Divinus, a competitive, legacy, tile-laying, dice-rolling, digital hybrid board game, attempts to do a lot of things at once. Playing as a demigod seeking to gain the favour of the Gods and ascend to a new pantheon, this 12-scenario campaign leaves a strong impression, drip-feeding interesting mechanics with each scenario and offering well-written storytelling via a downloadable app. On paper, all of these elements shouldn’t work together, but Divinus somehow cracks the code.
So the story goes, Ancient Greece is being invaded by the pantheon of Nordic Gods who have left their destroyed world in search of a new land to rule over. This leads to an intense clash of the Gods, where a battle takes place throughout the course of the campaign, and you play as demigods trying to gain power and, eventually, ascend to become the titular Divinus. As you take on new twists and turns, you’ll gain favour (victory points) from either side (or both), with a winner crowned at the end. But, everybody will likely contribute to the story in meaningful ways, ensuring that the journey feels fun, even if you’re not the final victor when the dust has settled.
In practice, Divinus is a tile-laying game first and foremost, and that’s where the majority of the strategy comes into play. Every scenario features a clash of the Gods between Greek and Norse, and each will have its own associated requirements to earn favour. 12 tiles will be randomly placed, with four different terrain types and up to three different faction icons on each, and each player needs to build their own 4×4 grid, with land types connecting up appropriately.
Favour is earned in a number of ways; for example, a God might reward favour to the player who has the largest water area, and in Divinus, an area is when two or more tiles connect with the same terrain. That same God might also dish out favour to the person with the most individual mountain areas, but another God might give bonuses based on who has the most Greek faction icons. This makes the turn-to-turn tactics interesting as you collect tiles, try to build your grid the best you can, adhering to the terrain rules and trying to achieve the right combinations to make the Gods happy.
“…Divinus managed to surprise and delight our group with almost every scenario, drastically impacting our goals and tactics…”
Of course, just grabbing tiles would make this a little too easy; dice management becomes a serious thought process in Divinus. You’ll have a handful to roll each round, and the tiles that are drawn fill slots 1-12. The combination of dice can add or subtract from one another to acquire the tiles you need. If you want to pick up the tile on number 6, for example, you could use one die that’s a 6, or two dice that are 2 + 4, or even two dice that make 8 – 2. Once used, you can’t access those dice again until you rest and refresh them. So being careful about what tiles you need, what dice you have and what dice your opponents have access to is a constant question.
So, roll your dice, grab your tiles, build your grid, and make the Gods happy. Like any successful campaign experience, Divinus isn’t afraid to evolve and throw new rules at you, almost during every single scenario of the game. It does a great job of teaching you the basics of how the game works, introducing new elements at a good pace so that it’s not overwhelming. It’s always satisfying to place new stickers into the rulebook as things grow and change, but Divinus goes several steps further.
Faction icons in sticker form can be added to existing tiles, and different number stickers (and other powers) can be stuck to your dice to increase your options once you roll them, including super-helpful stickers like 3/6 which provides even more freedom. Artifacts can be acquired, giving your character abilities like refreshing dice, swapping tiles, or gaining other bonuses. To spoil more specifics would be spoiling the joy of opening a new box and devouring the delicious gameplay additions within, but Divinus managed to surprise and delight our group with almost every scenario, drastically impacting our goals and tactics, and forcing us to adapt. It’s very clever and compelling.
This is all before I’ve even talked about the digital hybrid elephant in the room, a downloadable app that keeps track of the storyline for your group, along with narrative decisions made by individual players. It also works to keep a tally of the ongoing score, which is a true God-send, considering all of the various ways Divinus dishes our favour. The app is primarily used to deliver dialogue from the Gods you’re dealing with and has a nice soundtrack in the background. I was originally miffed that the Gods aren’t fully voiced, but having finished all 12 scenarios, there’s so much writing that I understand why this wasn’t included. To be fair, I had a lot of fun pretending to be the various voices, much to my group’s enjoyment/disdain.
Apart from setting up the scenario, story elements will be triggered on the app when a quest is completed (additional challenges that are laid out at the beginning of each scenario, separate from God requests). That sets up each scenario to be relatively quest-focused, as the first player to achieve said quests gets neat perks, along with being able to steer the narrative in the direction that helps them long-term. It’s genuinely exciting to unlock each new chapter of the story, and with our three-player group (and usually three quests up for grabs), we all had plenty of opportunity to get in the mix. Beyond that, you can visit “location” stickers when you collect tiles, giving bonuses and extra narrative beats that add further to the adventure; they’re scannable, but I found typing the location number in manually to be far more efficient.
While several scenarios felt close in terms of our favour adding up, we did find that a couple of special abilities tipped the scales towards one player for the bulk of the experience, with them always leading the pack. Some interesting equalizers did make for a more nail-biting finish, but one of our crew felt like they didn’t have much of a chance as they didn’t acquire the best artifacts early on. That said, Divinus is thematic and exciting enough that it remains fully engaging and challenging, even when you’re not winning.
Overall, it’s nice to have a campaign-style game like this that is relatively simple in its execution, rather than overwhelming you with components, setup and hundreds of rules to learn. Admin is kept light, even during pack away, and a scenario only takes between 30-90 minutes, so our group kept things moving swiftly by tackling two at a time. I don’t have a lot of spare time on my hands, and campaign/legacy board games can be daunting, so it’s brilliant that Divinus feels light, while still offering plenty of opportunity for strategy. If you’re not into tile-laying or dice-rolling, that could make it less appealing, but every time we wrapped a scenario, we couldn’t wait to get cracking on our next session. Hell, we even bought the expansion; that’s how much we enjoyed it.
On paper, I was hesitant about Divinus, with its combination of mechanics and attempt to do lots of different things at once. But in practice, they all come together in an incredibly satisfying way, with twists and turns that keep you guessing and competitive until the end. It’s one of my favourite board games that I’ve played this year. And yes, I became the Divinus at the end. No biggie.
Divinus is available now in all good board game stores. Thanks to VR Distribution for providing a copy for this review.
About the Author
Luke Mitchell
he/him
Luke spends his time making radio, playing video games, binge-watching TV, getting unreasonably invested in wrestling, hosting bear events and hanging out with his beautiful pets.
