Description

• 
  15 minutes
• 
  1 - 4 Players

Winner of SXSW Sydney 2023 Games Festival Best Tabletop Game.

Aethermon: Collect is a 1-4 player set-collection game with both cooperative and competitive game modes.

Players move a shared piece around a grid of magical creatures known as Aethermon, collecting any Aethermon on which they land.

• Aethermon: Collect is quick to learn, but provides opportunities for more advanced play and counterplay.
• No two games are identical, as players explore a new grid of Aethermon every game.
• Competitive mode introduces powerful rule-bending Artefacts to out-wit opponents.
• Alternatively, co-operate with allies or play alone to solve the unique puzzle presented by the board.
• On the back of each card, players can discover the rich lore surrounding these Aethermon.
• Take on the Campaign Mode challenges unlocked through stretch goals by our generous early backers!

Ages: 8+

Strategy: 4/5

Complexity: 1/5

Inside the box, you will find:

• 48 beautifully illustrated Aethermon cards
• 12 powerful Artefact cards
• 14 rules cards
• One premium 5cm acrylic standee/player token
• Neoprene Playmat – with a subtle but easy to follow card grid
• Aethermon mini expansion – Enhance your gameplay with new artefacts, new solo and co-operative modes and fancy player trackers

Below is a photograph of the product, including the neoprene playmat included in the bundle pack featuring background art beautifully illustrated by Miguel to complement Fabio’s magical creature and artefact illustrations.

All cards are printed on 350GSM, AAA-quality, FSC-certified paper, with an oil varnish.

All paper is printed at 800DPI with water-based inks.

Acrylic standee is high quality diamond-cut acrylic with 300DPI print quality and UV-printing.

This is something special

…and we’d love for you to be a part of it! Scattered throughout this page are our beautiful characters and their lore.

Aethermon: Collect may be just a small set-collection game, but it is the beginning of something big. If you like our world, and you would like more games and stories about it, your purchase can help us continue to create something magical, and design the games you want to play set within it.

Aethermon: Collect is a beautiful game

With the finest quality manufacturing and gorgeous art, this game is simply beautiful. But it’s also more than that – it represents a philosophy of purposeful, restrained, elegant game design that makes it accessible and still provides a deep, engaging player experience. And it’s fun!

It’s ready to deliver today!

This game was crowdfunded and delivered to 392 backers, and now it’s ready to deliver to you! Aethermon has a growing community of fans and avid players, thanks to its repeatable gameplay, and it’s compatible with any game night! It’s the perfect filler and ice breaker!

We’re providing super low shipping!

Shipping is expensive. We’ve come up with a low flat rate of $7 Australia-wide!

Gameplay overview

Aethermon: Collect can be played as either a co-operative or a competitive game. In either scenario, the game is played on a grid of Aethermon cards; the size of this grid is determined by the number of players.

On each player’s turn, the player moves the Group Token across the grid either vertically or horizontally any number of squares (a Rook’s move), collecting any Aethermon on which they land.

At the end of the game, the values of each player’s collected Aethermon are tallied; if a player has every Aethermon of a family set the points value of that set is doubled. Scores are combined to form the team score (co-operative) or kept separate as personal scores (competitive). The goal is to achieve the highest score.

How to read the cards

• Each Aethermon card front shows: its name, elemental ribbon and elemental symbols; its point value (top left); and its family set (top right)
• Each Aethermon card back shows: its name and elemental ribbon; its creature lore; and its elemental symbol (bottom centre)
• Each Artefact card front shows: its name; when it affects the action; and what effect it creates
• Each Artefact card back shows: an identical blue trinket compartment

Competitive mode (2, 3 or 4-players)

In competitive mode:

• Players may choose to play with Artefacts. These are drafted before the gameplay begins and are one-use-only.
• Players may move to an empty square.
• The game ends after each player completes a consecutive turn without collecting an Aethermon.
• Tally each player’s score, including bonuses for complete sets – the highest score wins!

