What, you may ask, is Glim? It’s the latest game designed by Keith Baker and Jennifer Ellis—a dice game that draws you into the intrigues of a fantasy world. In 2023 we made a strange discovery at an estate sale: a crumbling copy of an old game that dealt with fairies at war over the resources of a mystic realm. Intrigued, we updated the components and rules, and the result is Glim.
… OK, that’s actually just a story. The truth is that we were approached by Gregg Hale—one of the creators of The Blair Witch Project—who told us about The Emerald Anvil, a project that explores the mystical world of Hada through multiple forms of media. Black Velvet Fairies is a podcast based around the discovery of mysterious artifacts. Journey to Hada is an upcoming novel. We wanted to follow in the footsteps of Illimat and create a game that felt like it was an artifact of an alien world. Glim is the result.
In designing Glim, we focused on making a game that’s easily accessible. The core mechanics are simple: there are six resources in play. You roll dice, match them with resources, and based on your roll choose how to allocate your limited influence to those resources. Once all players are out of influence, they collect the cards they have won and six new resources are dealt to the table and a new round begins. Each resource card has a Glim value; at the end of three rounds, whoever has gathered the most Glim is the winner. That’s the foundation of the game—easy to grasp and to start play. But there’s many elements that add compelling strategic options to the experience.
At the start of the game, each player chooses a Dominion—one of the major forces in the world of Hada. Each Dominion has two champions to choose from. This choice of champion gives the player two starting tactics they can use—determining how many dice they roll when placing influence and what other tricks they can use—shifting influence or forcing plays by other players. At the end of each round, the players collect Resource cards—and each Resource provides a new tactic or tool that can be employed in subsequent rounds. So the opening round is quick and simple… but each round that follows provides deeper strategies and options. The goal of the game is to collect the most Glim, but the resources with the most powerful abilities often have the lowest Glim value. And then there are the dice themselves—eight-sided dice from the world of Hada, they have different odds for what they roll; choosing your dice can be a key strategic decision.
So Glim is easy to learn, but the shifting combinations of Dominion and Resource make every session unique. Beyond that, as with Illimat, our goal was to make something that feels like a beautiful artifact. It uses a cloth board, unique eight sided dice, and stunning artwork by artist Ren Lindroos—drawing players into the magical world of Hada.
Glim is now available on Kickstarter. We don’t yet know if the game will be available in retail; it’s possible that this will be the only way to obtain it, so if you’re interested in Glim, this is your chance. Twogether Studios designed Glim, but we are not running the Kickstarter or publishing the game. You can ask me questions about gameplay, but all other questions should be directed toward the Emerald Anvil via the Kickstarter page!