspire Kickstarter page!
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Disclosure: GeekDad received a copy of this game for review purposes.
