Thea: The Awakening

 PC
User Score
8.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 146 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 119 out of 146
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 146
  3. Negative: 11 out of 146

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  1. Cablenexus
    Nov 23, 2015
    10
    As an older gamer I see so many games already and so many mechanism past my screen that it's getting more and more difficult to be impressed by a new game. Heroes of Might and Magic III was one of the first games I played and really liked. It was a turn based game with a big map where you have to search for monsters and treasures on a fantasy setting. Since that moment I played that gameAs an older gamer I see so many games already and so many mechanism past my screen that it's getting more and more difficult to be impressed by a new game. Heroes of Might and Magic III was one of the first games I played and really liked. It was a turn based game with a big map where you have to search for monsters and treasures on a fantasy setting. Since that moment I played that game it's my favorite genre.
    20 years later many games tried to be successful in the genre. The disciples series for example and the Age of Wonders series managed to make a wonderful collection of games.
    I think I can name another 200 turn based strategy games I played afterwards and many of them did a really good job to copy many parts of those games mentioned and with different succes.
    What confuse me now is that everytime a new game release in the genre it have better graphics but the game mechanism is almost the same every time. It's like most devs are afraid to take a different path and try something new. So for me the genre is stale now and streamlining, tablet games and dumbed down versions of many games released now doesn't make this any better.
    So here start my review of Thea: The Awakening. While developed by a small 4 member dev team they managed to be original in almost every part of the genre and without any compromise. What you get here is a fully rendered random adventure map every time you play. With random resources, random monster lairs and loads of other adventure objects. You can customize the difficulty of how you want to play completely. Like the size of the map, the strength of the encounters and even if you want to play in iron mode you can if you want. You are a god and all gods in the game have a different skillset which unlocks while playing the game. You start with only two gods and when gathering XP you unlock more on the run. The god isn't controlled directly but give direction to your small village somewhere on the map. This village is your main base. From here you start to send expeditions out in the world to gather for resources and to unfold the many, excellent written, storylines in the game. Those resources you use for feed your people and fuel your crafting system. There are 4400 items in game now and the devs plan to extend this number with free only DLC.With those resources you can almost craft an infinite number of items like weapons, but also crafting tools and gathering tools. You can even find other creatures to support you in your quest to victory.
    Your task is to keep your villagers alive, equip them with the many items you find or craft, explore and survive the region. Difference between characters is not only because of gear, but because of a comprehensive skill list as well. More depth then many RPG games you find here while building your characters. Those skills comes in handy when you encounter the numerous quest stories on the map and in your home town.
    When an encounter happens the game change is what the devs call a mini card game, but believe me they are way to modest. This card game have depth, is complex but easy to understand. It looks simple at first, but because the different skills, weapon combinations every fight turns out in a different card game you can easily compare with the big names in the industry. You have a card draw, a reshuffle option and you have to play it out very tactical to survive with two random elements. The stats of the monsters are different every time and the initiative of the characters as well.
    If you want your characters not get involved in a fight most of the time you have another option to play the card game a different way. Like a sneak challenge or a tactic challenge. The difference is the loot is less but it prevent your characters from getting wounded.
    I have 23 hours in the game in 3 days and I'm still hooked to it. It's a fresh new welcome addition to the genre and I expect some big AAA companies are following this title closely at the moment.
    As I said the small dev team, non native English speakers managed to make modern and fresh fantasy storylines within a Slavic Mythology setting. The artwork is really beautiful. The interface is clean, all 4400 items in game have a different clean picture, the map is a hex based 3D landscape with 3D character models all DX11 proof. The card game is more old style like an original paper fantasy card game. The stories are all illustrated with beautiful paintings. Another thing I recognize is that in every different type of challenge or fight the background and sound effects change to the situation you are in. I see many games from tripe A companies that don't manage this very well and this is perfect for ambience and really makes you love this game. I rate this 10/10 without doubt and advice you to read some reviews of the game on the better non commercial gaming sites like Spacesector or eXplorminate. And excuse for my bad English for this long read I'm from Holland myself.    … Expand
  2. Allwanz0r
    Mar 21, 2017
    9
    1. ''Ambushed by bandits''
    2. ''Starts flirting with the bandits''
    3. ''The female bandit leader falls for my dwarven warrior'' 4. ''They share a passionate moment in the forest'' 5. ''As soon as she is about to leave with her group, my dwarf runs up to her and starts to express his love'' 6. The other bandits give their shared blessing to the captain and she comes back with my group    1. ''Ambushed by bandits''
    2. ''Starts flirting with the bandits''
    3. ''The female bandit leader falls for my dwarven warrior''
    4. ''They share a passionate moment in the forest''
    5. ''As soon as she is about to leave with her group, my dwarf runs up to her and starts to express his love''
    6. The other bandits give their shared blessing to the captain and she comes back with my group to our village.

    10/10 Best love story ever and faith in the world of Thea restored    … Expand
  3. Kluge
    Feb 15, 2016
    7
    Thea's a good game - one of the best releases in the past few months. It's certainly similar to HOMM, but I think it reminds me even more of Eador. It's just a notch behind being so similar it's a clone. -So I'm just going to compare the two.

    First off, the story in Thea branching, short-but-fleshed-out, inventive, and boring. It strives for the same sense of absurdity and seriousness    Thea's a good game - one of the best releases in the past few months. It's certainly similar to HOMM, but I think it reminds me even more of Eador. It's just a notch behind being so similar it's a clone. -So I'm just going to compare the two.

    First off, the story in Thea branching, short-but-fleshed-out, inventive, and boring. It strives for the same sense of absurdity and seriousness in choices as Eador, and many of the stories are actually interesting, but I never really felt invested, and maybe this is more the mechanics of being able to pop out new units so fast, I actually would get annoyed whenever I saw I had new people to micromanage. This is very different from Eador where you usually only had 2-3 heroes (or even just one for most of a game), and rarely ever 4. Thea lets you bundle your people up into expeditions, but I'm not sure I see the benefit of having 30 semi-customizable units vs 3 very customizable units you've taken time to tailor finely - it certainly makes no contribution to my emotional investment.

