Trickerion: Legends of Illusion Review

The city of Magoria was known for its illusionist performances, and the time has come to revitalize the city to its former glory. Players will compete for the title of the best illusionist and earn the Trickerion Stone — a relic said to provide supernatural intellect, speed, and perception. 

Trickerion is a game about magic, tricks, and illusions. You’ll prepare components and participants for your illusions, and use poster cards to promote your shows. There’s a lot to unpack, so let’s look behind the curtain and see what makes this game tick!

Brief Overview of Trickerion

Trickerion is a Euro game with a lot of interesting gameplay elements. It’s designed for 2 to 4 players, but the solo mode is available with an expansion. Playtime-wise, the game should take between 1 and 3 hours depending on the number of players and their skills.

Trickerion stands as one of the more complex board games. Players have rated it 4.25/5 on the complexity scale, which is something to keep in mind. Don’t let the complexity discourage you, as Trickerion has a lot of mechanics that make it a very interesting game!

Versions & Expansions

Trickerion: Dahlgaard’s Gifts

Dahlgaard, the greatest magician to ever live, has prepared new gifts for his proteges! The expansion adds magician powers, duel of the magicians, and additional game components to spice up the gameplay!

Trickerion: Dahlgaard’s Academy

The great Dahlgaard has left his manor as a last-will gift, to be renovated and turned into a Magician’s Academy where the art of illusion can prosper once again.

Dahlgaard’s Academy introduces new locations, specialists, and magicians. With this expansion, Trickerion can be played in solo mode where the player is taken on a journey of power struggle with Dahlgaard’s corrupted heir.

Trickerion: Dawn of Technology

The Dawn of Technology expansion adds two modules to the base game: Contraptions and Signature Tricks. Contraptions enhance the workshop and provide bonuses for the player. Signature tricks are an upgrade over the standard tricks, but the catch is that they need contraptions to work. 

Trickerion: Collector’s Upgrade Pack

Collector’s Upgrade Pack contains Dahlgaard’s Academy and Dawn of Technology expansions and has room to fit the base game and Dahlgaard’s Gifts. If you want to get the complete game, the Collector’s Upgrade Pack is a must!

Unboxing Trickerion

Trickerion comes in a box full of magic tricks, but mostly the following pieces: 

• 1 Game Board
• 4 Player Game Board
• 12 Specialist Board Extensions
• 32 Wooden Character Discs 
• 8 Player Markers 
• 6 Downtown Dice
• 48 Trick Cards
• 40 Permanent Assignment Cards
• 48 Special Assignment Cards
• 90 Power Cards
• 40 Performance Cards
• 8 Magician Cards
• 8 Magician Poster Cards
• 12 Turn Setup Cards
• 64 Trick Markers
• 16 Symbol Markers
• 96 Components
• 44 Coin Tokens
• 27 Prophecy Tokens
• 50 Trickerion Shards
• 1 Trickerion Stone Turn Marker
• 4 Magician Workbook
• 1 Rulebook

For Trickerion to work as a game of illusion and mystery, the components have to sell the theme. After all, any stage performance has to wow the audience, right? 

I’m happy to say that almost all of the components in the box synergize with the theme and are very well-built. The 19th-century, almost steampunk design really suits the story Trickerion is trying to convey. 

The game board is massive and double-sided for different game variants. Dice are custom-made with thematic symbols and the same goes for the wooden tokens. The punchout cardboard is also solid — nothing to criticize there. 

The rulebook is 40 pages long, but 10 of those are dedicated to the names of all the people who backed the game on Kickstarter. Honestly, that’s a nice touch and I’m glad the designers took the time to credit those that made the game possible.

The playable characters are the only part of the game that I don’t like. It looks like some prototype art that somehow made it into the final product. I don’t want to disrespect the artist, but when compared to the rest of the components, the character art is plain jarring. 

How to Play Trickerion

The 30 or so pages of the rulebook dedicated to explaining the rules and mechanics are filled to the brim. Considering that, the best I can do is give you a brief explanation of how the game plays so you can figure out if it’s a game for you.

The Core Concepts

The gameplay is centered around trick cards that need to be learned, prepared, and combined into a performance. Tricks cards are divided into four categories and require a number of components before they can be performed, obtained at the market row on the main board.

Next to the market row, there are three more locations in the base game: the workshop, the downtown, and the theater. Assignment cards determine where you’ll place your workers, represented by the wooden discs. The workers include the magician, apprentice, and 3 types of specialists, all with different action point values. 

The player board is where you’ll place the assignment cards, trick cards, and components. The specialist workers I mentioned before need to be hired, and once you do that, the player board is extended with the specialist mini-board. 

