Welcome to the Star Realms Academy, cadets! If you want to defeat your opponent, you’ll need to strengthen your space armada. If you utilize various abilities effectively, your fleet is sure to succeed! There’s no time to waste, let’s get started!

What Is It?

Deckbuilding (My 1st Deckbuilding Game) – Players start with identical decks of 6 cards which, when played, let them do simple attacks, and collect coins. Coins will help them buy additional cards – ships and bases – to add to their decks and give them more powerful actions (more coins, bigger attacks, drawing cards, and healing)

PvP – The goal of the game is to eliminate your opponent by reducing their health to zero, so players will have to attack back and forth in order to do so

Bonuses – Some cards have ally abilities on them which will only trigger when players have multiple cards of the same faction (color) in play – this can be bases or ships

Who Is It For?

  • 2 Players – This game is played as 1 versus 1 only
  • Ages 6 & Up – Great for younger audiences because there is no reading required as long as someone can teach them the rules
  • Players who are new to deckbuilding, or even gaming in general, because it has a small ruleset but still allows for a nice amount of entry-level strategy
  • Fans of light card games who want to try something new
  • Fans of the original Star Realms who are looking to play with a new and/or younger audience

Quick Differences

Star Realms

  • 4 factions
  • 5 cards in hand per turn
  • More in-depth abilities
  • Able to remove cards from deck
  • Can attack bases or player health, but must attack outposts
  • Money is “use it or lose it” each turn

Star Realms Academy

  • 3 factions
  • 3 cards in hand per turn
  • Only 4 different abilities
  • Can not remove cards from deck
  • Must attack bases before player health
  • Money accumulates and can be saved on your board (up to 8)

PROS

  • Aesthetics – This art is so cute, I love it!
  • Components – The boards are really nice, good quality cards, and nice little cardboard tokens
    • Additionally, the player boards help make everything very clear as far as how much money you have, and how your health is doing, and I think having that visually in front of you with larger components is a great way to learn the game concept
  • Rules – Well written; I think even if you are learning it yourself as a first deckbuilding game, it is laid out very nicely to give you all the info you need
  • Very quick, snappy turns

CONS

  • Sometimes the game can feel a bit short
  • I wish there was a way to remove cards from your deck
  • Sometimes 3 cards in your hand doesn’t feel like enough on a turn (the draw cards ability does help with that though)

Final Thoughts

This is a super cute game! As a fan of Star Realms already, I think this is a great choice as a stepping stone to the original, as well as other deckbuilding games. It is clearly intended to introduce players to that mechanism, and it does so well.

The few “problems” I had with the game are definitely minimal, and I think they are things that I want in a game (having more cards/options, being able to remove the less powerful cards from my deck), but since this is supposed to be a more straightforward play, it makes sense why these types of rules aren’t included.

For me, I would rather play the original Star Realms, because it just had a little more meat, but overall I do think that Star Realms Academy is a great first deckbuilding game for anyone looking to try their first one!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 7/10

Lead Game Design – Rob Dougherty
Game Development and Production – Danielle Reynolds
Game Concept and Design – Darwin Kastle
Artwork – Antonis Papantoniou, Guram Ahaladze, Vaggelis Manousakas, Josh Nelson, Shilapin, Agua SW, and Ramon Wadry
Publisher – Wacky Wizard Games
MSRP – $29.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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