Age of Comics: The Golden Years

I backed it as an indie game that sold me first and foremost on its theme: comics, studios, and their golden age. Thankfully, it did not stop there. On the table it is also a lovely object, with carefully made components and the particularly smart idea of using cover-shaped pawns as markers for each of your creations.

Each player takes charge of their own comics studio and tries to bring new titles to market. To do that, they hire writers and artists, publish comics, and promote them. The basic flow is easy to read and thematically fitting: you build up your creative staff and use it to develop your studio’s line of titles.

Interaction comes through the shared market and everyone’s effort to promote their own releases, without the game presenting itself as especially aggressive or complicated. It is not rocket science, nor does it try to become some enormous economic system; it does, however, leave enough room for thought in your choices and in managing your studio.

It could perhaps be one or two clicks better, but I do not think every game needs to overflow with rules and brain-burn to be worthwhile. Age of Comics: The Golden Years is a pleasant, honest, relaxed economic game, earning extra points because it looks and feels so carefully considered on the table.