The magician cards — your character, are unique and have a predefined favorite trick — something to keep in mind while planning out the game. There are also the magician poster cards, used to advertise your act.

Trick markers are placed on learned trick cards and can be moved onto the performance cards found in the theater (main board). Your performance can consist of one or more tricks, and by completing them you’ll game fame (victory) points and coins. 

The Magician’s workbook is the last important piece of the game. It stores all the tricks that can be learned and comes in handy as a strategy guide. 

Gameplay Breakdown

During the setup, players receive relevant resources and cards and get to choose 1 specialist worker. The game is sectioned into the following phases:

1. Dice Roll – Determines which downtown locations are used during the round.
2. Initiative order – Arrange the order of play based on player fame (VP).
3. Advertise – Choose to score fame by paying a number of coins based on the initiative order.
4. Assignment phase – Everyone chooses assignment cards simultaneously.
5. Place characters – In order of play, place characters and take actions.
6. Performance phase – Players get to play performances their tricks are a part of.
7. End turn – Pay wages, move performance cards, remove posters, etc. 

The end of the fifth round marks the end of the game. Players can now score additional points based on the assets they’ve gathered during the game. The player with the most fame is declared the winner, with ties broken by the initiative order. 

Your First Game of Trickerion

Your first game of Trickerion is going to be a challenge, no matter the board game experience. Grasping all the mechanics is one thing, but then figuring out your moves is a whole new level of complexity. I’ll do my best to give you a few beginner tips and tricks.

The rulebook has a “first-time” setup scenario, and I strongly recommend that you use it. It doesn’t randomize things, making the start more streamlined. The backside of the game board is for the Dark Alley expansion — save that for later once you’ve gotten more experience with the base game. 

One of the most useful tips I have is that the resources are not spent when you prepare tricks. That means that as long as you reach a required threshold, you’re fine holding off on getting more of the same resources.

Trickerion is all about efficiency and optimal plays, neither of which you’ll achieve during your first few games. So rather than stress out over not making the right moves, just go with the flow. The faster your games, the more of them you’ll play, and through doing so you’ll get the best learning experience.

Pros & Cons

Pros:

• Deep Gameplay 
• Immersive Setting

A lot of board games seem deep initially, but eventually, you’ll pick them apart and figure out that they’re not that complicated — just a large sum of simple pieces. 

Trickerion does not feel like one of these games and I think workers contributed significantly to the depth. Workers not being just tokens, but instead unique with specific traits increases the depth of the game immensely. Each action bears significance and planning is a must for a successful game. 

The setting is a hit or miss depending on how it sits with you, but I think they’ve done a good job with it. Making this form of magic work in a board game must have been difficult and I can appreciate how it all falls into place.

Cons:

• Complexity Can Be Overwhelming
• Playtime Can Be Too Long

If there’s one thing that’s going to keep you from playing Trickerion, it’s the difficulty. You’ll need to put in quite an effort initially to learn the rules, and the same goes for the people you plan on playing with. 

The game time should be 1-3 hours, but that timeframe can easily be broken. Analysis paralysis is a real thing with Trickerion, not in the slightest helped by the different worker types. As every move needs to be optimal, the time it takes to make the choices naturally increases. 

Trickerion: Legends of Illusion Review (TL;DR)

If you’re looking for an extra layer of depth in a board game then you might want to consider Trickerion: Legends of Illusion. The game uses well-known mechanics in a way that makes it all look like a fresh package. 

It’s a game for a more experienced crew, but as long as you have people to play it with, you’ll enjoy the challenge and engagement it delivers!

Conclusion: Verdict?

Trickerion: Legends of Illusion feels like a product of love, made by people who understand board games and know what is missing on the market. Trickerion is one of the few plugs in the ‘hard Euro style game’ gap. This makes it very enticing for those looking for an extra challenge. 

That extra challenge is going to make or break your games, and it all depends on who you’re playing with. Analysis paralysis hits hard in this game, and you can easily tell why. There are so many strategic choices to be made on a turn-by-turn that it’s easy to be overwhelmed. 

However, if you and your group are craving a more engaging experience than, say Terraforming Mars or Raiders of the North Sea, then Trickerion is going to be right down your alley. All of the extra layers make even the mundane actions more interesting. 

So the final verdict is that Trickerion is a very good game, but I recommend it with an asterisk. Whether you’re going to play with 2 or 4 players, talk with your friends and get them to check out the game before you decide on buying it. As long as everyone’s excited about it, Trickerion will provide you with an excellent experience!

We hope you enjoyed our Trickerion: Legends of Illusion review! Have you tried this game or played with any of its expansions? Drop a comment below and let us know what you think! We’d love to hear from you.