W.D.R.

W.D.R. has been gaming since 1982. He resides in the Kansas City area. He is originally from Kentucky which explains his accent.

Game Night Blog Carnival: Thunderstone

 Reviews  No Responses »
Jan 312012
 

Welcome to the new Game Night Blog Carnival! This is a feature we’re doing once a month with a few other RPG blogs. If you have an RPG blog, and would like to participate, check out the FAQ at the main Game Night page.
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[Full Disclosure: We here at Undergopger Central received a free copy of Thunderstone for review purposes.]

Thunderstone

Image Copyright AEG

This month I will be reviewing Thunderstone from AEG. Thunderstone is, to quote the box, a deckbuilding game of fantasy adventure. Because of the theme I refer to Thunderstone as red box Dominion. Those of you that started with Basic D&D back in the eighties will see why. The idea of the game is to build a deck of Heros and equipment that will allow you to defeat monsters in the Dungeon Hall. Defeating monsters gives you xp and victory points. Xp allows you to advance Hero cards to higher levels. The theme is certainly one that will appeal to fantasy role players and deckbuilding games attract CCG players.

Image Copyright AEG

The first thing I noticed when unboxing Thunderstone was that the instruction book is pretty thick and I became concerned about the complexity of the game. That was proved to be an unfounded concern after reading the instructions. They are very thorough and contain several examples of play, which is always helpful. There is a plastic insert in the box to hold the cards. I consider this a requirement for a deck building game that uses several seperate stacks of cards. When unwrapping the cards I found my hands covered in what appeared to be glitter. I guess the coating used on the cards was flaking of that there were residual flakes from the manufacturing process. Other that making me look like a stripper had exploded on me, the cards are fairly sturdy and the art by Jason Engle is great. The art on the cards really helps set the tone and feel of the game. It does take a while to get all the decks divided up but fourtunately it only needs to be done once. There are dividers provided to seperate decks while in the box. The dividers are slightly larger than the rest of the cards help you see where one deck begins and ends. The dividers have the same design on both sides as the back of the cards. I really think that the dividers would work better if they were more noticeably different from regular card backs. The could be a touch larger as well but I don’t think that would help as much as a significant color change.

The game is set up in three areas: Dungeon Hall, Hero cards, and the Village. Xp and Disease cards are placed to the side of this set up, which is well illustrated in the instructions. On a players turn there are three options that affect what actions can be taken. A player can choose to visit the Village, enter the Dungeon , or Rest. Visiting the village allows the player to buy cards and level up heroes. Entering the Dungeon is where monsters can be fought for XP. There is a really cool aspect to the Dungeon, which is composed of three cards each representing a deeper level of the Dungeon. You can attack any of the monsters but the deeper they are in the Dungeon the more light sources are required to attack without penalty. As monsters are defeated they remaining ones move up a level and the deepest level is restocked from the Dungeon deck. The endgame mechanic is the Thunderstone its self which is shuffled into the last ten cards of the Dungeon deck. When the Thunderstone reaches the first level of the Dungeon the game ends. Resting allows a player to destroy a card in his hand culling it from the game. So that is basically the game.

Image Copyright AEG

We found that when we played Thunderstone with 2 players that the game can easily get out of hand if one player has a particularly successful turn or two early on in the game. I beat 8one6 by 54 points one game. It was brutal. The game seems to balance better with more players. I have been told that Thunderstone benefits significantly from the expansions. I personally have not played any of them at this time. I love the theme of Thunderstone but personally find the game can be very frustrating. If the monsters appear in wonky order everything seems to breakdown. I also feel like it is difficult to catch up when you are behind. That being said I know a lot of folks who love Thunderstone and play tons of it. There is a very real possibility that I’m just not very good at it and thus my frustration. I certainly will be playing the game again and hope to check on the assertion that the expansions make the game much better. While Thunderstone is not one of my favorite games, it is a solid game and despite getting frustrated I generally enjoy playing. For Fantasy role players looking for a deckbuilding game it bears taking a long look. I do recommend giving Thunderstone a try.
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The next stop on the Game Night Blog Carnival is Geek Ken. Be sure to check out the main page of the Game Night Blog Carnival!

Game Night Blog Carnival: Quarriors

 Reviews  1 Response »
Dec 272011
 

Welcome to the new Game Night Blog Carnival! This is a feature we’re doing once a month with a few other RPG blogs. If you have an RPG blog, and would like to participate, check out the FAQ at the main Game Night page.
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Quarriors

Image copyright Wizkids

It is a well documented fact that I love dice. Quarriors is all about dice. This was a match made in heaven. Quarriors is a dice version of a card building game, like Dominion or Thunderstone. The premise is that you are a Quarrior out to gain glory by capturing creatures and protecting them until you can deliver them to the empress. The other players are trying to stop you using their creatures and spells. The creatures and spells are represented by the dice. There are three basic types of dice that don’t fall into either of the above categories. They provide the most basic of creatures called Assistants, the basic “currency” of the game called Quiddity, and a way to get more dice to roll on your turn by using Portals.