    The writing in Thea has some very dramatic attention-grabbers in the little stories it tells. Sometimes, they'd actually shock me -- you know, I just didn't expect my normal-seeming folk to be nailing cats on their walls and sacrificing virgins to a roving band of rapists - it just really caught me off-guard. -So good for them on that, because it's an unusual accomplishment. I'd just be minding my own business hitting the return key every few seconds, watching my villagers collect nuts, and they suddenly decide it's time to take all the kids and put them in a gladiator-style death-match... what? Sure, okay! I hope the sequel will let me bet on who wins...

    The game is at the very least an excellent demo of their Honey Hex engine, but now that I've played Thea, I'm not sure I want to play many more games on the same engine without heavy modifications (it's a very well-made engine having investigated it, that said - but I don't use Unity).

    Back on-track... the combat card game is bad. I like card games, so I figured this would be right up my ally... but it just takes too much time for too low of stakes, and I don't seem to do too much better than auto-resolve, while opportunity rarely presents itself to lose via auto-resolve unless I'm so outmatched I'm screwed either way, so I don't feel any incentive to spend my time in it. -But I shouldn't need an incentive to play a game, right? I could auto-resolve in Eador, but I enjoyed being able to micro-manage there so I could do what I built up my army for, and auto-resolve was typically an awful choice.

    Content-wise, it's just lacking, and mod support certainly doesn't appear to be in the works to pick up the slack. There's a great base, and you see glimmers of an amazing, timeless game similar to Eador, but there's just not enough content in it. You play it two or three times and the experience is very similar but you have the opportunity to choose a slightly different ending. It feels complete, but just too small, like it's just a preview of things to come; maybe the devs didn't have the money to spend more time designing and implementing content, or maybe they didn't actually think the game was as good as it is and wanted to move on to something else to hedge their bets (I don't get this feeling, honestly - I think it was just a lack of time/money, which is hopefully resolved).

    There's a lot to build on here, and another game in this engine by the company is absolutely justified. -So I'd advise buying this as a down-payment for Thea: The Re-awakening, giving it a few playthroughs and then playing Eador if you haven't already (and I can't imagine why you wouldn't have already...).    … Expand
  4. gettingthere
    Feb 17, 2016
    9
    A worthwhile game in a self-made genre that is very ambitious. Over 100 hrs played now.

    Pros: - unusual game - a campaign style map with card battles within that and gods above that who level up after each game. - Levelling up the gods makes a big difference and helps replayability. - I like the card battles - even when you're going to lose, you want to work out which enemies you    A worthwhile game in a self-made genre that is very ambitious. Over 100 hrs played now.

    Pros:
    - unusual game - a campaign style map with card battles within that and gods above that who level up after each game.
    - Levelling up the gods makes a big difference and helps replayability.
    - I like the card battles - even when you're going to lose, you want to work out which enemies you can take out so that next battle you can win it because generally you will recover whereas the enemy doesn't.
    - very good support team - quick and active. Very very good.
    - bugfree (rare for a first game)
    - free DLC promised. (sorry, WWHHHHHAAAAAATTTT?!) I don't anyone who does that.
    - potential to become a series like Champ Manager, Europa Universalis, Civ, Total War.

    Cons:
    - campaign map can be samey - you follow a similar route to always - if they created a little more diversity e.g. through giving access to a random good resource near your base it might alter your tactics more each game. This game would permit diversity in a way that a civilisation campaign couldn't and I think that would really help benefit that.
    - getting all 3 levels of the game to work really well was very ambitious - the gods levellling up is great. The campaign map so so and the card battles good - not merely ok, but not great either.

    All in all, I think it's well worth its value for $20 and would recommend it.    … Expand
  5. kondenado
    May 10, 2017
    10
    A very good indie game. As some reviewer mention, s an older gamer I see so many games already and so many mechanism past my screen that it's getting more and more difficult to be impressed by a new game. Heroes of Might and Magic III was one of the first games I played and really liked. It was a turn based game with a big map where you have to search for monsters and treasures on aA very good indie game. As some reviewer mention, s an older gamer I see so many games already and so many mechanism past my screen that it's getting more and more difficult to be impressed by a new game. Heroes of Might and Magic III was one of the first games I played and really liked. It was a turn based game with a big map where you have to search for monsters and treasures on a fantasy setting. Since that moment I played that game it's my favorite genre.… Expand
  6. Macglower
    Nov 24, 2015
    10
    In an era of game creation where you either get a cookie cutter, or a marginally completed beta launch, the makers of Thea: The Awakening arrive on the scene to restore my faith in the video game industry.

    I've played decades worth of strategy games, from old school blizzard and Lucas arts games, through the heroes of might and magic roller coaster ride (that is still disastrous) to the    In an era of game creation where you either get a cookie cutter, or a marginally completed beta launch, the makers of Thea: The Awakening arrive on the scene to restore my faith in the video game industry.

    I've played decades worth of strategy games, from old school blizzard and Lucas arts games, through the heroes of might and magic roller coaster ride (that is still disastrous) to the occasional glimpses of brilliance that was from giants like Total War, Red Alert, and Warcraft/Starcraft. I've seen good games. I've seen far more forgettable games, and I can count on one hand how many games caused me to sit down and lose track of time playing a strategy game. Thea made this list for me.

    The approach for resource management is unique: you have a limited amount around your village, but you have to go out and earn the rest through conquest, dungeon delves, and the like. I found it quite engaging.
    I found myself relishing the victories of my band of warriors, mourning the losses of the fallen, and being dumbfounded when my small band somehow took down a dragon, losing two and nearly 4 others in a random encounter where they fell through a pit in the floor.

