Check Out Trials Of Maya Crowdfunder (Gamefound)

When this monster-sized box showed up at my house, I was already pretty amped up by the sales pitch. An expandable, card-driven, MOBA-style game? Hello yes! I love MOBA games; god only knows how many hours I burned playing League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, and DOTA.

Suffice it to say, this was a concept that spoke to me directly. In fact, it’s the sort of game I have been looking for so desperately that, in the absence of its existence, I tried to create one myself. I’m about as close to a target audience for Trials of Maya as you’re ever going to get.

What is a MOB? It stands for Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, a genre of gaming that involves players (typically 5 vs 5) running unique characters from a large roster all with special and unique abilities fighting on a map over a serious of towers and the ulimtate price, the opponents base camp. First team to blow up their oppossitions base camp wins.

I should fully disclose before we get going here that this First Impression article is based on a single two-player siege mode game. This is not the review; That we will do later, but I felt, given that the crowdfunding for this one is going live next month, there are probably plenty of people out there looking it up.

Trials of Maya is here… I played it, and it’s time to talk about it.

Opening The Box

This box, and everything in it, feels like more than just a game. It’s a work of art, crafted with a clear focus on turning the simple act of discovering a new board game into a unique visual experience. I knew from the outset this wasn’t going to be just a box opening, and Trials of Maya did not disappoint.

Everything here feels as though it was created through the lens of an artist. Personal… designed from the heart. The illustrations, graphic design, components, books, colors, and physical presentation have all been tied together into a single piece of work with a singular vision. Combined, they create the sort of presentation most games don’t even strive for, let alone achieve.

There is an included novel that tells a story from the universe in which the game is set (Just getting into that), offering an inside perspective on the setting and theme. There is striking artwork, and a genuine effort to entice through elaborate, if not sometimes overproduced components. Mind you, I’m working with a prototype here. Even the smallest details seem carefully matched to everything around them, creating a unified whole that comes together almost like a painting.

Every detail in Trials of Maya feels like the result of countless hours of contemplation and creativity. It’s not always successful, but you can’t discount the effort here; this game is someone’s baby boy born from blood, sweat, and tears, that much is clear

To give you one particularly strange and wonderful example, the included novel has a cover that is itself a 3D art piece. The game actually comes with a pair of 3D glasses that reveal the full effect of the cover art.

Why? Why would anyone go through the trouble of doing something like that in a board game?

I think the answer can be found in the particular sort of nostalgia Trials of Maya is trying to evoke. The rise of MOBAs belongs to a generation of gaming that grew up surrounded by loud colors, experimental visual design, and a fascination with 3D entertainment. Movies, games, and advertising were constantly trying to leap out of the screen at us. Even the bright red glasses themselves fit perfectly into the color palette and visual identity of Trials of Maya.

It is nostalgia expressed through art, a kind of unnecessary cherry on top, but it speaks volumes to the love affair the designer/producers of this game have with it.

I don’t think everyone will have the same reaction, but if you grew up during the rise of MOBAs and were deeply immersed in gaming culture at the time, there is something about Trials of Maya that may feel oddly familiar.

Yet for all that familiarity, this is certainly not another game drawing exclusively from the familiar well of Western fantasy. The Tolkien-inspired traditions and Appendix N influences that dominate so much of fantasy gaming are largely absent here.

Instead, Trials of Maya has a striking Indo Asian aesthetic, with characters, clothing, architecture, symbolism, and mythology that appear influenced by Indic and broader Asian artistic and cultural traditions. Combined with its science fantasy elements, it gives the world an identity that feels immediately distinct from anything else you will see out there.

I am going on and on here, but I think that is justified. So much effort has gone into the presentation of Trials of Maya that it deserves to be lingered over.

In a word, Trials of Maya is absolutely gorgeous. We are off to a really great start!

Setup and Components

While Trials of Maya is artistically impressive, we have to put the artistry aside for a moment because even in a First Impressions article, my job is to offer the reader a dose of reality. I don’t want to be all hype and no substance. Anyone interested in this game is going to want a breakdown of the game itself.

Eye candy is eye candy. The game is the game.

My friend and I set aside half a day to sit down with Trials of Maya and play a one-on-one siege game, one of several game modes the system offers. The Siege Mode is, in effect, the base mode of what we think of as a MOBA game. Towers, minions, lanes of sorts, and the push.

Ahead of his arrival, I read through the rulebook and reference material, trying to get a handle on the game, and got everything set up so that we could dive straight in.

