The Quickening

The Quickening is an autobattler board game with app: 2 players, 10 minutes. Place your unit cards on the battlefield, snap a photo with your phone and the app awakens the army—each unit marches, fires and reloads itself, exactly where you placed it.

Each unit has its own brain. Swordsmen chase the nearest enemy. Archers stand and shoot as long as they see a target. Knights are fast and hungry for the enemy rear guard, tanks form a slow stubborn wall, catapults lob boulders over everything and hunters flank behind enemy lines. The juggernaut pushes your own troops aside on its way toward a fortress. Place a healer where the wounded will be, or a fireball where the enemy is about to mass.

Each round you discard as many cards as you want and refill your hand to six. Then you alternate with your opponent, one card at a time, three cards each, placed in your half of the field. Then you take the photo, watch the clash, learn and play the next round.

Terrain bends every plan: forests hide anyone who enters and block line of sight, mud slows charges. Defend your two bases, break the enemy's for points and keep your hero alive, because losing them means losing the round. Three rounds, whoever has the most points wins.

Battle the box itself: the lid is printed inside and becomes a 3D arena, where the colossal Outsider awaits—taming it changes the fate of the battle.