    I wish I had noticed the game back on Kickstarter, but I somehow missed it. I haven't been as pleased as I am now, however, supporting this tiny crew of game developers who put out an absolute jewel of a game.

    I will be looking for more from these folks in the future...    … Expand
  7. pazmacats
    Nov 29, 2015
    10
    Once I got the hang of it the game turned into my favourite strategy game.

    This game feels like a survival game. My 1st playthrough ended in total defeat. On the easiest difficulty.
    UI is a bit weak, graphics are serviceable. It's very cheap. Watch a video and try it. I was very pleasently surprised. Game's very hard and I Love it.
  8. Omika_pearl
    Dec 9, 2015
    9
    As an author primarily of dark fantasy allegory, myth, and bleak science-fiction, Thea: The Awakening speaks to my soul. As a woman, it's nice to see some grave lady deities represented - Mokosh being my favorite. Whomever did the art for this game deserves special recognition.

    So much about this takes me back to my childhood, poring over old books and fantasy accessories for CRPGs and    As an author primarily of dark fantasy allegory, myth, and bleak science-fiction, Thea: The Awakening speaks to my soul. As a woman, it's nice to see some grave lady deities represented - Mokosh being my favorite. Whomever did the art for this game deserves special recognition.

    So much about this takes me back to my childhood, poring over old books and fantasy accessories for CRPGs and the old artwork in the Diablo booklets. It has that classic, gritty 90's American pop-art style that will always be a part of my mental landscape.

    As a game it functions well. I'm a strategy addict, and a survival-game addict, so putting these two together ALONG WITH gorgeous art and serious mythological chops? I couldn't be happier.

    Well, I could. There are issues.

    - Tedious micromanagement. I'm not a huge fan. Some quality of life improvements would be great, chiefly, the ability to hit a single button when creating a new expedition and automatically supply it with, say, twenty or thirty days of a variety of food and fuel. As it stands, this is the single most tedious thing in the game, having to manually drag every single item and manually enter in the numbers. I'm old. It hurts my poor hand after a while, and interrupts the flow of the game.

    - Weird card game combat. Am I the only one who just clicks auto-resolve every time? Like, EVERY time? Even if I liked the card game (I don't really care for it) it doesn't add much to the experience, in my opinion. This isn't Age of Wonders 3, we don't have the budget for a serious hex field and some turn-based combat, I get that. It just feels like a waste of time. But since it doesn't force itself on you, I suppose it's not a big deal.

    Those are my only two issues, really. Some people have complained about the 'writing' being bad because the person who wrote this game's events and designed the world clearly has some incredibly MINOR issues with English. I wouldn't even call them issues, it's more like reading an accent, which I enjoy, as it gets me looking at my native tongue in different ways. "weakened, lost, and scared" I would have used 'frightened' or 'afraid' but they chose 'scared.' Somehow, I find that more compelling. It has a child-like quality to it. It conveys that sense of helplessness better. It is an excellent word choice, but I would have never done it.

    As a professional, let me tell you: this writing is exceptional. Some of the best writing I've ever seen was ESL. Why? Because of earnestness and enthusiasm, and storytelling. Atmosphere. See, the stray odd word usage actually spices up the world for me. This game has soul. It has so much obvious passion pushing behind every word and paragraph. This game loves itself and it loves its players. And with its sincere roots in myth, it can't go wrong.

    The orcs I especially like. They have this strange way of speaking with semi-modern slang. I heard one reviewer complain about that - I've looked. It's only the orcs who do that. Chalk it up to cultural differences. I found it charming, but, that's just my opinion.

    Buy this game, on sale or not. I have four friends on my list who want this game but haven't bought it yet. It's twenty dollars. It's worth thirty. Buy it.    … Expand
  9. ferrata
    Aug 31, 2016
    10
    Yeah, I don't get it. I guess in order to be a professional critic you have to take all kinds of nonsense into account when rating a game. My only criteria for rating a game is how much enjoyment I get out of it.

    I found Thea: The Awakening on Steam while looking for a new game to scratch my turn-based itch. From the description, to the screenshots, to the reviews, it looked like a    Yeah, I don't get it. I guess in order to be a professional critic you have to take all kinds of nonsense into account when rating a game. My only criteria for rating a game is how much enjoyment I get out of it.

    I found Thea: The Awakening on Steam while looking for a new game to scratch my turn-based itch. From the description, to the screenshots, to the reviews, it looked like a hidden gem. I picked it up and installed it straight away.

    I was so surprised. The best way for me to describe Thea: The Awakening is it's much of the game that Elemental (by Stardock) wishes it would have been. You, a fallen God in a fallen world, must guide your few remaining followers back from the brink of extinction. You do this by managing your settlement (domestic resource/people management with lots of options) and organizing expeditions.

    Expeditions can go out into the world to hunt, gather, etc. They can also adventure - visiting sites and monster lairs and following up on rumors. All expeditions (like your settlement) are bound to the resource system, i.e. your parties are dependent on fuel and food.

    "Combat" in the game is perhaps more accurately called "Conflict Resolution", as all manner of tests are resolved using the same base mechanics, those in the form of a card game. There are combat tests, social tests, sneakiness tests... all manner of things that some of your followers will be better at than others. This card game, at first, is a bit overwhelming and difficult to understand. But if you just bite the bullet and play it through a few times (damn the torpedoes!), not only will you quickly get the hang of it, but it becomes quite fun! The cards themselves are very well drawn sketch-art, and provide nice ambience to the whole game setting. And while some might gig the game for not having a "tactical combat system", the card game serves that purpose well, and allows for non-combat resolution all in one go. Brilliant. I would rather have a good card game than crappily done top-down tactical battles anyways.

    As for the story elements, thus far they are quite refreshing and imaginative. I'll just leave it at that.

    Amazing how easy it is to become attached to some sketch drawings. Last night, two of my followers died after a bad ambush. I was quite disappointed, and I'm really looking forward to going back tonight to see what comes of my people.