Now, it’s important to mention for a second time that I’m working with a prototype of Trials of Maya. Keep that firmly in mind as a lens through which to view the following comments.

While the components look fantastic laid out on the table, and much of the physical design is exceptionally well conceived, even during setup I could see that Trials of Maya was going to be a fairly fiddly game.

The hexagonal battlefield is very tight, and there is a lot of stuff that goes onto it, leaving surprisingly little room for fat fingers to maneuver. Setup itself was not particularly complicated, albeit it took about 20 minutes. The physical components, while gorgeous through and through, were something of a mixed bag in the usability department, ranging from fantastic to …meh.

The player boards, for example, are really well thought out. Components fit snugly into designated spaces, and everything is organized in a visually accessible way. It was particularly convenient to be able to look across the table and, with a quick glance, understand the board state of my opponent. Critical to executing the game successfully and being fully informed.

The cards were similarly successful. The iconography is relatively simple, and we adjusted to it quickly. Most of the cards we encountered during our game were clear, and whenever something was not immediately obvious, there was handy reference material included with the game that made answers easy to find.

Some of the physical components in this prototype, however, were clumsy.

Several pieces were easy to knock over and awkward to grab, resulting in quite a few frustrating fumbles during play. The stackable chips in particular, used to track the health of minions, while a good idea conceptually, had a tendency to topple over. The various spawn and upgrade markers had similar problems because they stood upright and were rather top-heavy.

There was also a more practical issue with the battlefield itself. Many components completely covered the hex they occupied, making it difficult to see symbols or terrain features underneath them. Walls and other important battlefield information could effectively disappear once the board became populated. The board really could have been 20% bigger.

None of this is catastrophic, but in a game built around positioning and tactical information, where you’re constantly moving pieces around, physical usability matters.

There is still time before release to tighten some of these components up and, in fact, the designer has expressed a commitment to doing exactly that. Trials of Maya is clearly in the final stages of production preparation, and I would expect that a number of these details will change before the finished game reaches players.

For that reason, I would not personally count these issues against the game at this stage. This is precisely what prototypes are for.

Still, it’s worth mentioning because there is an important distinction here. A game needs to be both beautiful and easy to use. Trials of Maya has unquestionably nailed the first half of that equation. The prototype suggests there is still some work to be done on the second.

With everything finally set up, however, it was time to dive in.

Both my gaming partner and I were excited; I in particular was holding my breath because I desperately want this game to be good.

Gods! I need a good MOBA tabletop game, let this be the one!

Rules, Mechanics and Gameplay

As one might expect, right out of the gate we fumbled around with the rules and got a few things wrong. This is not particularly unusual with a brand new game, especially one that is a bit more complex and comes from an independent publisher clearly willing to experiment with new mechanics and ideas. I only mention it because the game came with a strong solution.

The rulebook was very well written. Whenever we discovered that we had misunderstood something, we were quickly able to find the answer, correct ourselves, and keep going. The reference booklet and reference cards reinforced this, and before long we were playing without needing to constantly stop and consult the rules.

This is big for me because I find universally that most independent crowdfunders have terrible rulebooks; Trials of Maya succeeded where most people fail, and this is such a critical element of getting off on the right foot with a new game. Big kudos to the design team!

After a couple of rounds, Trials of Maya started to come into focus.

We began to see the strategy, understand the rhythm of the game, and recognize how all of its interconnected systems were supposed to work.

The aha moment had arrived. It was time to get down to the business of crushing each other’s souls! We were itching for the action.

My gaming partner and I were pretty focused during the game, so we did not spend much time discussing our opinions while we played. We were too busy trying to successfully navigate our characters around the battlefield, uncover combinations between cards and abilities, manipulate minions, and control important areas of the board as we fought our way toward each other’s towers.

Because that is essentially the game.

Each round you gain energy from cards that slide off your tableau as well as play new cards. You then spend that energy executing actions from the cards in play in your tableau, moving your character, attacking enemies, and triggering various special abilities. Meanwhile, your character develops and becomes increasingly powerful as you complete objectives and gain XP.

In other words, pretty much exactly what you would expect and I hoped from a MOBA board game.

This is a card-driven tactical game about fighting with your character and controlled minions, pushing toward the enemy tower and trying to pull off various gambits and shenanigans as you outmaneuver your opponent.

Each character felt genuinely unique, with clearly defined strengths and weaknesses. Some were fast, some excelled at range, and others were built to stand their ground and absorb punishment. There were only four characters available in this prototype, but it was not difficult to imagine another thirty.

