Gateway Pipeweed (Portal of Heroes)

Once upon a time, in a land of dwarves and elves, where cats could talk, and will o' the wisps danced in the dark, there stood a magician.  Molthar, who cast a spell of darkness, until the Portal of Heroes would open up, and bring those who would stop him.  Do you have the courage to step through the Portal?

BACKGROUND:  Portal of Heroes was designed by Johannes Schmidauer-König
and Dennis Lohausen in 2015, and published by AMIGO.  Players attempt to gather Pearl cards and Character cards to collect points.

GAMEPLAY:  Each turn, a player takes 3 actions of any combination of the following:  They may remove all 4 face-up numbered Pearl cards and replace them; they may take either of the two face-up Character cards or draw one from the deck, and put it on one of their two Portals right side up, discarding one if they take a third; they may Activate a character; or they may take either a face-up Pearl card or one from their deck into their hand.



CHARACTERS:  Each Character requires a specific combination of Pearl cards to activate it, from a specific number of Numbers, to a pair or straight.  When a Character is activated, that player flips the card upside down, gains the Power Points and other effects now at the top, and puts it off to the side.  Some Character cards grant you Diamonds, or effects that are used before, during, or after your turn  Diamonds are indicated by taking a Character card face-down, and are used to raise a Pearl cards number by 1.

WINNING:  Once any player has gathered 12 or more Power Points, the game comes to an end by first finishing the current round (the player to the right of the starting player ends their turn), and all players get 1 final turn.  The player who has the most Power Points wins, with ties going to the tied players with the most Diamonds.

CONCLUSION:  Portal of Heroes is a nice little game that is obviously inspired by more classic card games and trick taking games, and wears that influence on its sleeve.  Mechanically, it has a lot going for it.  It plays smoothly, the turns are never obnoxiously long, and the amount of strategy to go for certain cards always ends up being varied for that reason.  The two biggest issues with this game are complexity and its theme.  First, it doesn't stand out as anything than generic fairy tales.  I've passed this game multiple times on the shelf without realizing it was there because it doesn't pop out that well.  The other is that it's one of those 'tricky to understand, easy to play', which is a shame because that will keep people from playing it without a good teacher there, and even then it might be frustrating.  Still, if you like Hoyle deck card games, or stuff like the Fox and the Forest, then give this a try.  It might take you through a portal of fun.