Second Look—Enter the Arena

Enter the Arena is a new strategic card game up on Kickstarter by Promethean Games. The game pits 2-4 players against each other in gladiatorial combat to see who the last one standing is, or whoever entertained the crowd the best.

The game is only 63 cards, and manages to capture the frenzy of battle pretty well, and with a simple set of rules. The game contains four different types of cards: Attack, Defense, Style, and Event cards. Each player is given a matching deck of Attack, Defense, and Style cards. The event cards are shuffled and placed in a deck face down on the table. Each turn the players will decide to play an Attack of Defense card face down. The cards are then flipped, and Style cards can now be played. Now Event cards can be played by each player until each player declines to play more. Now damage and style are figured out, and health is taken, or style points awarded. The Round Leader changes and you repeat the process until there’s only one person left alive, or someone has reached 12 Style points.

Of course there’s a bit more depth in there. Attack cards can be deflected by Defense cards, Style cards can earn you Event cards, and you can steal and opponents Style by negating their attack or defense.

The whole game plays rather quickly. The box says 15-30 minutes, and that’s a pretty fair estimate. Our games ran on the shorter side, though I can see it lasting a bit longer with less impulsive players.

Enter the Arena needs $7,500 to reach their goal. They’ve already raised $2,100, and still have 15 days to go. A $15 pledge will get you a copy of the game, which is a pretty good deal for the quality of game you’re getting.

My recommendation? Go for it!

A prototype copy of Enter the Arena was provided free for review.