Thea: The Awakening

A potent mix of slavic mythology, a weird card game and “we have civilization at home..” makes for a highly addictive brew!
First of all, just to make it abundantly clear. I love Thea! This game is a great example of a project that really shows how much care and love the developers poured into it and even though it stumbles on a few aspects. Personally I really enjoyed my travels in the weird otherworldly lands of Thea where you encounter orcs, goblins and rusalkas while trying to survive in the strange world of Thea after a cataclysmic event seeped darkness into the fabric of reality. You are a small gathering of people following one of the gods of the Slavic pantheon trying to eke out a meager existence in a world filled with strife while simultaneously figuring out what is happening in the world..
The slowly emerging storyline in Thea combined with the rich slavic folklore is what hooked me to the game in the first play and even if I found the rather weird card driven gameplay surrounding “challenges”, as in everything from diplomacy to combat, unintuitive at first I quickly warmed to it. The larger gameplay is a weird 4x style of game where you have one settlement that you leave to go on expeditions with your best and brightest. There are tons of different classes to discover and as your village grows you will strengthen it with lone stragglers seeking refuge, weird monsters moving into your granary as well as babies found in the cabbage field.
The exploration and discovery of the world of Thea is what makes this world pop to life. On your travels gathering raw material and food to keep your village alive you encounter beasts, monsters and wanderers as well as landmarks and other points of interest that further the story bit by bit. This combination of resource management, exploration and quasi-roleplaying breathes life into the characters and makes you care about their trials and tribulations.
In the end this is a hearty recommendation to anyone vaguely interested in the slavic civilization premise. Thea: The Awakening is a great game for players looking for a great yet different 4X game that really wants to tell you a story with an excellent mystical atmosphere! If you are into mythology and folklore, this gets even more mileage since the slavic mythology is one that could really need more love, and this game really makes you appreciate the depth and richness that it holds.

100% complete as of 20 minutes ago.

This game has been sitting in my inventory for a while, and truthfully, I'm glad to have played through it. Some of the achievements are boring and grindy, but the vast majority you get from just playing.

It's a game that's fun for a few runs (and the runs can be long, most take around 400 rounds to finish a Giants Ending) but quickly burns out after a few play-throughs. By the time I was done, I was quickly becoming bored - but now that I have finished, I am glad to have played it.

This is a hidden gem. The individual components of the gameplay are well-crafted, and feature inventive twists on what is usually seen in these sort of games. They function smoothly together and make for an original experience.
I'm not normally one to get into crafting, but the variety of recipes and the tangible effect of the multitude of variations kept even me engrossed. Add in enjoyable party management, solid (often amusing) writing and a granular difficulty system, and it was enough to bring me back for multiple playthroughs - something I rarely do these days.

An exceptional turn-based game design, easily in my top 25 of games. The combat system is simple and brilliant.

This is interesting game and definitely feels "on its own".
It's a card game in the end. All battles, social interactions, sneaking, etc. are based on card battles.
You send an expedition to find some precious loot. You find some and may think, is this a good item? Or should I dismantle it in the town? Yes, in the town you construct simple buildings that gather resources automatically for you.
How else you gather resources? Well you have gatherers of course! The map is full of resources and your expeditions and town can gather resources that are no more than one tile away from you.
You have three main character roles (and more): gatherer, warrior, medic. They do well on their specific tasks.
Sometimes I am thinking what I am doing in this world? Just to gather resources and loot - for what? Usually my next goal is just to explore, and long-term goal might be gather resources my next building requires. At this point it feels a bit "gamey": To get "X", you need "Y, Z and K". And sometimes there is a resource "Ö" which is better than "K" - and you want to use it instead.
It's fun to do tasks but somehow it feels repetitive. I like what I am doing but I am not - at least yet - immersed with the world. I don't know if I have urge to launch Thea today. Or tomorrow.
I would rate this 8/10. Good game where you get your money paid off if you buy it on sale. I tried it first time 4 years ago, it didn't really hit me but now when I played it for 5 hours more, I started to understand its appeal. At the moment I feel it's "just" 8/10 because the immersive feeling is missing for me and Thea feels a bit "gamey". Maybe if I gave more time for Thea: The Awakening, I could rate it higher - it's a good game, with Slavic twist.

I've only played Civ like 4X games, this one was a very different sort and very very fun. You focus on a single city and exploring the continent. Instead of going against other nations it is the world vs you. The game is about exploration, gathering, questing, and random events.

Absolutely wonderful. I still come back to this game all these years later for the addictive storytelling, voice acting, 4X, choose-your-own-adventure roguelike RPG set in Slavic mythology. Highly recommend.