I believe what they are hooking into is the idea that the difficulty is high, you have several random encounters on your way through floors, you collect random stuff along the way, and there is a good chance you will die. From what I know if it, I can see it as a sort of card based rogue like that you carry in your pocket. I sort of saw the Space Hulk card game in the same way, but it didn’t have leveling or loot.
Well, I can tell you that there is neither hunger nor ID’ing items in ODD, for what it’s worth.
Totally gonna do that :D
People who read the Kickstarting and Screaming thread… ;)
Not a very good one, from what I’ve heard.
Yeah. Dungeon crawls is a crowded space these days and I think Dark Souls ended up completely overshadowed by more impressive offerings. I’m a big fan of Souls, but I’ve got Descent and Zombicide on my shelf and Gloomhaven on the way. I can’t figure why I need the Dark Souls Boardgame.
Played Zingo, Outfoxed, and a Richard Scarry game with my girls today, followed by our Gloomhaven night tonight to celebrate Intl Tabletop Day.
I’m a big Dark Souls fan but I passed on that one. Just way too much on my plate already, game-wise. If it’s not very good that definitely helps me feel better about passing!
So I went for a copy of Vast here. Hopefully it should be showing up this week.
I’m a sucker for asymmetry and it helps that the reviews I see for it pretty much say there’s not much else like it out there. Good for me because I need those kind of excuses to bring a new game in.
Tom Mc
It’s a fun game but allow a lot of time for your first game for everyone to get the hang of their particular character. Probably best to learn each role ahead of time so you can help but it’ll still be pretty messy the first time!
Vast is great in theory, but in practice, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to make a game in which everyone has to know how to play five separate games.
-Tom
That is the challenge for a asymmetrical game like Vast, some players/characters can counter some others but not all. It will take a few plays to understand who has to stop who from winning. I would agree with Tom that it is more interesting than great - if i can put words into his mouth. I would definitely play Vast again but i am not going to push for it. A neat experience.
I really liked it the time I played it and thought it clever, mechanically well done and quite an achievement as an asymmetrical game with completely different roles. That said, I don’t find myself in a hurry to play it again either. Part of it is that my tastes simply skew heavier these days.
So over the weekend we played Harry Potter Hogwarts Battles, and did 4 games of it. Books 1-4. Book 1, 2, and 4 with two different groups of 4, and book 3 as two player. Overall impressions are fairly positive. I’m not sure I’d go out of my way for a group that doesn’t have some affection for the source material, but for board gamers who do? it is an easy sell.
So what is the basic game? It’s a co op deck builder played against a card based opposition. Think Dominion crossed with Pandemic, and you’re in the general neighborhood. The players choose one of 4 heroes, and the corresponding starter deck. The deck has 10 cards, 7 Alhomora spells (basic 1 currency), one Ally familiar (basic 1 attack or heal 2), and two unique cards. In games 1&2 this is all that really differentiates players. There is a deck of villain cards that you need to defeat, a stack of locations to protect, and a pile of dark arts cards with various nasty effects. Additionally there is a board of cards you can buy with varying costs and effects. The goal is to beat all the villains before they capture all locations.
Turn progression is fairly simple. You flip a dark arts card, activate villain abilities, play your cards to buy more powerful cards or attack villains, then discard all tokens and draw a new hand of 5 cards. Simple, right?
But the balancing act puts constant pressure on your choices. The dark arts cards can do direct damage to players, may force you to discard cards, may do damage to all players, add influence to locations, heal villains, or multiple choice. The villains can have abilities that key every turn, like the Dementors nasty 2 health to active player, debuff heroes like the Basilisk preventing drawing more cards, or play conditional effects such as heal or damage when you discard. Early games and starting locations are generally more forgiving, but ratchet up as you move through the books. This is balanced by having fewer tokens for control, and fewer locations. It also balances so that the difficulty increases as you move through the game. The first location typically has you flip a single Dark Arts card, with later ones having 2, or even 3 at a time. In game 3 you start having 2 villains at a time, with 3 at a time in games 6/7.
So we definitely felt the push get stronger as games go. Our first go with 2 player game 3 we lost the first location within a turn of taking out the first of 8 villains. We thought we were in real trouble! But here’s what I loved about it, it is terribly thematic. Not just in the artwork or names, no I mean in the bones of the mechanics. As you move through the books you feel the characters gain competence! So when we were hurting in book 3 and had the Basilisk and a Dementor out early, leading to several stuns, I did an all in move to aid my wife, as Hermoine, buy Petrificalus Totalus, an expensive spell. 1 villain down 7 to go, 1 location down with 2 to go, and I’ve already been stunned (lose all health, discard all tokens and half your cards) and we worked as a team to get this seemingly desperate play out. One turn later she draws it and plays it on the Dementor. It cycles a few times, and that bought us enough room to take it out. The much less threatening Quirrel comes out, and we focus down the Basilisk next. Now our decks are cycling, we have some influence removal cards, and we start working as a team well to knock the villains down with nary another location gone.
