Dice Summoners from Decking Awesome Games is a two-player dice game that feels like a cross between Magic: The Gathering (Wizards of the Coast) and Star Realms (Wise Wizard). It is designed by Eoin Costello, Ciara Costello and Brian O Moore.
Players take the role of rival summoners, casting spells and summoning creatures, ultimately trying to reduce their opponent's health to zero. You start with three basic creatures, each providing one basic blue die, and some basic spell options with which to summon or upgrade creatures, learn new spells, gain an aura or place a curse on your opponent.
There are always plenty of options to consider, but without the game feeling complicated. Each card can be used one of two ways each turn. There are only two types of die, with only four types of result (including wild), making it easy to understand your options. There's a constant tension between trying to invest in more creatures (giving more dice and more opportunities for using them) and spells, all the while trying to use abilities to prepare defences, deal damage and regain or even steal health.
The game comes with many card sets and gives four different combinations for different game styles, such as Attack-based or Sacrifice-based, but players can mix up different card types if they want to - much like choosing cards in Dominion (Rio Grande). If you choose the Defend deck set, the game will take considerably longer as players take a long time to wear each other down, but even then it still feels like a short game (tho' turns can take a while once you have a dozen dice to deal with!) The artwork is fairly basic but the iconography is very clear. If it weren't for the fairly dark magic theme, this feels like a game that children could endlessly play back-to-back: the 14+ suggested age certainly isn't a reflection of the difficulty of the game. Dice Summoners feels like a good introduction to games like Magic: The Gathering, providing an easygoing battle experience, but requiring less brain power and considerably less money!
(Review by Matt Young)