Designed by: Thorsten Gimmler
In Odin’s Ravens the eponymous god sends his messenger crows all the way around the world, travelling in different directions. The crows – you the players – have been doing this for years, and it has evolved into a race.
Sixteen landscape cards are laid out in a row, and both ravens start at one end – the ravens will travel along different sides of the cards, and loop around and back the other side at the far end. Players have a deck of terrain cards, plus a smaller deck of Loki cards.
On your turn, you get to play as many cards as you like. A terrain card will move your raven onto the next card, as long as it matches the terrain (two matching terrain cards can function as a joker) and if two or more matching landscape cards are adjacent, a matching terrain card will move you over all of them.
The Loki cards function in a number of different ways; either to expedite your own progress (shortening your journey, for instance) or hampering your opponents (creating extra landscape for them to negotiate). At the end of your turn, you pick up three cards (choosing from either or both of the terrain or Loki decks) and your hand may never exceed seven cards.
The first raven back home wins!
There is some Take That, as the Loki cards offer opportunity for mischief.
Low. Odin's Ravens only plays two so you won't be waiting around long for your turn.
It's not heavy at all, but there's more to consider than you might think when you factor in the Loki cards - you can engineer the landscape tiles in a way to suit you, dash headlong as fast as you can, or take a risk and hang onto cards in the hope of completing an epic multi-terrain move in the next turn...
The randomness in the landscape cards and how your own hand comes out does offer some variation.
2-2
Players
8+
Years
15-30
Mins
Sam says
It's a nice little game but it feels rather mechanical in the way it plays - more like a puzzle than a race, but too luck-dependent (what cards you draw from your deck) to feel in control of your own destiny. But it's kinda charming nonetheless.