Quarriors uses cards to define the different abilities that the various dice possess. The cards are arrayed in the center of the table and the dice are placed on top of the matching card. There are 130 dice in Quarriors, 55 of which represent the basic types of dice with the rest representing the creatures and spells in groups of 5. There are three versions of the card for each die type featuring different special abilities and costs to increase variety in the game. Since not all types of dice are used in every game, Quarriors provides a different game almost every time you play.

Quarriors comes with a 19 page rule book that is very thorough, easy to follow, and features several diagrams showing examples of set up and play. Despite the length of the rules, Quarriors is very easy to pick up and after a game or two plays smoothly. The game generally plays quickly as well. We can usually get in a few games in an hour unless the dice just don’t cooperate. That is actually one of the things I really enjoy about the game. In a card building game, the cards are always the same. Once you have it in your deck the only surprise is when it shows up. With dice not only is it random when a certain die will come out of the bag but which face will come up when it is rolled. This make the game more interesting to me. Just because you have manage to buy something impressive doesn’t guarantee success. It adds excitement to the game.

Quarriors comes in a tin shaped like a die. In fact the top is a facsimile of one of the faces of a die in the game. The art on the cards is sharp and the dice are easy to read and look fantastic. Every thing fits nicely in the packaging and plastic bags are provided for each type of die. The dice bags are holding up well after several plays. Overall the presentation is top notch. Quarriors is made by Whizkids and retails for $50, which is surprisingly low considering the sheer amount of dice in the game.

I highly recommend this game to anyone. We always have a blast playing it. With all the dice rolling, it has an obvious appeal to role players beyond the fantasy theme. This is quickly becoming one of our favorites. Quarriors would be a great way to spend those Christmas gift certificates.
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The next stop on the Game Night Blog Carnival is Glimm’s Workshop. Be sure to check out the main page of the Game Night Blog Carnival!

Game Night Blog Carnival: Discworld

 Reviews  No Responses »
Nov 302011
 

Welcome to the new Game Night Blog Carnival! This is a feature we’re doing once a month with a few other RPG blogs. If you have an RPG blog, and would like to participate, check out the FAQ at the main Game Night page.
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When a game is based on a specific property, the theme is frequently just pasted on. This is not the case with Discworld: Ankh-Morpork. Discworld: Ankh-Morpork is a four player game by Treefrog Games and Mayfair Games. Discworld is based on Terry Pratchett’s series of novels of the same name. I have read several of the novels and as I read the rules for Discworld: Ankh-Morpork I could tell that the game was designed around the source material. The game is mostly about controlling areas of the twin cities of Ankh and Morpork but that is not necessarily the winning condition. Each player is dealt a card with one of seven people vying for control of the city on it. Each of these personalities has their own winning condition, though three of them are basically the same. The personalities winning condition make sense based on the characters in the book. These personalities are kept secret so that part of the game is trying to figure out who your opponents are while masking who you have been dealt.

Game play is pretty simple with most of the complexity being in the blocking of opponents actions while accomplishing your goal without giving away who you are. That means that means most people won’t be taking a straight forward approach. Each turn you play one card from your hand and do what it says to do. Then you draw back up to five cards. About as simple as it gets. The game ends when someone announces that they have met the victory condition or the draw deck runs out. If no one has managed to win when the deck runs out then there is a point system to determine the winner. Area control is represented on the board with wooden pawns of minions and buildings. There are a few other types of pawns depending on events that can occur during the game. There is also an interesting mechanic called “trouble”. A black trouble marker is placed into an areas of the city when a minion is added to an are where there is already a minion. “Trouble” effects what can be done in that particular area and figures into the winning condition for one of the characters.

Having a building in an area of the city allows a player to have access to the special ability of that particular area. Each area can only have one building on it. Buildings count for establishing control of an area as well. Control of an area is determined by who has the most bits of wood on it.

The game itself looks wonderful. The art on the board and cards is very good. The wooden pieces are well made and it is obvious what represents what. The only thing missing is four elephants and a turtle to hold the board up.

I enjoyed this game because it is simple to play but requires canny decision making and some deduction work to figure out who may be who. When we played we successfully managed to keep each other unclear of our identities. It is vital for everyone playing to understand the victory conditions for each personality so no one gives the game away. I recommend the game for less casual board gamers since it requires constant attention to what the other players are doing. There is definitely a hose the other guy element to the game. I highly recommend this for board gamers who are also fans of Pratchett’s work. The game is more fun when you get the jokes.
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The next stop on the Game Night Blog Carnival is Glimm’s Workshop. Be sure to check out the main page of the Game Night Blog Carnival!

