Asmadi Games Opens Preorders for Innovation: Echoes of the Past

U.S. pubilsher Asmadi Games has announced that preorders are open for Carl Chudyk's Innovation: Echoes of the Past, an expansion for the 2010 card game Innovation that is scheduled to debut in print at Origins 2011.

As in the base game, Innovation: Echoes of the Past includes 110 cards, 105 cards that are divided into different decks (labeled age 1 to age 10) and five cards that show special achievements that can be claimed.

In loose terms, Innovation is a Civilization-style game in which players first have access to low-powered cards in age 1, then build up to more powerful cards in later ages, stacking new acquisitions on old to build the strength of their holdings. Player meld cards, score points and take special actions (called "dogma actions") unique to their cards in play in order to claim achievements. The first player to claim 4-6 achievements, depending on the number of players, wins the game.

Innovation: Echoes of the Past changes game play from the base game in a number of ways. First, the number of cards in each age deck is determined by the number of players, instead of being constant. Second, to create the age decks, players shuffle together the cards from the base game and expansion for each age, then deal out the proper number of cards. Third, the maximum player count is increased to five.

Fourth, and most interestingly, Innovation: Echoes of the Past introduces new game mechanisms. With foreshadow, revealed by Asmadi's Chris Cieslik in this Jan. 2011 BGG thread, a player can stash a card under his player board, then bring it into play (and use it) on a later turn when he melds a card that's from the same age or a higher one.

Echo is another new mechanism, with the icon on a card being replaced by a smaller block of text, as in this card shown below:

Board Game: Innovation: Echoes of the Past

When you take the dogma action on this card – or on any card in the same stack as this card – all visible echoes are executed, starting with those on the bottom of the stack, then moving upward. "Echoes of the past", right? Says Cieslik, "So even after you've melded over a card, an echo of its abilities will be heard in the future."

In early 2010, Asmadi Games printed a run of 120 copies of Innovation with print-on-demand cards (with buyers receiving replacement cards later) in order to get publicity for the game and receive feedback from these players. For Innovation: Echoes of the Past, Cieslik has adopted a different approach, taking preorders at AsmadiGames.com for $30 from U.S. buyers ($35 from Canada, $40 from Europe/Asia) and promising to deliver a copy of the expansion in Q3 2011. "In the meantime," says Cieslik, "you'll have access to a PDF of all the cards that you can print and play to help us test the cards before the game goes to print." PDFs will become available to buyers during the week of February 14, 2011.

Note that all card graphics shown in this post are temporary and the card layouts are not final.