    I'd like to add that my Steam purchase included free DLC. The devs have a voluntary DLC contribution that can be made... something that I look forward to contributing to. I haven't scratched the surface of this game and find myself already clamoring for future content.    … Expand
  10. FogCityRoller
    Nov 27, 2015
    9
    This game is almost perfect. I think there are a couple of things that could have been done differently to make this game more visible to the gaming community, as well as presentable as a finished product. It seems like it was rushed and released a couple weeks too soon.
    Pros:
    -Devs active in the community and they release patches, hooray! -Art design is beautiful. -Underlying    This game is almost perfect. I think there are a couple of things that could have been done differently to make this game more visible to the gaming community, as well as presentable as a finished product. It seems like it was rushed and released a couple weeks too soon.
    Pros:
    -Devs active in the community and they release patches, hooray!
    -Art design is beautiful.
    -Underlying mythology (Slavic) seems new and unexplored in the realm of English video games. Education and gaming is the ultimate nerd boner.
    -Interface and game intricacies are delightfully complex. This is one of the few games I would say is not for a casual gamer. You will have to relearn everything if you put it down for a few days and pick it back up.
    -The card game is rad.
    -It's on sale on Steam right now.
    -No shortage of party customization.
    -Enough micro-managing to satisfy the compulsive micromanager in all of us, which I feel is necessary for a 4X game that requires this much attention to get a good grasp on the gameplay mechanics.

    It has an interface design that reminds me a lot of the Heroes of Might and Magic series, party maintenance of a classic RPG, overhead map interaction similar to a Civilization game, and a card game that is a more serious version of Gwent from The Witcher 3. Needless to say, this game has some absolutely delightful influences.

    Cons:
    -Came out a bit prematurely in mid-November when everyone was still creaming their jeans over Fallout 4 and Battlefront. It's hardly been noticed as a result and has enough areas requiring polish to where this wasn't necessary.
    -Endless supply of grammatical and punctuation errors. For a game with so much effort put into it, you do not want to see these so frequently. The fact that they put no spaces between exclamation marks and the next word is something I didn't even know would drive me up the wall eventually!Seriously. :P
    -Random starting gods. I wish it would let you choose the 1-2 gods you want to start with, and then unlock the rest later. I just hate being forced into playing a starting character that is not required by everyone and is simply random.
    -Fight strategies can become predictable with experience. This is probably the biggest downside so far, but very fixable.
    -Early bosses sometimes fall into the category of "cruel and unusual punishment". Kind of like getting hit the 10,000 needles attack in Final Fantasy when you haven't saved your game in the last four hours and having no warning whatsoever that this one battle is going to destroy an entire evening's worth of work. Yeah...those suck. :(    … Expand
  11. Romanul
    Nov 25, 2015
    10
    I usually don't write reviews, this might be the first one I do on Steam. What makes be "break the silence" is the pleasant and extraordinary surprise I had playing the game.

    I never heard of it until a couple of days ago(two days before release), I wasn't hyped and never heard about the company before. So imagine my surprise when I started playing the game: Fully random world    I usually don't write reviews, this might be the first one I do on Steam. What makes be "break the silence" is the pleasant and extraordinary surprise I had playing the game.

    I never heard of it until a couple of days ago(two days before release), I wasn't hyped and never heard about the company before.

    So imagine my surprise when I started playing the game:

    Fully random world each time you play, no handmade scenarios, no premade campaign. Sound scary no? On the contrary, they manage to pull it off. Each world is beautifully generated, no odd stating points or placement of terrain etc. Each game you play is unique.

    New lore: It's Slavic (or so they say) folklore. Is that enough to differentiate the game lore from the generic fantasy games out there? Yes it is. Just enough to keep you interested and too much that you have no idea what those creatures are and you have to either take notes or take random action against them.

    No legion of units to manage, each unit is one piece, it has more skills and abilities that any RPG I've played and when they die, it's forever and you really feel it. Not just because you cared for them but because it brutally handicaps you. You can't recruit units when you want to. If you're not careful and build enough of the right buildings you don't even have enough units to survive(gather resources and defend).

    All that micromanagement of units and building might sound scary but you only get one settlement in the game. That's right, you won't have a ton of cities, legions of units. No sir, one is all you get.
    The world (planet) is trying to kill you. Only once have I experienced this feeling and that was while playing Alpha Centauri (SMAC).

    A multitude of ways to defeat your enemies (aside from fighting).

    A unique card based combat system that is actually fun to play.

    Hundreds and events and quests that remind me of King of the Dragon Pass.

    All that originality for 15-20 euro. And coming from a small indies studio. My hat off to the devs. And a recommendation to anyone reading this to try the game. It's more than worth the price and time to learn the game (about one hour for me).    … Expand
  12. Aiven
    Nov 26, 2015
    9
    It's har to praise this game too much. For 1/4 the price of games like Civilization and the new HOMM games, you get a sort-of-hybrid between the two, that so far seem better than them. Yes I said it, better. This comes from a long-time fan of the Civ games, spending thousands of hours on 2 and 4 and hundreds on 5. Unfortunately they have not managed to renew the concept in a way to myIt's har to praise this game too much. For 1/4 the price of games like Civilization and the new HOMM games, you get a sort-of-hybrid between the two, that so far seem better than them. Yes I said it, better. This comes from a long-time fan of the Civ games, spending thousands of hours on 2 and 4 and hundreds on 5. Unfortunately they have not managed to renew the concept in a way to my liking over the years. While those games where revolutions in their own time, as HOMM 3, Thea seems like the new wine in 2015. However I am only 50 hours in, so I cannot say anything about the long-term playability yet. At least it's been a total blast so far.

