Over this week, The DorkWeb had a chance to get together with some like minded friends and crack into some of the board/card games we’d gotten our hands on since GenCon.
We started out playing Megaland. This Target exclusive lands somewhere between a “city builder” and a Russian roulette style dungeon delver.
How It Plays:
Each turn characters try their luck collecting resources from the dungeon; a randomized deck of encounters. The longer your character stays in the dungeon, the greater the chance they’ll meet their doom and leave empty handed.
The resources that you collect are used as currency to purchase buildings, growing your settlement and providing valuable bonuses to your character. Some buildings are there just to generate more currency, while others can actively make you tougher.
What We Thought:
Megaland can be a lot of fun, its definitely one of those games that’s easier to get a grasp of after you’ve seen a round or two played. Megaland’s art just bleeds whacky silly fun; from the potential city buildings, to the design of the dungeon cards, and characters. One thing we did notice is that it is very easy to succeed in this game by playing it safe. One of our players never remained in the dungeon after the initial encounter, and they ended up winning the round! Aside from a shortage of incentive to put your character in increasing danger, Megaland is a whacky and dynamic ‘test-your-luck’ style builder that would be welcome at nearly anyone’s game night. Purchase here
Next up, we took a crack at Warhammer: Doomseeker. The DorkWeb had a chance to play this, albeit small-scale, while at GenCon. We couldn’t resist picking up our own copy once we got back home.
How It Plays:
Doomseeker is all about building up your Dwarf and slaying as many baddies as possible. Each player is randomly assigned a hero character and a grudge, each hero has their own unique ability and grudges serve as a special rule or objective that is meant to be kept hidden from other players. On the board you’ll find: a randomized deck of monsters increasing in difficulty and the number of players, a deck of treasures to help increase the power of your Slayer, and a ‘fate’ deck the players draw from and use these cards to influence their own or other player battles. Even after a Slayer is killed in battle, there’s a whole mechanic that allows you to bet on the other Slayer’s battles in the afterlife.
An average turn starts with the active player choosing to attack a monster. It’s at this point that every other player may try to alter the outcome of the battle in some way by playing a ‘fate’ card. These ‘fate’ cards can do anything from substantially decreasing the attacking slayers strength, to pushing them out of the way and taking the kill for yourself. A dice roll, modified by stats, will ultimately determine whether the Dwarf kills his mark or not. Additionally some enemies have special effects when they enter the battle or when they’re killed, offering incentive to kill one thing faster or just leave it be.
What We Thought:
In Doomseeker you are cast as a Slayer; slayers are Dwarves who have taken the slayer oath, much like taking the black in Game of Thrones. It means that a Dwarf is expected to go out into the world and do one thing, fight. It’s not ever a question about if the slayer falls, that’s inevitable, the question is ‘Did he die honorably?’ Now, for those unfamiliar with Warhammer this little bit of prelude information really helps frame the game up for new players. In our group we have two familiar with Warhammer lore and two who aren’t.
We’ve had the chance to play Doomseeker twice since our time with it at GenCon. The biggest difference between those two sessions were the players involvement in what was happening on the game board. Even just a quick explanation really goes a long way in getting players feeling involved and even roleplaying their characters a bit. We found Doomseeker extremely easy to pick up and play. There’s enough there to play multiple times and have a different experience each time, but it may not have as much turn-by-turn depth as some players might want. Purchase here
And that brings us to the last game of the night, Thunderstone! A friend brought this over and ensured that our night would be dominated by card games.
How It Plays:
Thunderstone is a deck and roster building dungeon delver all played out through cards. A dungeon deck is created and three monsters start on the board, this represents the three ‘levels’ in the dungeon. Somewhere in the dungeon deck there is a powerful guardian, the game comes to its end when the guardian is defeated or makes it to the first level of the dungeon.
Players are dolled out hands of basic weapons, fighters, and items that are used to make purchases or trades each turn. Characters can be upgraded or ranked up, and you’re able to supplement any weaknesses your roster has with purchased spells or items as well. Every round players will have the choice between heading into the dungeon to defeat a monster, or heading into town and making additional changes to their hand. Victory points are earned from monster kills in addition to holding certain cards when the game concludes.
What We Thought:
I think we were actually fortunate to play Thunderstone and Doomseeker back to back, because in a lot of ways they’re two distinct takes on the same kind of game. Both games offer the player a character and a horde of monsters waiting beneath a dungeon deck. Both games allow the player to customize their character by visiting a store/town and increase their ability to defeat these monsters, and both have players racing against each other to rack up the most kills.
Their differences are really where a player will prefer one game or the other. Thunderstone absolutely has more complexity to it. You’re building a roster that’s delving into the dungeon, not just one character. Now whether that means you start recruiting thieves, clerics, and supplement them with a strong armory of weapons, or maybe (like me) you prefer a small team of elite wizards bringing along a couple novice mage cronies, the choice is all yours.
This is where some of the downsides can rear their head. For instance, a new player may have a hard time grasping the different leveling paths for characters and the costs associated. Not to mention without prior knowledge of a deck builder like this, getting a ‘good enough’ hand to go into the dungeon can feel random. Despite these criticisms it’s important to note, we played this game for three and a half hours straight and almost couldn’t believe the time that’d passed when we finished our first game. We were all having a blast. Purchase here