Ascension at Firepeak is a fast playing fantasy card game for two to five players. In it, each player is a Wizard struggling to dominate the Wizard's Guild after the previous Archmage passes away. Each player secures the services of fantastic creatures, ranging from the lowly Fairies and Henchmen to the powerful Dragons and Giants, to dominate their opponents and ascend to the head of the guild. Beautifully illustrated by Aaron Williams, Ascension at Firepeak is a fun and fast playing way to lob a couple of spells at your friends.
The Story
In Ascension at Firepeak, each player is trying to construct a pattern of creatures to be able to cast the Mighty Rite of Authority and win the game. Game play is simple, but with many options and surprising depth. Each turn, players may perform two Actions, with actions including recruiting new creatures, attacking the other players, rearranging their patterns, raiding dungeons and casting and researching spells. With nine different actions available along with a wide variety of game situations, the game is ever changing and constantly presents new situations. In addition, the spells can combine in many surprising and different ways, ensuring great replay value.
Overview of Game Mechanics
Each player has a pattern and a dungeon. The top level of the pattern is occupied by the player's wizard card, with each wizard associated with a specific clan of creatures. The pattern builds down from there, with each card having up to two minions. If a player gets a total of ten cards in their pattern, they win the game. The dungeon is where players keep creatures they don't want, as well as their spell components and creatures stolen from other players. Dungeons can be raided by other players, and must be guarded and used carefully.
Each creature in the game has a clan affiliation and a power rating. The power rating is compared during attack situations to the opposing creature. A die roll is added to each side. However, it's not just that easy. A wide variety of modifiers, including spells, wizard powers, clan powers and other situations ensure that nothing is as simple as it seems. Creatures can recruit, capture, rescue, be brainwashed, be used as spell components, and otherwise abused in many ways.
More information can be found at the BoardGameGeek entry, where you can find the full rules. We also have a fantastic playmat created by one of our playtesters for Ascension, Walter O'Hara (thanks Walt!). It provides places to keep your Wizard, Dungeon, all the potential slots in your power structure (with the tiers clearly marked) and also includes summaries of the available actions. All in full color, too. Nifty!
Credits
Game Design By: Cory Loewen
Developed By: Joshua Buergel
Illustrated By: Aaron Williams
Playtesters: Chris Bromley, Bayani C.R. Caes and the Carnegie Mellon University Gaming Club, Robert Eno, Nate Fox, Bill Gilliland and the U.C. Davis Gaming Club, Megan Hazen, Ray Jankowski, Michael Keane, Alfred Lo, Michael Loewen, Dave Markley, Justin Neddo, Walter O'Hara, Heidi Osterman, Michael Paisner, Arron Pope, Katje Sabin, Nate Walker, Charlie and Sheryl Weidner, Aaron Teske and Time Warp Comics and Games.
Special thanks to all of the game industry professionals who helped us out, including (but not limited to) Tony Curtis of GMT Games, James Ernest of Cheapass Games, Dean Essig of The Gamers, and Aaron Wallach of Uncle Jed's Game Shed.