Co-operative mode (3 or 4-players)

In co-operative mode, players work together:

• Players do not play with Artefacts.
• Players may not move to an empty square.
• Players may not move to an Aethermon if another player has already begun to collect its family set.
• The game ends when a player cannot collect an Aethermon on their turn.
• Tally each player’s score, including bonuses for complete sets, then add the scores together to form the group total – the higher the score, the greater the success!

Solo mode/Co-operative

In Solo mode/2-player Co-operative mode, players (or alternatively, left and right hands) are limited to only one axis of movement:

• The first player to move (or dominant hand) chooses either the vertical OR the horizontal axis of movement – thereafter, all their movements are limited to their axis.
• The second player to move (or subdominant hand) takes the alternative (horizontal OR vertical) axis – thereafter all their movements are likewise limited to their axis.

On each player’s turn, the player moves the Group Token as per the limitations of their axis:

• Players may not move to an empty square.
• Players may not move to an Aethermon if the other player has already begun to collect its family set.
• The game ends when either player cannot collect an Aethermon on their turn.
• Tally each player’s score, including bonuses for complete sets, then add the scores together to form the group total – the higher the score, the greater the success!

You can read the full rules here.

Fla from The Last Meeple has made an excellent how-to-play for both Co-operative and Competitive Modes in just four minutes:

Testimonials

”It does definitely create really, really fun moments.” – Meg , BoardGameCo

”The artwork is STUNNING… It’s a lot of fun.” – Dan, Board Game BBQ

”Every time I played it, people asked me to play it again right away.” – PlayItYourself

”A family-friendly filler that plays great with all ages.” – Player2.net.au

“I’m having a lot of fun with this game! I love the puzzle.” – TabletopForOne

“The mechanics are easy to grasp, it is a very quick cutthroat game … it does definitely create really really fun moments.” – Meg

“I just like the game mechanically. I find that it works well both co-operativley and competitively… It’s fun solo, it’s fun cooperative and it’s fun competitive.” – Alex

Thank you Alex and Professor Meg for the review. Your short playthrough is a delight to watch:

PlayItYourself:

“Every time I played it, people asked me to play it again right away.” There is no higher praise! Read the review.

AdamTheFanatic:

“I also enjoyed the game and its compact size means I’ll often be bringing it to game nights. It’s not a grand adventure; but it’s fun, fast to play, and has wonderful artwork.” Adam and Kayden give a wonderful summary of how-to-play and score Aethermon: Collect a 7.7/10 (plus add a review of our pins):

Beer City Board Games:

“A clever, fun, filler-style game with plenty to like. If you’re looking for a quick-playing game that will give you a bit of a chess-like feeling of trying to read your opponent’s next move, I would say that Aethermon: Collect is worth checking out.” Clay shares his thoughts:

Inspired2Game:

“…Can play with absolutely anyone – and it’s a lot of fun!” Lola and Sean have lovely things to say about Aethermon: Collect:

BoardElv:

“One of these games you want to immediately start over”.Click for her full review or click on the video below to hear her how-to-play:

The Last Meeple:

“How can you build this amazing atmosphere aroud the game and not go any further? I mean look at this – the artwork is absolutely amazing and the creatures have a really cool design. They even have this background flavour text description on the back.” Fla regrets that Aethermon: Collect isn’t a much bigger Aethermon adventure – fear not, in a year it will be! Collect is merely the first release! Review here:

Settler of the Boards:

“I liked both different ways to play this game … in the co-operative game I really liked that puzzley nature.” Steph offers a video below or her written review here:

Tabletop for One:

Daniel has put together this fun solo playthrough showcasing the vertical/horizontal axis split:

The Last Meeple: Fla shared a four-player competitive game with his friends here:

We will be shipping every game in a custom cardboard shipping box to protect it on its journey to your game table. Our fulfilment partner is NextSmartShip, which operates directly from China and has warehouses in the USA, UK, Australia, the EU and Japan. We believe this offers us the most cost-effective, time-efficient and game-protective method of delivering your new game.

Aethermon: Collect is only a small part of the greater World of Aethermon that we started building more than three years ago.

In 2020, at the beginning of the global pandemic, lead game dev Chris had the idea to turn the experience of playing a 40-hour JRPG into a 2- to 3-hour tabletop game, along with everything that makes JRPGs so memorable – hero narratives, quests, side-quests, battles, magic, monsters, artefacts, map exploration, NPCs…the works.

