If you’re a little burnt out from playing the main Flamecraft game, or you only have one friend to play with, Flamecraft Duals is a perfect cosy companion that will fire up your day!
How to Play
In Flamecraft Duals, the aim of the game is to collect the most reputation points, which can be gained through completing shop cards. Each turn, a player picks a token at random from the token bag and places it on the board in a stack up to 3 high. Once they have placed their token, they then fire up that dragon: using its special power, which can change where pieces currently are, or add more pieces. Some dragon tokens are special dual dragons, which have two colours rather than the typical one, these allow a player to choose between the powers available for those colours, and also count for both whilst visible on the board. At the end of their turn, a player scores any shop cards that they can in their hand, if the pattern appears as the top tokens in any stacks on the board. They then draw new ones to replace those scored. If a player doesn’t like the shop cards they have in their hand, they can pay one coin to refresh their hand without scoring, although a coin is worth 1 reputation at the end, so this move must be made carefully.
Flamecraft Duals also comes with two expansion elements which add fresh new rules to the game, fancy mode, which adds new characters with rule-altering abilities, and The Fountain, which adds a blocking piece and even harder patterns to score. These modes can also be combined so even if you’ve got the main strategy down, there’s always something new to explore. It also has a solo mode, allowing you to play the game even if all your fellow dragon masters are busy!
Hot stuff!
The adorable dragon art by Sandara Tang ties Flamecraft Duals beautifully with its big brother Flamecraft. It truly feels like a game that would be played by the dragons in their time off from working so hard in the shops in the main game. For duals games, I am often apprehensive before buying them because they can sometimes be just smaller, less complex versions of the main game, with little added thought. Flamecraft Duals is not this in the slightest, it is a very different game style in all respects from the big Flamecraft game, but with enough similar ideas to make it feel related.
Flamecraft Duals is also compact and easily transportable, allowing you to play Flamecraft wherever you are. This is something that can be hard with the original, as the long play mat means it can be difficult to find tables where nothing is falling off. The deluxe version of Flamecraft Duals is especially great for this, with the board being part of the box and all the pieces being weighty so they are more difficult to break or lose.
I really like the addition of the dual dragons. Their existence also highlights the fact that this is a new and original game, not a scaled back version of the original, as there are no dual dragons in Flamecraft. As dual dragons can be more than one colour this really changes strategy as to block an opponent requires more thought, but you can also possibly score both your shop cards by placing just one dragon. Equally, the choice between powers when revealed is also a fun one that adds more thought to a player’s turn than just the randomness of a draw from the bag.
The Fountain as a game mode is an excellent addition. The model is really pretty, and I like the idea of a blocking piece that can remove stacked pieces. Its added patterns which are four rather than three tokens are much trickier to create, and this goes double when the fountain is there blocking a square!
A Slippery Fellow
I got this game on Kickstarter and I have been waiting in eager anticipation for it. It exceeded my expectations and has been a real joy to play. I can’t find any true issues with it. The only thing I don’t like is the plastic cards in the deluxe edition. They feel weird to me, oddly slippery, making them difficult to shuffle, they just seem to want to leap out of my hands at every opportunity. They’re certainly a lot more durable and stain-resistant than your typical card type, but for me, I’m just not a fan.
Flamecraft Duals: Deliciously Toasty or a Little Charred?
Flamecraft Duals is a brilliant addition to the Flamecraft family. The gameplay is superb and a really fresh idea compared to the original, but with enough throwbacks that it feels right at home on my shelf next to it. The deluxe elements are very good quality, I am just personally not a fan of plastic cards.
About the Author
I'm always looking for an excuse to buy more board games and writing for a board games retailer sounds like a good one to me! I am an especially big fan of games with solo-player modes as I can cosy up of an evening with a nice warm drink, an episode of Doctor Who and a friendly match with myself. When I'm not playing board games, or writing about them, you can find me curled up with a good book or trying to wrangle my chaotic DnD group into a session.