There is no question that Trials of Maya feels infinitely expandable in this area, and I suspect that discovering new characters and learning how to exploit their unique abilities is going to be a big part of the long-term appeal of the game. In fact, like a MOBA, I would expect in groups where the game is played often, META’s will form as they would in League of Legends or DOTA, with homebrew tournament rules undoubtedly forming.

The customizable card decks add another layer to that potential.

You can essentially create your own version of each character by modifying their deck. We did not experiment with deck construction during our first game, choosing instead to use the recommended starting decks, but halfway through the game I already had strong opinions about which cards I wanted to remove and what sorts of cards I would want to replace them with.

That’s a very good sign.

The potential here is exceptional and, more importantly, I would argue the game is already very fun in its current form. There are several other game modes still to explore, and I strongly suspect that a four-player siege game is going to be considerably more chaotic and exciting than our one-on-one match. Though I am deeply concerned about the game’s length. Our two-player game stretched well into the 3rd hour, and while we were new and a slow first game is understandable, I worry that a 4-player game is going to be a pretty extended affair.

I personally thought Trials of Maya succeeded in bringing the MOBA genre to life on the tabletop, though I would argue it felt a bit slow. Perhaps the most accurate description of the experience came from my gaming partner. At the end of the match, he looked up from the board and uttered a sentence that perfectly encapsulated what both of us were thinking.

“This was a really fun game, but it had some jank.”

I completely agree. That statement, however, requires some explanation.

First, I will remind you once again that this is a First Impressions article about a prototype game. After a single play, I would not feel comfortable being held to account for any definitive conclusions about its finer mechanical details; these are gut instincts firing here. We are going to tackle the depth of this game in the review later after having a few more plays under our belts.

Think of what follows less as criticism and more as an advisory observation from two people who have spent an ungodly amount of time designing and playing prototype games ourselves, desperately trying to get the jank out of our own designs.

It’s experience shining through and, perhaps more importantly, an acknowledgement of just how difficult it is to truly streamline a game.

Jank, for lack of a better term, is what happens when a game is clearly on the right track and has a fundamentally good design, but still has mechanics or physical elements that need refinement. It’s a kind of threshold for a game. It’s when a game is so close to its final version that you can taste it, but there are still little pieces of friction getting between the players and the experience, which can turn a fun game into a frustrating one. Typically and perhaps most commonly, Jank causes games to be longer than they should be.

Jank is the demon every game designer eventually has to tango with, but perhaps more problematically, crowdfunded games are famous for leaving the Jank in on release. Something I’m always weary of.

I think that is exactly where Trials of Maya is in this prototype, and I really hope it’s not too late for the designers to address and fine-tune this game further.

Some of the jank comes from the components themselves, as I have already described. The game is simply a bit too fiddly right now, slowing it down and making it feel a bit clumsy.

These strike me as very solvable problems.

In fact, the next time I play Trials of Maya I will probably just use my clay poker chips for tracking minion health, for example, as a solution to chips toppling over all the time. Clay poker chips are designed to stack, they stay put, they are easy to grab, and they are smaller in diameter. In a game where moving stacks of chips around the battlefield is a constant activity, you want this part to be smooth as silk.

There was some mechanical jank as well, though this is where I become much more cautious about drawing conclusions after a single game.

Both my partner and I felt that something about the handling of allied minions was still a little off.

During the game, the neutral minions that begin on the battlefield are quickly converted into allied minions controlled by the players. This part we liked, but we soon discovered that stacks of allied minions die quite quickly and, almost immediately, those same minions begin spawning back onto the battlefield.

The result was a revolving game of attrition where minion deaths primary impact on the game was slowing it to a crawl.

Minions were returning as quickly as we could kill them, you really couldn’t “clear the lane” for those familiar with MOBA terminology. Movement is fairly limited for all but the most mobile characters as it is; the battlefield is extremely tight, and the sequence of play allows minions to spawn at the beginning of a player’s turn and then act during that same turn, often in the same turn they died.

As a result, the board state could collapse and rebuild itself in one swift sequence of actions during the same turn. There is little breathing room, in one turn you achieve success, in the very next it’s all undone, and there is not much you could do about it.

This attrition results in the game being a lot less decisive with really heavy attrition and, as a consequence, a lot longer than I think it needs to be.

Something about that rhythm felt off to both of us.

