This makes the centre of the table, the general area where players acquire new cards, look all the more impressive. It’s the place where the coveted beasts can be found, with up to 12 available per round, depending on the number of players. Here you will also find personnel who can be used to change the characteristics of the beasts and cages as well as to achieve one-off effects.

There are also traders who can be used to sell beasts. This is more necessary than you might think, as maintaining the beasts is expensive and using different cards also costs money. However, the most important cards besides the beasts are the diplomats, who can be used each round to assess your own beast exhibition. Each diplomat has their own preferences, and only if these are met by the beasts in the best possible way can large profits be made.

The general supply is completed by a quest deck for special missions and new environments (cages) for additional beasts. Finally, there is a supply of ore, the currency in Aterra, and King's Medals, which are awarded and used during the game but also generate victory points at the end.

Each round, this general supply is refilled so that a rich selection of cards is available. But of course, not every card is equally good for your own purposes. As already mentioned, diplomats favour different characteristics of the beasts. And there are quite a few of these: in addition to their origin, these include their eating habits, the element in which the beast feels at home, the species and whether they are active during the day or during the night. The beasts are therefore full of different symbols that mark those various features. This is a little confusing at the beginning , but it becomes clear quite quickly as the game progresses, as the symbols can also be found on all other cards. It's not just the diplomats who have their preferences, but also the rest of the staff.

The cards are distributed in the next phase of the game. For this you use your workers as not every place is for free. Each card has a slot for a worker. If you have no more workers available but want to acquire more cards, you can relocate your workers, but, of course, this is expensive.

In the next phases, we can then deploy our various staff, introduce new beasts to our environments and influence them through our personnel. Many of our actions have a one-off effect, but also impact the final scoring. For example, each trade earns ore immediately but also victory points at the end of the game, depending on the respective trader.

Beasts & Diplomacy is the debut work of Mike Kribel, a father of five children, who spent almost two years presenting the game at various trade fairs and incorporating the various feedback into the further development. The result is a successful, innovative card game that almost feels like a board game, as it fills even large tables when played with a full complement of players.

The game is almost complete at this stage and even includes a simpler family mode and a solo variant. The Kickstarter campaign will therefore more or less just be that the finishing touches. For me, it's also impressive how far AI has come in terms of generating impressive graphics. Of course, it's not everyone's cup of tea, but operating AI software is still very much a craft at the moment, at least if you want the results to be consistent.