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Awakened Annelids (RootJam 2026)'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Creativity/Uniqueness | #14 | 3.938 | 3.938 |
| Use of This Year's Theme | #35 | 2.750 | 2.750 |
| Clarity of Rules/Mechanics | #35 | 2.500 | 2.500 |
Ranked from 16 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Includes Law of Root?
No
Includes PnP?
Yes
Includes TTS files?
No
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Comments
Interesting concept ! You really implemented well the choice of using worms as your faction, everything is flavorful. As some have mentioned, there are still references to the previous board with "Den", "Psychosis" or "Parliament", but otherwise the transition from owls is really clean. I do have some questions about the Tremor tokens.
What is the use of tremor slots ? they don't seem to be doing anything mechanically, and most often opponents return them to your suply, did I miss something ?
Do tremors need to be tokens at all ? They never go on the board, but or only given to other players, couldn't they be markers ? Or otherwise they could be cards with " Once per turn, you may give to the Annelid's player a card matching a clearing with Annelid warriors and your pieces to return this card to their supply". It could free up some space on the board.
Overall great twist on a "secret piece" faction, well done :)
Yes, it was a very last minute transition so I definitely missed some details ill fix post jam.
The slots just hold them. They dont need to be there technically but its more mirrored after the Knaves placeholder for acclaim. It can be placed on the side of the board and I may change that.
As far as their need, you score based on the number of tremor a single player has. So they could be a marker but I was just trying to use something familiar to root. However a card I dont think would work as players can recieve multiple tremors.
If the token terminology becomes too confusing it's a good point to consider while playtesting.
Hahaha what a unique and creative animal to choose and you backed it up with some awesome storytelling and mechanics! Super cool :)
This faction feels really ominous. They do a lot of redirection that could shape the conflict of the Woodland. Great theme!
I like how the tremor tokens become a resource that you manage with each separate faction. There's a balance between limiting other players' tokens (and limiting their ability to Unearth) and maximizing the use for yourself. It would be interesting to puzzle out!
I am curious how the Ruins interactions work for Nodes (specifically for the Vagabond or the Hundreds). The berry abilities say that the Nodes always count as Ruins. When a faction reveals a Ruins token and takes the Item underneath, the Ruin is discarded from the game. I assume you're still allowed to place nodes back on the building slots marked for Ruins? And what happens if all those slots in a Ruins clearing are taken by other factions? I know it should be a pretty rare edge case, but was curious how it all worked.
Thank you! I am hoping it will be a good puzzle of when to spread out to give out tokens and take cards to when to huddle and block nodes. While also having the puzzle of who to use for scoring vs card draw. My one fear is the more present factions being targeted more in a game than others, and that messing up their game.
The ruin interaction would be better explained in the Law, which is not made, but a Node Aide card is available. Essentially, when a facedown node is "removed" either as a building OR from ruin actions like "explore" or "raze," it is flipped faceup instead, but VP is scored as normal. Face-up nodes are just ruins that can still be explored and razed, but are not removed. They do not count towards rule for the Annelids nor as a faction piece, so the Rats would still oppress those clearings.
Essentially, they always stay on the map, but factions interact with them as normal.
That makes sense; no need to make it too complicated. Thanks!
I like the vibes a lot!
Interference mentions pulse tokens, should that be tremor tokens?
The draw step mentions Psychosis, which I cannot find a reference too?
My main worry with the faction, is it will likely get unearthed multiple times a game, leading to difficulties closing out games. Its card draw is also entirely reliant on enemy faction placement, leading to a dearth some games with intelligent enemies. Granted, I am generally bad at disruption/secrecy factions (corvids are my least favorite faction) so that may be partially me.
Yes, those are good catches. They were pulse tokens before I made them tremor tokens. So I missed that one spot for a switch. And Psychosis was originally synthesized, so if you do not distill during the Synthesize step, then you'd draw for discarded bird cards. I have noticed two other wording changes I missed that I plan to fix after the Jam is over.
I feel like they will feel similar to smol moles who are just in clearing to match revealed cards. You want to battle them away to prevent their engine. But with being able to leave the ruin clearings regardless of the rule, and the Thrum network, I think their card draw each turn should be decent. I have not playtested them yet, so I can't speak to how much of a setback being unearthed will be, but unless all the players at the table team up together, I find it unlikely they will be unearthed by a single player in one round. And typically players have too much of their own agenda to team up in that way unless they are scoring well or "winning" via the VP track.
But you could be right, so we will definitely see.
Really like this one. It has a very portentous mood. They seem really disruptive for the other factions, taking cards and potentially giving them other cards. Is that to represent the kind of unnerving vibe they have?
It started as a less portentous faction that was themed around being the ones who used "information" for the fight, eavesdropping and misdirecting factions with the card swap mechanic. However, when I saw other submissions, a lot mirrored what I had thematically, so I changed the skin of it. In this one, I wanted the worms, who are rather small, to have a presence that is felt but not necessarily seen. They are under you everywhere, so they see and hear everything. And they use that to disrupt alliances, advantages, etc., in order to stop this endless war. Kind of like a WA meets Corvids.