Early Impressions: Tainted Grail: Kings of Ruins from Awaken Realms

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There are a lot of fantastic narrative-based board games but so many of them have problems in my opinion. Recently, I’ve been playing Tainted Grail: Kings of Ruin, and while there may be issues with the game that I haven’t found out yet, the experience so far has been phenomenal. Kings of Ruin is doing exactly what I want from a narrative base game. There’s great storytelling, fantastic experiences throughout, and interesting characters to interact with. Doing this game with friends or family is phenomenal and while it could be a solo experience I think it’s best with at least two players. Why exactly do I love this game so much? Let’s dive into my early impressions of the game, what’s working for me, and if there is anything I’d like to see changed.

I think one of the biggest barriers to this game is just getting the game unboxed and sorted. As an original Game Found campaign, the box itself is built for all the stretch goals and optional extras that was released during the campaign. It would’ve been nice to get a sheet in the box indicating what content was in the retail version and that specific empty spots in the box would be filled if you purchased additional content. One specific instance of confusion is that the additional character minis that were included in the stretch goals are also included in the bass game. However, the boards you need to play those characters are not included in the bass game. I believe this highlights one of the minor, and I’ll say minor, issues that someone might face when unboxing the game, and uncertain where to start or how to get going.

All of that being said, it only took me about an hour to punch all the boards, sort all the cards, and get everything ready for my first game. One thing I love about Awaken Realms is that when they release games like this, they include a how to play tutorial mission which has its own deck of cards, its own separate manual, and more. This makes getting started and learning all the basic rules very