iOS Universal, Android •
Onirim is a truly fantastic port of a physical card game but, let’s admit, it has some hills to climb. One is that it’s solitaire only, which immediately makes it feel like more of a time waster than a serious strategic affair. Next, it has to compete with the likes of Race for the Galaxy which just happened to release around the same time and might be the greatest card game you can play on mobile right now. Lastly, Asmodee only released the Onirim base game with no expansions which, I’ve heard, really make the game shine.
Two of those aren’t Onirim’s fault, but that last one is. Luckily, Asmodee is listening and the first expansion for Onirim arrived today. Better yet, it’s free.
The expansion is called The Glyphs and the changes it makes are pretty simple. Basically, it adds another symbol to each color so that, instead of 3 symbols (key, moon, sun), there are four (key, moon, sun, and glyph). This makes it easier to create sets of three to unlock doors, but the twist is that there is now an extra door of each color in the deck.
The expansion unlocks automatically after you create or login with an Asmodee account, and you can choose to play games with the original rules or with the Glyphs enabled. The update also mentions more content on the horizon, so we might just see all those Onirim expansions in our pocket eventually. Even without any extra expansions, for $1 you’re getting one hell of a card game and a perfect fit for those 1-2 minute gaps in your day when there’s nothing to do but pull out your phone.
The other big change with the glyphs–which I discovered kind of by accident, without having read the rules first–is they give you another way to put doors in play, the “incantation” mechanic. Discarding a glyph triggers an incantation, which draws the top 5 cards of the deck. If one of those cards is a door, you can put it into play immediately, while the remaining cards go to the bottom of your deck.
Oh, cool. I’ve played a handful of games and didn’t realize that at all!
No wonder my first three games were so hard! That invocation thing sounds almost mandatory.
Finally landed on Android too. Loving the expansion.
Hopefully I’m not jinxing myself, but I’m finding this version easier. I’ve won the first 3-4 games. Though by less and less. So I’m due for a loss.
The game just got cheaper, too. Spread the word; Onirim is free.