Looks like this one is coming out tonight at midnight? I hadn’t heard anything until now, but it looks like it is a port of the board game, with some changes to game play meant to take advantage of the computer format. The steam forum claims a price of $15.99 at launch which sounds like a good start to me. Anyone heard anything about this?
Whoa!
Interesting. No console release mentioned that I can see.
I hope this turns out both good and successful. I’d really love to see more of the boardgames get translated.
Be aware, though. It’s a digital coop boardgame with no multiplayer at launch, so if you were hoping to play this with your friends you can’t rea`lly do that outside of sitting at the same PC.
Chris Woods
This has really been the Year of the Digital Boardgame
Link for the lazy
Didn’t look hugely exciting in the gameplay videos I’ve seen, so I’m waiting for some reviews.
It’s the fifth game in the D&D Adventure System Series of board games that uses Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition rules. I own the first (Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft Board Game) and third (Dungeons & Dragons: The Legend of Drizzt Board Game) games in the series, but have played only a bit of the first one with a friend about 5 years ago. We had a lot of fun, but failed miserably on our first adventure. I have yet to play the third one.
The lack of MP isn’t a huge deal, since all five games were designed for 1-5 players. In fact, for the first four games, 55% or more of players recommend playing with only one player. No votes have been cast for the fifth game, yet, since it’s in the process of being released.
I played a bunch of the board games, and enjoyed them. I especially enjoyed the Elemental Evil one. That one had a campaign that you could keep your gear and stuff between missions.
OK, I have played the tutorial and thus far it is exactly what it says on the tin. It feels just like the aforementioned board games, with the exception of an “adrenaline” bar, which builds over time and lets you either buff your character OR interrupt negative events. A great addition in my opinion.
It essentially automates tracking, and trading in of, Experience Points from Monster Cards to cancel Encounters. Although I don’t recall the added stat boost in the physical version.
I recently gave away my copy of the Temple of Elemental Evil board game. We played through about half the missions, but kind of got bored of the mechanics and story. Haven’t played the other DnD board games, but my own personal feeling is that they are DnD without the best parts of DnD. I think it would be a good introduction to DnD for children, but at that point, why not just dive right in to a real DnD campaign? For dungeon crawling, there are much better choices out there now.
I definitely have to say this game plays rather differently. On the surface it plays like a fantasy tactical battle game, but managing when you cause events to trigger and when to avoid those by spending adrenaline gives it a whole different feel.
The event system wants to keep you moving forward. Want to open a chest for some loot instead of uncovering a new map tile? Well, you’re gonna trigger an event that is usually something bad (take damage, stun character, bring more monsters). When can you afford to have more monsters enter the map? When do you need to avoid that like the plague?
Once I unlocked all of the characters, I added them to the party, but I think I would have liked it more if I just played with one of them (probably lizard guy or the archer). It took about 14 hours to beat the campaign with about 2/3 of the side missions on normal difficulty. I thought it was a decent game.