    This makes Thea so good:
    - 1 village, perfect! Basebuilding always got tedious and repetitive in the late-game of other games anyway. It increases the feeling of beeing lonely and lost in a hostile world.
    - Great resource system! You can build a ton of different weapons and other gear. Because the game emphasises several different challenges in addition to regular combat, you want to have specialists in a wide range of areas, like hunting, healing, magic etc. Because of this your characters, that will multiply in numbers after a while, will sport a wide range of differnent gear and abilities. Resources are scarce in the beginning and the game always provides newer and better resources that you can reach for, while providing use also for most of the low-tier ones.
    - The combat system is easy to learn, but hard to master. The lever of potential for micro-management is very high, as in the rest of the game. Protip: When you have learned the system, turn up the animation speed (took me a while to realize this).
    - A limited supply of people. This means that you need to take extra care of all of them, to make sure that they survive. You can give them names, etc. By the way, your camp can attract members of non-human species. Right now my civilization consists of 24 humans and a rock troll by the name of Brick.
    - The icing on the cake is that the game seems virtually bugfree, no crashes, everything works as it should, like a clock. I've tried many indie-games where bugs take away from the experience, not with this one!

    I'll get back to gaming, this game is recommended to all hobby-kings and nerd-rulers. *insert generic addiction warning here*    … Expand
  13. Enosu
    Dec 7, 2015
    9
    I have been lurking on this site for years and never once felt the need to go through with making an account until now. This game is so underappreciated. Not just because it is amazing (top reviews do a good job explaining why) but because the dev team is fantastic as well. They reply to pretty much every relevant discussion topic on Steam.

    The ONLY thing holding this game back is    I have been lurking on this site for years and never once felt the need to go through with making an account until now. This game is so underappreciated. Not just because it is amazing (top reviews do a good job explaining why) but because the dev team is fantastic as well. They reply to pretty much every relevant discussion topic on Steam.

    The ONLY thing holding this game back is simply a lack of features caused by a lack of production power. The dev team is too small and poor to get all these features done on time. If this game isn't successful chances are it will be abandoned, but even after a failed Kickstarter. they continued on, and I am so glad they did. This game is breath of fresh air.

    After going through title after title dropping every new game since Pillars of Eternity, GTA, and the Witcher, there is finally another game that makes me lose track of time.

    The devs need your help. Please purchase this game! It's only $20! Future DLCs are FREE as well, unlike Civilization.

    I can only imagine what could have been done if that Kickstarter was successful; how amazing a fully realized Thea would be. But I'm still going to play the **** out of this game. With how constantly its being updated, it will be a long time before I get bored.    … Expand
  14. Cineck
    Nov 25, 2015
    10
    This game is turn based, tactical RPG. Think Civilisation meets The Witcher. Based on Polish mythology, very well written with HUGE amount of statistics, crafting recipes and random events. It's also rogue-lite so the learning process, admittedly hard, is sweetened by the unlocks and perks you get when your people die a horrible death by [insert a random monster or (super)naturalThis game is turn based, tactical RPG. Think Civilisation meets The Witcher. Based on Polish mythology, very well written with HUGE amount of statistics, crafting recipes and random events. It's also rogue-lite so the learning process, admittedly hard, is sweetened by the unlocks and perks you get when your people die a horrible death by [insert a random monster or (super)natural disaster]. I love it!… Expand
  15. LastMammoth
    Nov 25, 2015
    9
    Suprisingly interesting game.
    I can say for sure, that there are only 2-3 games this year, wich really worth it's cost, like this game do.
    Be carefull - it can take you out of reality for many many hours. I wondered when other reviews warned me about it, but it is true - I found my self sitting late night for hours, stealing time from sleeping. Just right many years ago, when I was    Suprisingly interesting game.
    I can say for sure, that there are only 2-3 games this year, wich really worth it's cost, like this game do.

    Be carefull - it can take you out of reality for many many hours. I wondered when other reviews warned me about it, but it is true - I found my self sitting late night for hours, stealing time from sleeping. Just right many years ago, when I was young =)

    This game gives anough freedom to play the way you want to, not putting you into hard borders . Many random encounters and accidents brings life. "Thea" is good balanced - it brings enough challange to the player, but also never brakes you in ruin. Many different ways an solutions to deak with.
    Game's language and texts are colorfull but very simple to understand, even for those, who is not good at it. Just like me =) And it don't overload player, making clear the main point.

    IMHO it is 9 of 10 ( if 10 is almost unreachable score for the best of the best)    … Expand
  16. Carewolf
    Nov 25, 2015
    7
    A cross between King of Dragon Pass, Fallen Enchantress and Endless Legend. A post-apocalypse rogue-like/4x-like game where you only have a single village to control where you can explore the wilderness for resources and quest, and try to rebuild your corner of civilization.

    Fine little game. Unfortunately it seems unfinished in the sense that the tutorial is weak and seems only    A cross between King of Dragon Pass, Fallen Enchantress and Endless Legend. A post-apocalypse rogue-like/4x-like game where you only have a single village to control where you can explore the wilderness for resources and quest, and try to rebuild your corner of civilization.

    Fine little game. Unfortunately it seems unfinished in the sense that the tutorial is weak and seems only partially finished, many minor bugs are apparent, and the game pacing is all over the place.    … Expand
  17. luksonije
    Nov 24, 2015
    8
    This game is not for youngsters, not because it contains nudity, but because it is complex. Good game, complex strategy game. Unfortunately filled with spiritualism and new age bullsh***, so it can be sold good in States... If you disregard the lying spiritual component, game is pretty good and complex. Strategy gamers and masterminds need to try it! 8/10 in my opinion
  18. masc
    Jan 13, 2016
    8
    So far it is a beautiful and great game! It is complex and a fantastic mix of RPG and Survival. I love this game beside it's shortcomings I'll talk more about next. I refrain from repeating all the good that can be said about this game and has already been said hundredths of times here in the review section by others. If you want to know more about why exactly this game is so great pleaseSo far it is a beautiful and great game! It is complex and a fantastic mix of RPG and Survival. I love this game beside it's shortcomings I'll talk more about next. I refrain from repeating all the good that can be said about this game and has already been said hundredths of times here in the review section by others. If you want to know more about why exactly this game is so great please read theses reviews. If the following issues I have with the game would get fixed I would rate it a 9.5 out of 10.