It felt great. It rewards smart team play. Sometimes the best thing is to do a little less on your turn to help boost your allies play. And it really comes through in book 3 onwards, as each hero gets an upgrade. Now they have permanent abilities unique to them. Ron can heal someone when he does 3 or more damage on his turn, Neville gets boosts to healing others, Hermoine gets extra coin when she uses more spells (the most thematically appropriate as this means she gets more, and better, spells easier than others), and Harry can add an attack to anyone when an influence token gets removed. So Harry can pass off attack power to Ron to key up his ability to heal Neville so he survives to heal the whole team up so Hermoine can get off a bunch of spells that bring Dumbledore into play and boost the entire team.
Then there are the house dice in game 4, the introduction of end boss Voldemort in 5 (with upgrades in games 6 & 7), 9 different proficiencies you can choose for your character each game, giving further differentiation from game 6 on, and the addition of Horcruxes that you have to destroy along with villains in game 7. All in all it layers new mechanics and complexity nicely, and does so in a way that really makes sense for the source material.
As you can tell I’m quite high on the game. It instantly is one of my favorite deck builders, and co op games. There are lots of little ways they evoke the stories through mechanics, like Protego basically being protection from forced discards (you get the ability when played or discarded, meaning if you have to discard a card, it works as a nice buffer). The only complaint I have is that my house dice had two copies of Slytherin, and none of Ravenclaw. But even that was easily resolved through customer service, within 24 hour hours a new one is on the way.
If you like, or even merely tolerate deck builders, have any affection for Harry Potter, and don’t require every game to be competition, then get this game. You will not regret it. However if you hate deck building, have no interest in Harry Potter, or tend to play games with (or are) that guy who dictates everyones turn? Maybe not a good choice. For our part we never found one person dominating the others, and there is enough going on it’s not a primary concern. However, like many co op games, it is theoretically playable with one person playing multiple roles. We did find we would often discuss who to heal, which villain to target, and whether to take that spell or leave it for someone else.
I have a feeling my wife and I will play this one regularly.
I’ve been playing the Harry Potter game with my kids, and I think it’s really good. (We’ve finished games 1-3.) Who’d have thought USAopoly had it in them!
It’s definitely easy, but I totally don’t mind that. I’ll be happy if in the latter half of the games we lose a couple times, but I don’t see why banging our heads against a game repeatedly would be that fun, in this particular case.
It’s a really nice example of how to turn a beloved piece of long fiction into a legacy-style game. It also ramps up in complexity, which would probably be frustrating if I were playing with my gaming pals, but with the family, it’s perfect. My teenage daughter who just became obsessive about Harry Potter a few months ago but never really got into boardgaming now knows how a deck-building game works!
The mechanic I like a lot that I haven’t seen in many other deckbuilders is how some cards do special good stuff when you discard them due to a bad guy effect. It’s really satisfying to reverse that effect into something cool, judo-like.
I will also endorse the game, especially for families with kids who like HP. I mean, yeah, if you don’t like deckbuilders or you don’t like co-op games, this isn’t for you, you pitiable soul. Otherwise, if a short co-op campaign with a lot of flavor sounds fun, then you should take a look.
It gets a lot more teeth in later games. Granted the closest we came to losing was game 3, but it seems likely that by the time you get to games 6/7 that win rates well under 50% are the norm.
And, yeah, USAopoly is about the last company I’d have expected this from!
It’s funny because Gilderoy Lockhart is legitimately better when you have to discard him than play him! Fun little thematic bit on how useless he is. But buying Protego, or having Neville’s Rememberall with discard mechanics is a something I haven’t really seen before either.
It is lacking a ‘trash’ mechanic though, and that is one I feel the loss. That said the expansion, Monster Box of Monsters, says it will introduce one. That covers my biggest complaint in the deck building side.
come to Hogwarts Battles fight fight fight fIIIIIIiiiiight
Good point about the trashing mechanic. I expected one would probably come into play in a later game.
Great news that it’s getting an expansion!
Ooooooooooooooh –
We had our first failed Gloomhaven scenario tonight. Turns out when you forcibly separate the party, the character who’s entire card set is built around buffing everyone else (and not themselves) has issues.
Hmm. Looks intriguing, but in my experience, “our very first board game” is NEVER a selling point. Besides, I’ve had my copy of The Thing boardgame for a few years now.
-Tom