Descent Legends of the Dark – Luke Griffiths
No contest whatsoever for my “game of the month” it also has a direct impact on my “what’s on my wishlist” piece too. A game that I have previously reviewed in depth, Descent Legends of the Dark is something that my friends and I have been playing for a long time now. As we have become more and more familiar with the mechanics of the game and between game crafting elements the group have just become more and more enamoured by Descent Legends of the Dark.
Developing your characters increases their synergy. Not just as a unique Uthuck mincing hero but with your fellow warriors benefitting from abilities too. Crafting items, weapon parts and item/weapon upgrades take some getting used to, but, once you’re into it the game really comes into its own.
Gloomhaven, that was our first session game, eventually became very easy to beat. We knew the mechanics back to front and could work them to our advantage. Descent Legends of the Dark is much less predictable, so manages to maintain a level of challenge that is tougher to play around. We still find ourselves worrying about who has been left nearest the enemy for example, but your enemy does not always attack the nearest hero.
Recent games of Descent Legends of the Dark have left me with that feeling I had when we first started playing Gloomhaven of “I can’t wait to get back into this game” and in that regards there can be no higher praise! A definitive game of the month for me, for definite. In fact, if you’ve given Descent a try and stopped as sessions can run long and you get a bit lost in what you’re doing I would strongly recommend persevering until the game becomes more familiar; a definite grower.
Quacks of Quedlinburg – Tom Basketfield
Heckmeck Am Bratwurmeck – Dan Street-Phillips
The Thing – Paul Websell
We’re in October, so I think it would be almost criminal not to have a horror game as my board game of the month, and so my choice has to be The Thing: The Boardgame.
Based on the 1982 film, you’re escaping from the entity known simply as The Thing. The problem, one of the people you’re playing as might just be The Thing, or potentially, it might even be you.
A hidden traitor game which is slowly becoming an annual Halloween tradition in my house, The Thing: The Boardgame is an incredible amount of fun to play. The goal of The Thing is to assimilate as many of the other players as possible into also becoming the entity, whereas the humans are trying to fix the base, escape, and crucially not turn into one of the titular horrors.
Me and my gaming group love playing this game. It can be intense, which is fitting for the Halloween season, it can lead into loud shouting matches between people (definitely only play this with people you’re comfortable screaming at), and it can reveal to you how good a liar you are, but there are not many better board gaming experiences out there than telling your wife that she is clearly The Thing and you will not join her in the armoury to search for guns.
With the right group of people The Thing: The Boardgame could easily be your favourite game, especially if you’ve been enjoying some Celebrity Traitors recently, and I highly recommend it whether you’re familiar with the film or not. Just make sure you stay away from Grandma, she can’t be trusted!
The Old King’s Crown – Dan Hilton
It is finally within my grubby clutches. I have been anticipating this game for years. Actual years. I was fortunate enough to meet the designer of The Old King’s Crown and play an older version of this game. I fell in love with it immediately. It secured its place as the first and only board game to achieve a perfect rating of 10 on my BGG record. Don’t believe me? My BGG is Platinum_Gamer, go check for yourself. I have now had time with the game myself, learned its updated rules, taught the game to friends, and most importantly: played it more. It retains its rating.
The Old King’s Crown expertly blends blind bidding into a game that sees you taking control of regions of the kingdom. The hook to this game is that your cards are not always safe. You only have a small deck to work with and they are your toolkit to interact with every aspect of the game. Each card is numbered from 0 to 10 (in the base deck). If you win kingdom cards in the spring phase, then you will lose that card to protect that kingdom card. This means that you will lose access to this card when it comes to bidding for control of the areas of the kingdom in the summer phase. And also, for journeying and governing in the autumn phase. And it is important to note that this card could very well be lost for the whole game depending on how you play. Cards can also be lost in the summer phase if one of your opponents play an assassin card. Careful and thoughtful choices are needed for every phase of every turn. You will outbid, deceive, feint stakes and go all in each round with the beautiful tarot sized cards. I could write all day about how absolutely incredibly well designed The Old King’s Crown is. And I will shortly. Stay tuned for my review that will be coming shortly. Spoiler alert: I have never recommended a game with more enthusiasm than I have with this game. You should 10000% check this game out. It is perfect.
Horrified: Dungeons & Dragons – Steve Conoboy
If the Horrified series was going to choose a month to correct course, then the spooky season is the perfect time to do it. You see, I’m a super fan of these games, particularly the OG Horrified: Universal Monsters and its sequel American Monsters, because from art design to game mechanics the theming was super strong. The last iteration, World Of Monsters, missed the mark by a large degree. In its efforts to become a Hub game where you could mix and match monsters and characters (not with every game, mind you), it became a mish-mash of random enemies with no clear theme. This D&D version puts that right.
The monster choices are great, the artwork is awesome, and there’s even a D20 integrated into the gameplay. There’s not as many route choices on the map, but I kinda like that: it adds a little extra to the risk/reward decisions that Horrified forces you to make. I’ve only had this for a week, and it hasn’t left the table yet: if that doesn’t tell you how I feel about it, nothing will.
It remains irritating that we only get four monsters: Universal Monsters came with six (seven if you count Frankenstein and the Bride separately). I can forgive that this time, however, because of the heroic effort to get this great franchise back on track. Oh Ravensburger, please stick with the strong theming. And let’s have Ghostbusters next! Or 80s classics. Or the works of Stephen King. Or a zombie special. Or…