I definitely want to play Trials of Maya a couple more times before making any stronger judgment about it. There may be, in fact, likely are aspects of the minion system that we simply failed to appreciate during our first game, and I suspect a four-player game could reveal considerably more nuance. Not to mention that the custom deck building I think is going to become a key feature of the game on repeated plays. Even after a single game, I felt quite ready to build my own deck.

What I had considerably less trouble forming an opinion about was the card play.

I loved the card powers and the mechanic of sliding cards off your tableau to generate energy. There was a clear strategy and rhythm to it. It quickly became clear that every card had subtle benefits and drawbacks. There were cards I desperately wanted to get into play, while others seemed less useful until some unexpected situation or coordinated combos suddenly transformed them into the most important card in my hand.

That was really fun.

Even better was discovering some of the funky shenanigans possible when certain cards and abilities started interacting.

At one point I suddenly realized that a particular combination of cards in play would allow my character to essentially shoot across the entire battlefield, bypass the enemy forces and make a direct assault on my opponent’s tower.

I caused devastating damage in short order and nearly pulled off a win right then and there. That was the first time the game felt responsive, less about attrition and more about action. And in that moment, Trials of Maya did exactly what I wanted it to do; it felt like I had hoped it would.

I think in a way, the overarching jank in Trials of Maya is that it’s too slow most of the time; when the action exploded like that, it was the first time the game felt really good, and I think that is what this game should be. A quick 30-45 knife fight in a phone booth of moves and counter moves, not a slow strategic game of attrition.

For a moment, it felt like a classic League of Legends tower rush. Like a proper MOBA game, and I think that is precisely what this game should be striving for. MOBA’s are not thinking, strategic games, they are action games that require quick thinking and quick decisions.

First Impression Conclusion

I don’t particularly like writing first impression conclusions.

There is a sort of finality implied by the word conclusion when the reality is that I’m only just beginning to explore Trials of Maya. If there is one thing I have learned from reviewing games over the years, it’s that my opinions can change wildly during that process.

I remember playing Lord of the Rings The Card Game for the first time and absolutely hating it. A year later, it held the number one spot on my Top 10 Best Games of All Time list, a position it would hold for nearly a decade.

I have seen games go the other way too.

The point is that first impressions can be wrong. Sometimes spectacularly so.

After my first game of Trials of Maya, however, there are three things I feel reasonably confident saying.

First, it was fun.

That sounds like an almost insultingly simple observation, but ultimately it is the most important one, and I think the designer would agree; those are magical confidence-building words to the ears of a person who spent half a decade working on a passion project. Trials of Maya is a game I genuinely cannot wait to get back to the table. It’s beautiful, strategic, highly customizable, and filled with possibilities that I have barely begun to explore.

Even with some prototype jank and a few mechanical questions lingering in my mind, when we packed the game away I was already thinking about the next match.

That matters.

Second, I suspect Trials of Maya may be at its best with four players.

Our two-player Siege game occasionally felt a little isolated. With only two heroes running around the much smaller battlefield, it seemed like there was space in the design waiting to be filled. It kind of felt like an introductory game, with depth that simply wasn’t there for us to explore to keep things simple. I’m very curious to see what happens when four heroes are unleashed on the battlefield with custom decks, creating more combinations, more threats, and presumably considerably more chaos.

In fact, before even getting four people together, I’m tempted to try a two-player game in which we each control two heroes just to see how dramatically that changes the experience. I just wonder about the playtime: how long is a 4-player game going to take?

Third, and perhaps most importantly, I think Trials of Maya has layers that we barely touched.

Toward the end of our game, I started catching glimpses of tactical possibilities that simply had not occurred to us during the opening rounds. Movement, positioning, pushing and pulling characters around the battlefield all seemed considerably more important than we initially understood. The relationships between cards, heroes and minions began revealing opportunities for combinations and clever plays that our basic starting decks only hinted at.

That is ultimately what excites me most and may also quell my criticisms. Trials of Maya did not leave me feeling like I had figured it out.

It left me feeling like I wanted to figure it out.

Maybe the game is, in fact, much faster once you know what you’re doing. Maybe that feeling of slow-paced attrition was just the impression of a newbie still trying to come to grips with the game’s strategies.

When that enormous box first arrived at my house, Trials of Maya sounded like the sort of game I had been waiting for. An expandable, customizable, card-driven tactical game that attempts to capture the characters, combinations, battlefield positioning, and tower assaults of a MOBA on the tabletop.

After one game, I am not prepared to tell you that Trials of Maya has completely fulfilled that promise.

I am prepared to tell you that I desperately want to play it again.

For a First Impression, I cannot think of a better conclusion than that.