    Constructive Feedback:
    ====================
    1. UI Shortcomings
    1.1. General UI Shortcomings
    The UI is in dire need of some tweaking! The player has too much to click to get an overview and to do certain things. Another thing is the radial menu, it is often in the way of where I want to click leading to the click getting not recognized. Beside that I realized is that the UI is not consistent e.g. you can move your party via right click and drag but when you choose to move your party via the radial menu you have to left click on the target. One more thing that is irritating that you can't double click on things like towns and parties or whatever to open their dialogue windows like inventory and so on.
    1.2. Quest Information
    When hovering with the mouse over a quest marker on the map it should show a short quest description. Clicking on a quest marker on the map should open the quest window showing the latest information for that quest. Besides that the quest marker should indicate the difficulty of the quest like encounters are marked with skulls. Additionally the skull should be color coded for the different kind of fighting challenges so that the player can easily see that for example this one quest is a 3 skull social challenge and so on.
    2. Repetitive Art Usage
    Character portraits and character names get used repetitively leading to characters having the same name or character portrait. However, the user can at least change the name of the characters. Even better would be if a character name generator would be incorporated and if the user could use his own custom character portraits.    … Expand
  19. CaptnCavern
    Dec 12, 2015
    10
    The major leak of this game is that you can't stop playing when you start #nomorelife ! You can easily spend 10 hours a days on it for weeks : each game can last long, and repetability is awesome.
  20. GeneStarwind
    Nov 30, 2015
    6
    It's relatively fast paced, has good artwork, the story is solid, the voice acting is the strongest point in my honest opinion and it has a tremendous amount of depth. Play the game on normal or easier and you will see that this game is average at best. It is relatively difficult to understand the depth of the game, yet it is quite fun when you learn. ` ()

    ` Yet despite these obvious    It's relatively fast paced, has good artwork, the story is solid, the voice acting is the strongest point in my honest opinion and it has a tremendous amount of depth. Play the game on normal or easier and you will see that this game is average at best. It is relatively difficult to understand the depth of the game, yet it is quite fun when you learn. ` ()

    ` Yet despite these obvious strong points, the game is unbelievably underwhelming in terms of actual game play, and this is primarily due to the blatant and inconsiderate amount of RNG dumped onto the player. ` ()

    ` Playing the game on any difficulty higher than normal is excruciating. The RNG you have to deal with is unbelievable. 100+ hours later of playing this game (at least 60 of which were save scumming), and I'm shocked that you can't control the most basic elements of this game in the slightest. I keep hoping I'm going to stumble upon something or other that will change this, to no avail whatsoever. ` ()

    ` You are given no choice as to which starting resources you have, forcing you to create a new game over and over and over until you get a good starting set. This can and probably will take hours. ` ()

    ` Save scumming is a necessity in this game to allow you to get proper rewards for defeating enemies and for resetting the position of new resources that you research, if you are even given the option at all, which it seems to me is no longer the case. This is complete time waster and it is extremely punishing of common sense and basic game design concepts. ` ()

    ` You cannot choose which stats your characters receive when they level up. There are over 20+ stats, many of which feel completely useless (Animal Kinship, Attractiveness, Tactics) or otherwise totally underwhelming compared to the primarily useful ones (Gathering, Strength, Dexterity, Intellect, Magic, Will, etc). Leveling up occurs simultaneously and automatically across all of your characters and it occurs several dozens of times for every single new game you play. Meaning in order to get an even basically competent group of characters, you need to save scum over and over and over for every single level you get for a near perfect stat growth for your entire group, which will probably be between 10 to 30 characters. This-is-excruciating! ` ()

    ` You cannot choose which of your characters are placed into combat positions.... I am amazed that anyone would even remotely consider this to be an effective way to design combat..... ` ()

    ` You are forced to flip a coin for almost every encounter to determine who goes first, you or your opponent. If you fail on even the most remotely challenging encounter, you almost guaranteed lose the game and several hours of your time of progress in your current game. And even when you win the coin flip, you still have to deal with the RNG of determining how many cards you can play each turn, which can result in an automatic loss without chance of recovery based solely on RNG! ` ()

    ` You are not given a choice as to which enchantments you place on your items upon creation, almost 99% of which either have an extremely low bonus stat, even when made of the best possible materials, or have the worst possible stat you could get, making the item almost totally worthless for the intended purpose. ` ()

    ` Simple things like being able to choose what your starting resources are, your starting characters, your starting equipment, your character progression, who goes first in combat, which characters you use in combat, where your new resources are spawned, etc, etc, are completely omitted and instead replaced with the most bizarre, overwhelming RNG I've ever seen in my entire life. ` ()

    ` To top it off, there's massive stuttering in this game. It becomes more and more noticeable after researching a few resources. ` ()

    ` This is one hell of an impressively designed RNG simulator. The kind of simulator that prevents the player from having any actual control over anything going on in this game. This is not the way strategy games should be designed.    … Expand
  21. Mordobb
    Dec 15, 2015
    9
    Awesome and smart game. Not based on visuals but reimagining the already existing with a imagination and smartness. Don t expect stellar GFX. They are good and they aren t the focus of the game.
    Prepare to have long and uncertain games, and turns of events that can save you or make an already "won" game to a disaster...
    If your weak, you ll get pissed. No cheating here, smart settings    Awesome and smart game. Not based on visuals but reimagining the already existing with a imagination and smartness. Don t expect stellar GFX. They are good and they aren t the focus of the game.
    Prepare to have long and uncertain games, and turns of events that can save you or make an already "won" game to a disaster...
    If your weak, you ll get pissed.
    No cheating here, smart settings let stuff quite interesting.
    N
    really minor points could be improved and are being....but the game is awesome.    … Expand
  22. AardvarkPepper
    Dec 27, 2015
    10
    Thea is a good game of itself. It's also quite unique. It's not "perfect", but the more I thought about giving the game only a 9 -