It would feature creatures known as Aethermon – magical animals with elemental powers, each offering a unique battle strategy. This is not a collect-a-mon concept, but rather, players are bonded to just ONE Aethermon for the game, and must grow with and harness that Aethermon’s abilities in order to succeed.

In 2021, that idea had developed into an extensive game called Aethermon: Adventure, with a free-exploration map and a sports-battle theme. Playtesting was highly encouraging; but because Adventure was so broad in scope, it didn’t feel like the right product with which to launch our brand.

We knew we wanted to realise this product ourselves, which meant crowdfunding, and given the risky nature of that, we wanted to offer you a reason to believe in it, to want to have it in your game room, on your shelf, playing it on your table.

We began developing a second game utilising the same world and progression-and-battle system – Aethermon: Ascent, a co-operative roguelike tower adventure. It was this that we submitted to PAX Aus 2022 Indie Showcase.

We won! We spent 2022’s PAX Aus demoing and playtesting Aethermon: Ascent (or Tower of Darkness, as it was called then), barely able to leave our booth as we were so swamped with attention – we even won an Honourable Mention in the GamesHub People’s Choice Awards, despite the fact that our table entry code went missing on the third day!

But we ran into another problem. As the narrative structure had developed, this too had become a more ambitious project than we’d originally intended it to be, and while we felt ready for that challenge, we still didn’t have our ducks in a row.

We turned back to a small game Chris had come up with part-way through that first year – a set-collection strategy game that featured our giant roster of creatures, along with their lore, in an open-information competitive card game that would allow us to establish manufacturing links on all of the same component types that will be utilised in Aethermon: Ascent – box, cards, card finishes, acrylic standees, even enamel pins.

To make that happen, we have partnered with some of the best manufacturers around to provide a premium product, and built industry relationships to secure our logistics – read more under the ‘our partners’ section below. We improved the gameplay, streamlining the rules and points system, as well as adding a fully-integrated and justified co-operative mode, and a solo mode.

The game is deceptively simple, the box is ultra-portable – both of these in line with our design philosophy that if it doesn’t add value, it doesn’t stay – but we’re confident that Aethermon: Collect is the ideal game to introduce the World of Aethermon.

Christopher Ng – Co-creator

Chris studied game design on his way to a degree in philosophy and sociology at the University of Sydney. His career has seen him playing poker in global locales, managing prominent poker companies across Australia, and earning status as a top-ranked online TCG player.

Most recently, Chris founded Aethermon Studios with the ambition to capture the heart of the JRPG experience in a board game. As a game designer, Chris searches for intersections between accessibility and depth, and builds experiences to highlight their confluence.

Previous games include the upcoming and award winning Aethermon: Ascent, along with some unpublished gems Rise of Champions, ClickBait, and Space Junkers.

Sarah Whillier – Co-creator

Sarah’s professional background is in performance, including circus theatre, improvisation, and sketch comedy, as well as working with children. She has taught and performed on three continents – sometimes people have even watched!

Now she is a creator of worlds. Sarah is the main voice behind the characters, creature lore, and flavour text across the Aethermon stable … and she is probably the person who wrote the last update/email/this page.

Her previous work includes the award-winning circus theatre show Orpheus by Surcas, immersive theatre performance Heineken presents: Star Venture, and various improv nights at the Comedy Club Bankok. Oh, and Aethermon: Adventurers’ Club.

Fabio Porta – Creature artist

Fabio is our creature and character artist responsible for the 48 Aethermon, 12 artefacts and four hero characters featured in Collect, with further creatures as yet unreleased (ooh, how exciting!). Fabio specialises in fantastical creatures and monster illustrations. He attended the Watts Atelier in San Diego, but is predominantly self-taught.

Miguel Gaton – Backgrounds artist

Miguel is our backgrounds artist, responsible for the scenery on the Collect box, as well as the elemental glyphs. A self-taught artist, Miguel’s career has encompassed not just illustration but animation, including DuckTales, My Little Pony, and others.