Talos: the Arena

Talos: the Arena is an accessible deck-building game that is quickly mastered by everybody, but offers the veteran player great depth of tactics and many paths to victory. In preparation of the final battle in Talos’ arena you will spar with your enemies in search of winning combinations and the greatest heroes to truly represent your individual style and strategy.
We created the game with the goal of enhancing the experience for everybody while eliminating bad elements common in other games. Thus, the basic mechanisms of the game include the following elements:

• To win you need to constantly interfere in your opponent’s turns, while risking and gaining small and large advantages. You actively play at all times during the game.

• There is no sequence of phases, just a never ending battle of all versus all. Players do not have to wait until the enemy has assembled an unbreakable combination to counteract it. You attack and intercept at will, even if your opponent charges forward.

• The game is designed to make as little restrictions as possible and to maximize the potential of the player’s creativity, cooperation, and clever deceit to affect the outcome.

• There is very little path dependency. There is no sure victor of the game practically until the very last move to ensure that you always have a chance to win and affect the game.

• There is only little preparation for the game. Just shuffle and go.

—description from the designer.