Designed by Rob Dougherty and Darwin Kastle, Wise Wizard's Star Realms is surely one of the most successful deck building card game of all time. Since it first appeared around a decade ago, it's seen several updates and numerous additions and expansions. It's even been through reskins and revamps; so that, for example, Hero Realms delivers a comparable experience in a fantasy Middle Earth setting. Wise Wizard have wisely always looked at ways of bringing Star Realms to an ever wider audience: the Star Realms Box Set edition, in particular, brought an updated version of the core game together with its Gambit expansion and the facility to play in solitaire and cooperative modes so offered a great jumping off board for anyone coming new to the game.
Star Realms Academy bears Wise Wizard's 'Wacky Wizard' imprint, generally reserved for the company's children's and family games. That's because this edition offers a simplified and streamlined version of Star Realms aimed at making the game more accessible to younger players, so that it becomes your Star Realms academy rather than just offering an Academy setting. That said, it doesn't feel like going back to school because a key part of the streamlining of this edition is that it takes out the requirement for reading and maths. The functional text on cards has been entirely replaced with simple very easily-learned icons, making the game playable by children who are just starting school. The use of tokens representing health on players' individual boards removes the need for even basic arithmetic in determining the effect of combat: if your card has a 1 in its attack icon, your opponent just removes one health token from their player board. Likewise, cards with a coin icon generate coins that you add to your board: you can spend them immediately to buy cards from the display to add to your deck or you can save them for a bigger spend on a future turn.
There are other simplifications too, tho' most striking is the appealing cartoon artwork. But this two-player game is still recognisably Star Realms and it's not just for children: Star Realms Academy is a family-friendly game that offers a great gateway introduction to the deck building mechanic.
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