Game Night Blog Carnival: Chez Cthulhu

 Reviews  1 Response »
Oct 252011
 

Welcome to the new Game Night Blog Carnival! This is a feature we’re doing once a month with a few other RPG blogs. If you have an RPG blog, and would like to participate, check out the FAQ at the main Game Night page.
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Since this is October, I figured I should review a horror game. I really prefer a lighter tone than most horror related games. Fortunately for me, Steve Jackson Games makes Chez Cthulhu. Chez Cthulhu is another in the series of Chez games and has the silly tongue in cheek humor of the previous editions. It also introduces madness to the game. Madness being a necessity for any Cthulhu game.

For those unfamiliar with the Chez games, the object of the game is to be the first to reach their slack goal. A player’s slack goal is set by the player’s randomly assigned job card. This job card also sets the player’s free time and income. In Chez Cthulhu, madness acts as negative slack until the player goes “Stark Raving Mad” and then additional madness provides slack.

Players gain slack from cards acquired during their turn. The cards represent things, activities, and people or pets that come to the player’s room. Things are acquired by purchasing them using the income value on the job card. Activities sometimes have an income cost but most just use up free time. All of these things are, of course, ridiculous. There are thing cards like “Friendly Tentacles”, “Things Man Was Not Meant To Drink” and the ever popular “Narconomicon”. Activities include “Tour R’lyeh”, “Babble in Unknown Tongue” and my favorite card in the deck “Indescribably Horrible Nookie”. There are also whenever cards that can be used to help or hinder players in various ways. The game ends immediately when one of the players hits their slack goal. Thats really all there is to it.

Chez Cthulhu costs about 20 bucks and comes with everything you need to play the game. There are several cardboard tokens representing slack and madness, the one die you need for the game, and the cards. The instructions are thorough and easy to follow. Everything fits back in the box even after the counters are punched out, which is always nice. The game looks great because the cards are illustrated by John Kovalic of Dork Tower, which I also recommend. Chez Cthulhu does contain lots of drug, booze, and sex references so its not one for the kids. Fortunately, as it says on the box, no actual maturity is required.

We have a blast with this one. I highly recommend it, especially if you are into Lovecraft. It is a game that we almost always play a few times in a row because we have so much fun with it. This would be a good one for a Halloween party. Happy Halloween and may all the tentacles you meet be friendly but not too friendly.
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The next stop on the Game Night Blog Carnival is Glimm’s Workshop. Be sure to check out the main page of the Game Night Blog Carnival!

Game Night Blog Carnival: Seven Dragons

 General Roleplaying, Highlights for gophers, Reviews  No Responses »
Sep 272011
 

Welcome to the new Game Night Blog Carnival! This is a feature we’re doing once a month with a few other RPG blogs. If you have an RPG blog, and would like to participate, check out the FAQ at the main Game Night page.
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Seven Dragons by Looney LabsWhen I started playing Dungeons and Dragons as a kid, the art in the books and modules deeply influenced the way I imagine how a game “looks”. The artist that captured my imagination more than the others was Larry Elmore. So when Looney Labs, one of my favorite game companies, released a card game with art by Larry Elmore, I couldn’t resist. The game is called Seven Dragons and the art is beautiful. The game plays like dominoes but with a few twists that really add to the fun. The object of the game is to be the first to connect seven dragons of the same color. The catch is that at the beginning of the game each player is dealt a goal card that is kept secret. The goal card tells the player which color of dragon that he must connect to win the game.

Seven Dragons plays up to five players and there are five corresponding main colors of dragons. The colors of the main dragons are red, blue, green, black, and gold. This means that there are still two more dragons out there. They are the rainbow dragon and the silver dragon. The rainbow dragon is a wild card as it is all colors at once. The silver dragon is the start card and takes on the color of the top action card on the discard pile. The action cards keep the game frombeing just a card version of dominoes. There are five action cards and each has a different color dragon on it which shows what color the silver dragon changes to when the action card is played. The five actions are trade hands, move a card, trade goals, rotate goals, and zap a card. The ability to move goals around makes the game more fun and encourages players to play it closer to the vest. That is really all there is to Seven Dragons.

I tend to write these reviews with role players in mind and this game is great to set the tone for Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, or any other fantasy game while waiting for everyone to arrive. We have played this one several times and have consitantly enjoyed ourselves. I can recommed this game for the art alone but I enjoy that it plays fairly quickly and is easy to play and learn. The rule sheet has plenty of examples of play and is very thorough. Seven Dragons also doesn’t break the bank at only fifteen bucks or so. It is a solid game at a good price.
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The next stop on the Game Night Blog Carnival is Glimm’s Workshop. The previous stop is The ID DM. Be sure to check out the main page of the Game Night Blog Carnival!

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