While I was impressed with both the design and production of Elder Sign: Omens, I do have two small criticisms. This title is a great fit for the hardware. The icing on the cake? Despite sessions on the smallish screen of the iPhone, it was very easy to play, and I had no issue with the touch controls or how the acreage was used. From fedoras and flappers to undersea horrors and fiery pentagrams, the lush visuals are a perfect complement to the polished interface. Elder Sign: Omens is loaded with atmospheric artwork and countless callbacks to the various stories it draws upon. Not only are he play mechanics spot-on, but I was pleased to find the level of production every bit as good.

Such an addition was brilliant, not only for the fact that it faithfully represents the same sort of hopelessly foregone conclusions in Lovecraft's stories, but also because it keeps an intense level of pressure on from start to finish. In order to ratchet up the tension and difficulty in accordance with the source material, Elder Sign: Omens also includes several elements which force the player to evaluate risk-versus-reward against a ticking doomsday clock-every fourth turn when 'midnight' strikes, the game inches closer to annihilation if the dark ones aren't routed in time.

However, banishing unknowable horrors isn't as simple as that. There's still plenty of opportunity for Lady Luck to frown (and oh, she will) but clever use of resources can often change a loss into a win. It's a smart system of manipulation that takes something random and tilts it with skill. For example, each character in the game has a special ability that can often alter the roll of the dice, and there are several tokens representing clues, spells and actions which can let the player similarly defy chance. While anyone familiar with Lovecraft's work will know that his stories frequently end in madness and disaster, Fantasy Flight has included several roll-altering mechanics which give the player a better shot at success than H.P.'s protagonists ever had. It's a tall order, and a deathtrap waiting to happen. Tougher challenges often require something like three Perils, a Lore and two Terrors (skulls, scrolls and tentacles, respectively). A simple challenge will ask the player to get three or four Investigations, represented by magnifying glass symbols on the virtual dice. Each challenge has a certain required roll for completion, and some are easier than others. Since Elder Sign is a board game, it should come as no surprise that the way to perform these tasks is to roll virtual dice.

The ultimate goal is to defeat an evil Old One, done by completing 'adventures' which appear on the board. This museum is the board, and all of the dice rolls, card-drawing and result calculations that would be handled manually are now automated by the AI. The player begins by choosing a group of four detectives and venturing into a 'museum' where dark deeds are taking place. Seeing dread god Cthulhu rise from his watery slumber or meeting Azathoth from beyond the reaches of ordered space? I didn't see that coming on a pocket-sized touchscreen, yet here they are… and they're hungry.Įlder Sign: Omens for iPhone (and iPad) is an electronic version of Fantasy Flight's gothic boardgame of the same name. WTF Getting '+3 Doom' four times in a row for a speedy WTF Game Over.Īs a newcomer to the iPhone, I can honestly say that finding a faithful Lovecraft experience in the app store wasn't something I expected. LOW Needing just one more glyph and repeatedly being denied. HIGH Having an unbelievable streak of luck and finally sealing Cthulhu away.

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