Cardboard Corner: Review of Etherstone

The Dark Crystal is a 1982 film for families and children. Jim Henson, creator of Sesame Street, brought his muppet-style to a dark fantasy world, spent a good chunk of money on puppetry and set pieces, and told a harrowing tale that will have even the most hardened adult squirming with emotion. One of the reasons for this is the film's baddies, the skeksis, anthropomorphized vultures who cackle and gloat while competing among themselves to suck the souls from the film's elfen heroes. The 2025 board game Etherstone gives me skeksis vibes. <cue cackling glee>

Both strategic and tactical, Etherstone is an engine building game for 2-4 players that is not multi-player solitaire. There is a small but important degree of interaction that forces players to pay attention to game-state as a whole. How it plays is, after a one-time card draft, players take turns drafting dice, collecting etherstones, playing cards to their engine, triggering card effects, and attacking NPCs, all in an effort to build the best points engine. The player with the most points when there are no more points in the pool, wins.

There are important differences which I will discuss in a moment, but to set a baseline: Etherstone sits at the precise midpoint between Vale of Eternity and Seasons. At 15-20 minutes per player, it's a bit longer than Vale and a bit shorter than Seasons. There is dice drafting, but the dice are standard, six-sided dice, not the custom dice a la Seasons. There is card drafting, but it occurs once at the beginning of the game (unlike Vale which occurs each round) and does not require players to plan out which cards will be available per round (a la Seasons). All cards drafted are available from the beginning of the game, meaning it's up to the player to decide how and when to spend their resources for maximum benefit playing said cards. And lastly, each game has a visible timer. For Vale, it's ten rounds. For Seasons, it's three years. And for Etherstone it's when the points pool is empty.

But as mentioned, there are several elements distinguishing Etherstone from those two games. One, gameplay is based around leaders (avatars). At the beginning of a game, players will take two leader cards, choose one, and play a strategy around that leader's special ability the rest of the game. Along with their special ability, each leader likewise provides unique starting bonuses and pool of health. Two, enemies are available at the center of the table for any player to attack. These enemies attack back, damaging the leader's health pool, but provide large bonuses, giving the player a boost. A leader with zero health does not mean the game ends for that player, but they do need to make a void pact to re-enter the game, to the tune of -7 points in the final tally.

The third difference is deserving of its own paragraph given how significantly it colors Etherstone. Players, depending on the cards active in their engine, can likewise deal damage to one another. It's possible for one player to knock another to zero health, inflicting the negative points penalty. This possibility makes for a more aggressive, conflict-y style of game than Vale and Seasons—not a huge amount, but definitely to be considered. Players focus primarily on their card/points engine, but they must likewise keep the corner of their eye open for what opponents are doing. Also, during the card drafting phase at setup, players need to pay attention. Is somebody drafting more than their share of take-that cards? Do I have enough health regeneration? It's interesting, interactive game space many engine builders do not have.

The fourth and last difference discussed here takes us back to The Dark Crystal: art and style. I'm not a fan of the art of Vale of Eternity. It's generic slush. Seasons, to its credit, tries to do something unique. But it still comes across as weak fluff. Etherstone is neither generic or fluffy. It digs into the aforementioned mind games and the little stabs and jabs players take at one another by offering card art featuring dark and twisted creatures and scenes. It gives me the feeling of sitting around a table with the skeksis from The Dark Crystal. Each of us is tweaking and fiddling with our cards, cackling and plotting the next move we are convinced will give us the edge. And then I play this, and they're not prepared, no, not prepared. Drink their essence!

Before closing this review, one final point: the replayability of Etherstone. Short version, it's superb. Longer version, there are thirteen leader cards, of which a maximum of four are used per game. Plenty to explore. Of the entity cards (cards used to build the player's engine), there are seventy-five. Only twenty-eight are used in a four-player game, leaving a large number for future games. Stack on top of this the myriad combinations among those twenty-eight, let alone seventy-five, and there's A LOT of game in the box.

In the end, Etherstone is a fun, solid game with staying power. It has a steep but short learning curve, i.e. one game is needed to make a huge number of mistakes before getting your full cackle on. The player aids are immensely helpful for this, and once settled, the game becomes genuine strategy with a degree of interaction that can be a touch mean but not enough to derail fun. In fact, in the era of Euro solitaire, the game is refreshing for the player interaction it offers. The art is superb—something esoteric and twisted yet not graphic or offensive. The components are likewise excellent—not too much and not too little, and good quality all around. If you are a fan of games like Vale of Eternity and Seasons, this is a no-brainer. Etherstone draws similarities but brings its own style and unique elements tot he table. And the game has depth. The more players play, the more they realize what is critical to setting your opponents back while pushing yourself forward. An experienced player will always crush a newbie. Essence, drink her essence!!