    Has complexity? Check. But is it overdone? No, it's presented relatively simply. Has unique art? Check. Is it a bit cheesy? Yes, perhaps in places. But it is undeniably good aesthetics. Sound? Check. Music, voiceovers, etc. Replayability?    Thea is a good game of itself. It's also quite unique. It's not "perfect", but the more I thought about giving the game only a 9 -

    Has complexity? Check. But is it overdone? No, it's presented relatively simply.
    Has unique art? Check. Is it a bit cheesy? Yes, perhaps in places. But it is undeniably good aesthetics.
    Sound? Check. Music, voiceovers, etc.
    Replayability? Check. Customizable difficulty settings (plural is correct; you can change any number of things that affect your final score multiplier).
    Throw in unique gameplay, a bit of humor, and this is not a game that deserves just a 9. Maybe a 9.9, but just "9" sells this game short.
    Definitely give this a try if you're interested in the genres at all.    … Expand
  23. Hassanka
    Jan 2, 2016
    10
    Addictive game that mix civilization, Survival games, and card games together.
    On the first look its just nice, but after you get deeper, you realize its a unique game.
    Difficulty settings are really big difference. On easy or normal with save enabled, you will be able to finish first playtrough in 15 hours. But, when you choose harder difficulty, with no save (ironman mode) , you will    Addictive game that mix civilization, Survival games, and card games together.
    On the first look its just nice, but after you get deeper, you realize its a unique game.
    Difficulty settings are really big difference.
    On easy or normal with save enabled, you will be able to finish first playtrough in 15 hours.
    But, when you choose harder difficulty, with no save (ironman mode) , you will realize new ways how to solve problems and game became even more interesting.
    You are forced to play safe, and consider each move, because losing half of your party could be fatal.
    I hope there will be addonns with more missions or more endings, but game is very fun to play like it is now.    … Expand
  24. juanval
    Nov 30, 2015
    9
    Nice game that mixes the strategy of Sid Meier's civilization/colonization, the roleplaying events of Expeditions: Conquistador and the combat of a card game.

    The strategic: You only have one village in a medieval world. You can't do more villages/cities, but you can explore the terrain (there are fog of war) and enter in places like ruins, caves in order to take loot or fight against    Nice game that mixes the strategy of Sid Meier's civilization/colonization, the roleplaying events of Expeditions: Conquistador and the combat of a card game.

    The strategic: You only have one village in a medieval world. You can't do more villages/cities, but you can explore the terrain (there are fog of war) and enter in places like ruins, caves in order to take loot or fight against roaming monsters. In your village you harvest resources, craft food and weapons, and build different structures. You have initially 10 citizens with different habilities: crafters and gatherers will remain in the village, and with warriors and healer you can create an expedition.

    Roleplaying: Your initial 10 members have name and abilities, and they gain experience improving automatically their skills. During your expedition travels, you will have events (like Expedition: Conquistador), and after playing for a while appears an event related to the plot. In order to win you must complete the plot events/missions, travelling from on point to another in the map. At the end, I found a little boring this feature, you get tired of travelling from one random point to another random point. At the final part of the game, the strategic part loses importance and the game focuses in the plot.

    Combat: Nice card based combat. At the begining you will find it confusing, but after that, it's very fun and has a good strategy content, you must decide what card or skill to use. On the other hand, in one walkthrough, while you are exploring the map, you can repeat the same encounters (for example 1 blood bee and 4 normal bees vs your expedition) lots of times. At the end, when you want to finish the game, is a little boring to repeat those encounters.

    Thea is a good and original experience that combines nice elements. Developers failed at kickstarter campaign, but they have succeeded creating this nice game.    … Expand
  25. Weiming
    Nov 29, 2015
    10
    This is a great gem in the 4x strategy and RPG hybrid game space. I find this game much more enjoyable than the new HOMM and Fallen enchantress games in this space. One word of advice, to fully enjoy this game, resist the urge to load saves when casualties occur and just play on. In my current game, I started with 10 people in my tribe. Suffered some early deaths, but still managed to growThis is a great gem in the 4x strategy and RPG hybrid game space. I find this game much more enjoyable than the new HOMM and Fallen enchantress games in this space. One word of advice, to fully enjoy this game, resist the urge to load saves when casualties occur and just play on. In my current game, I started with 10 people in my tribe. Suffered some early deaths, but still managed to grow my tribe to 16 strong and managed to reach Mithril and Heavy armor tech. Now all I need to do is to mine loads of Mithril and than forge some Mithril sword armor and shield to rule Thea. But, while my Mithril mining expedition of 10 strong was thousands of miles away. A dragon lair spawned not too far from my city and I found my city besieged by a dragon a few turns later. Initial dragon attack wiped out half my people in city, I almost rage quit the game. But I resisted and played on. While rushing back to save the city, my expedition party also suffered 2 deaths from repeated attacks on long perilous road back home. By the time they got back, there was only a lone survivor in the city. Add salt to injury, all my crafters died in the attack. But thanks to the crafting hammers that they forged, I was able to turn some gatherers into half baked crafters and crafted some Mithril weapon and armor to outfit my warriors. The next time the dragon walked to my city wall, I throw all 9 guys at it and came out victorious with 19 dragon bone as loot. And some 50is turn later, I grow my number back up to 16 strong thanks to tons of cheap Cabbage fields and this time they are outfitted in full Mithril and are ready to destroy the dragon lair for good.… Expand
  26. night4
    Jul 7, 2016
    4
    Unoriginal ripoff of Civilizations with cumbersome complexity. I could deal with the complexity if the tutorial was halfway decent, but it's terrible.

