Icaion Mechanics Unveiled!
Discover Icaion’s Gameplay
In the previous weeks we showed artwork, lore and characters to introduce you to the world of Icaion and we are excited to finally share with you some core mechanics of the game. At the end of the day we are all here to enjoy a solid gameplay experience and Icaion has been fine tuned to offer you exactly that!
Game Overview
At the beginning of the game, each player customizes his character choosing a Seeker and Special Gear cards. This decision will affect many aspects of your game, from your unique player set-up to gameplay customization and limitations. It's also important to notice that every card comes with a special effect and several abilities that can help you shape a solid strategy.
As you might remember, the board represents a part of Icaion, specifically the city built around the huge crystal called “Henakor” and all the wild surrounding regions.
Lastly, on the board there are five external craters, where the islands of Mysthea were ages ago, before the impact of the Henakor detached them.
A Work in Progress Icaion's Game Board with the Henakor and the City, the wild regions and the five craters.
Territory Building
The Seekers move through these wild lands, between regions and craters. Unlike Mysthea Champions, the Seekers have constant access to more than one region at the same time, being usually positioned on a crossroad: the common corner of three different regions.
From those nearby regions, the Seekers can extract Qoam of different kinds, deploy or activate their machines on those regions and trigger special scoring to build their engine. Every machine provides a special extra bonus every time your Seeker activates it. Since you take from all the regions around your Seeker, you can activate multiple machines at the same time!
Differently that what happened in Mysthea, in the lands of Icaion Qoam has evolved in different variants and thus exists in 5 different colors. Each Qoam Crystal has specific properties and can be found only in specific regions, therefore, the choice of where and when deploying your machines is very strategic.
Brown Qoam is vital to build your machines faster and easier.
Blue Qoam allows you to take longer movements or to set up a campand maintain your current position.
Pink Qoam allows you to investigate the Colossus, a titanic creature who wanders from crater to crater.
Gray Qoam allows you to fight the parasites, which could stop your machines from working and even destroy them if you don’t pay enough attention.
Green Qoam can be spent to play powerful special cards that grant you extra actions, resources or other benefits.
Thanks to a Events system that resembles the events of Mysthea the generation of Qoam is balanced to ensure that has the right amount of scarcity needed to ensure that everybody keeps an eye on Qoam to fuel their own actions and achieve long-term plans.
Qoam is the main resource in Icaion.
Multiple Paths to Victory
Every action that your Seeker will take has immediate pros and cons, but must also be evaluated in the perspective of which cards will show up in later rounds. Many things must be taken into account while planning your next movements. As in Mysthea, in Icaion there are many paths to victory. You can shape your strategy as you wish.
Will you go for a heavy machines based strategy? Every machine you deploy, makes your Seeker stronger, faster, and able to carry more Qoam.
Would you rather chase the Colossus and collect its powerful shards? They are definitely worth tons of points at the end of the game, if only they weren’t so hard and dangerous to get!
Will you fight the Parasites spread by the Colossus or will you dedicate your efforts to the exploitation of the Curio cards?
There are many paths to victory and you will only have to choose the strategy that best fits your playstyle!