![]() The gameplay looked okay, without instantly thrilling me but I wasn't sure if what I was seeing was enough to make me enjoy the game. When Tristan was running his Kickstarter campaign for Gloom of Kilforth, I wasn't immediately enamoured with the game. We'll go on a little adventure of our own and try to find out.īut first, a small confession. It's all the great things from good games.īut is it greater than the sum of its parts?Ĭome with me. In essence, Gloom of Kilforth is a greatest hits compilation. Tristan has combed through all those other adventure experiences, identifying the parts he loves, and setting them aside. You can feel it in every roll of the dice and every flip of the card: This game evolved from countless other games. The encounters are broken down into categories similar to Runebound, there's a creeping gloom similar to the sinking mechanism from Forbidden Island that gradually spreads across a board made up of location cards, and there's a quest system that feels like an evolution of the one seen in Return of the Heroes. The most obvious is Arkham Horror, which lends a vast number of mechanisms including the test resolution system for defeating encounters, a random "big bad" that doesn't immediately appear on the board but affects gameplay with a series of special rules, a universal event deck that introduces global weather conditions, and location-specific encounter decks filled with enemies, characters, and events that may hurt you, or may gift you powerful spells and weapons. Within minutes of setting up the game you'll start to see the influences. The result is a game that quite clearly draws on dozens of predecessors. He spent years on a quest of his own, attempting to hunt down the complete fantasy adventure game. The designer, Tristan Hall, kept wishing for the adventure game he always wanted, and eventually that wish became a dream. There's always something that makes you think, "Yeah, this is good, but I wish."Īnd that, I believe, is why Gloom of Kilforth exists. some mechanism that prevents it being the perfect adventuring experience. For every amazing adventure game, there's always some fault. Oh, and the artwork on the encounter cards is basically the horrible 3D models from the computer game. I don't, and therefore almost none of the encounters and in-jokes mean anything to me. Of course, the game also assumes you know the lore of World of Warcraft. You don't really feel like you are getting any more powerful, even when you level up. The problem is you really don't get the time to develop your character, and often the weapons you get are only marginally better than what you start out with. It's more of a race than anything else, encouraging you to charge full tilt into battle to progress through the ranks as quickly as possible so you can accumulate victory points. I actually own another fantastic fantasy adventure game (and yes, I could keep doing this all night, but I'll stop at three): World of Warcraft: The Adventure Game. It doesn't have endless replayability, and the intense time pressure and limited options available to the players means you don't get the chance to create unique heroes that evolve over the course of the game, learning new skills and gaining new powers. It's a game you solve, rather than a game you win. It's not as vast as Mage Knight, but it creates wonderful adventure stories with exciting narratives tightly woven to a set of sleek mechanisms, It even forces you to re-evaluate everything you know about defending the world from rampaging beasties by actively discouraging the mass murder of your enemies. I actually own another one of the greatest fantasy adventure game ever made: Legends of Andor. A rich, rewarding solo experience, but a solo experience none-the-less. I am resigned to keeping the game a solo experience. It takes hours and hours (and hours and hours) to play, and I've never even attempted to introduce it to anybody else. You reveal cities, hire villagers, pillage monasteries, learn spells, slay dragons, and eventually become powerful enough to march on heavily fortified castles and assert your authority. Mage Knight is a deep and engaging experience, and over the course of a single gaming session you get to see a world developing across your tabletop. I actually own one of the greatest fantasy adventure games ever made: Mage Knight. You know, the games like Talisman, where you get to take a hero into a magical land, and then wander around hitting monsters and taking their stuff. But I'm particularly partial to overland adventure games. Dungeon crawlers, card games, miniature skirmish games: I'm not fussy. ![]() ![]() Anyone who has visited my blog before probably knows that, if I have a weakness (apart from custard creams), it's thematic, fantasy board games.
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