    I've played free games on my phone that are more enjoyable.
  27. Rafotron
    Dec 6, 2015
    10
    An incredibly personable, meticulously designed and atmospheric game. Beautiful art, a dark story wrapped in Slavic mythology and a steel backbone of carefully interwoven card game mechanics coupled with rogue-like and strategy elements.

    One of the most innovative and special games of the last few years. Buy it.
  28. MoreBokeh
    Jan 24, 2016
    7
    This is a solid indie game with a great theme. The rough edges with being an indie are much more noticeable here with bugs, voice acting, and UI issues, but the game systems stand out and are strong. Unfortunately, the storyline and different gods don't vary too much to warrant more than one replay. But if you are a fan of turn based strategies, this is worth at least one to two games.This is a solid indie game with a great theme. The rough edges with being an indie are much more noticeable here with bugs, voice acting, and UI issues, but the game systems stand out and are strong. Unfortunately, the storyline and different gods don't vary too much to warrant more than one replay. But if you are a fan of turn based strategies, this is worth at least one to two games. Better than Renowned Explorers: International Society but not as good as Invisible, Inc. for 2015 releases. Strong resemblance to Armello.… Expand
  29. marc5477
    Jan 15, 2016
    6
    Yet another overrated indie game that should be closer to a 6 out of 10. It has potential, but as it stands now, it is just a lite city builder with card game to replace tactical or real time combat. It does not have anywhere near the depth of other games in its genre like Fallen Enchantress, Kings Bounty, or even HoMM all of which, rate lower than this game which is clearly an aberrationYet another overrated indie game that should be closer to a 6 out of 10. It has potential, but as it stands now, it is just a lite city builder with card game to replace tactical or real time combat. It does not have anywhere near the depth of other games in its genre like Fallen Enchantress, Kings Bounty, or even HoMM all of which, rate lower than this game which is clearly an aberration due to how few have played this game.

    The good news is that this has potential to be good. The city building is not bad, but there are very few things to construct. The few buildings however can be improved with better materials so that adds some variation but its still pretty dull.

    Research is divided into 3 "trees" (note that most new players will only notice 1 tree until they look at the wiki online) and they are materials (allows you to gather new stuff), crafting (weapons, armors etc), and structures (things you can build in your city). The problem is that the trees feel lazy... there are too many variations of the same material or weapon and if you take out the variations, you realize that there really isnt much going on there. The game boasts "4400" craftable items, what they dont tell you is that 95% of the items are just variations of a base item using different materials... this, in my opinion, is dishonest.

    The card combat game is iffy and not nearly as much fun as tactical or real time combat in other games. The card game itself is not as bad as say... Pizaak, but it is no where near as deep as other card games like Magic or Culdcept. For the most part, there are only about a dozen things you can do and the game strategy boils down to combat order and oh... its random who goes 1st in each battle (so it seems, unless you get the drop on them via dialogs). The idea is you want to line up attacks and defense around enemy deployment but its not nearly as exciting as it sounds especially since you know what cards the enemy has before hand and there are so few strategies to use most of which deal with combat positioning.

    The biggest problem I have with the game is the intrusiveness of the RNG. Almost everything in this game is random. Quest generation, enemy spawns, rewards, combat (some of it), and map locations. I have had many encounters in this game that were ridiculous beyond belief for the level I was at and unfortunately there really is no way of knowing what to expect unless you just try it. This leads to a lot of metagaming and reloading which breaks the fun and immersion of the game. Remember this is not tactical game nor a traditional RPG so it has to rely on story and flow, it does not do that very well due to the randomness factor. I also hate how loot is random. In one game, i played almost 8 hours before seeing a weapon drop, but I had almost 20 shields. Again... very random and sometimes it really drags down the game.

    The graphics in this game are pretty atrocious and look like something from the late 90s. But the saving grace is that the game released at $20 so I wont knock the game for bad graphics.

    I think this game can be better. It needs work. It should definitely not be rated higher than similar games in its genre, but it is a slightly above average game overall (5 being average for user scores).    … Expand
  30. cottandy
    Nov 8, 2016
    9
    This game is for the ones, who don't like sleeping at night. If you like it, you will spend many hours exploring a postapocalyptic world, based on slavic folklore.

    It's bot only a turn-based strategy, it's a fine mix of different genres. For example, these are micro-management, crafting, random events decision making and a little bit of other elements. And finally It has it's own    This game is for the ones, who don't like sleeping at night. If you like it, you will spend many hours exploring a postapocalyptic world, based on slavic folklore.

    It's bot only a turn-based strategy, it's a fine mix of different genres. For example, these are micro-management, crafting, random events decision making and a little bit of other elements.

    And finally It has it's own original good storytelling, fine art and differs a little from every game, you've ever played before.

    While saving the world for the first time, you may find this game being beauty. And this process may continue for a very long time, which is good. But right after finishing the first story, the game loses its replayability, because you will have to do the exact same things over and over again in a new one.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

69
#69 Most Discussed PC Game of 2015
72
#72 Most Shared PC Game of 2015

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
73

Mixed or average reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 12
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 12
  3. Negative: 0 out of 12
  1. Pelit (Finland)
    Mar 31, 2016
    80
    Thea: The Awakening offers an entertaining combination of crafting and card games, but suffers from poor storytelling. [March 2016]
  2. Digitally Downloaded
    Feb 23, 2016
    70
    Thea: The Awakening makes for something of a grim, low-power 4X strategy game that works extremely well with its particularities. Proper planning can only take a God so far as adaptability and luck plays a major role with random events that could very well lay waste to everything. While that's not necessarily always good fun, what it does do remarkably well in building the tense atmosphere that is quite unique for the genre.
    Read full review
  3. Games Master UK
    Feb 9, 2016
    70
    Ultimately, Thea's genre blend is a success, but basic, bare bones presentation and repetitious combat hold it back. [Jan 2016, p.80]
See all critic reviews »