Keltis Oracle is the ‘sequel’ to Keltis. It is the same game with a different board. That is, if you read the Keltis review, you are pretty much equipped to play Keltis Oracle with a few minor adjustments. Interestingly, I found Keltis Oracle to be a bit more fun and a bit more intuitive to play. Not a whole lot, but the comparison was enough.

Gameplay

So, much like its predecessor Keltis Oracle is progressed by playing cards in an increasing or decreasing order. Unlike original Keltis, you won’t be progressing pieces along columns but along a singular spiral. The stones of that spiral are arranged in a randomised order of colour, which means that the type of coloured tile that you play will move a piece to the next available tile of that colour. This creates a different dynamic in terms of strategy, because the pieces that you can progress will vary quite a lot and you can make interesting choices around that.

The way that you can obtain points in Keltis Oracle is a little more diverse as well. Firstly, there are a number of stones around the spiral that have celtic knots on them and a points value. You gain those points when you land on those stones. Magic stones make a return in this game and collecting them contribute to various points. You can also collect mirrors that multiply the points you can earn from the collected stones. You can also collect points by having all your pieces on leprechaun tiles at the same time (you gain 5 points for each different leprechaun tile you are on, to a maximum of 15). The last way to gain points is really useful if you have a piece that’s flagging. There is an oracle piece that can be moved instead of your own pieces. When it lands on a stone where your piece is you gain five points.

Beyond points scoring tiles like the leprechaun tiles have tactical advantages. Leprechauns can also allow you to remove a tile from an ascending or descending sequence and swap it out for something more useful. Clover tiles allow you to advance a piece to a stone relevant to the colour of that clover. Lastly, spiral tiles allow you to move backwards up to a certain point. Using these in combination you can advance or regress your pieces in ways that maximise a single move.

Implementation

As I said earlier. I think of the two games, Oracle is the stronger of the two. The idea of a race to the middle is much more intuitive and it’s much more apparent who is winning. There is simply the sense that this game has taken some good ideas from Keltis and expanded upon it in clever ways.

The same level of design and development that went into the HD version of Keltis can also be found here. So the comments and critiques that were made of Keltis are just as applicable here. In other words, the game has a serviceable user interface, the graphics are adequate, and the artificial intelligence is acceptable. So nothing amazing but they do the job. One thing you will notice however is that there is no online multiplayer support. The game is clearly designed to be played as a tabletop game, or a pass’n'play. Amusingly, the board of the game is such that you don’t really need to rotate the board to play. It works just as well in portrait as in landscape mode.

Verdict

6/10: While I gave a 6/10 for Keltis and have said this one is better. I’d probably say this is closer to a 6.2 maybe. So not quite worth that next star in my opinion but will definitely amuse you for longer.