Pros

• Theme – both horror and drop bears
• Components
• Cooperative Game
• One Pledge Level
• Fulfilled A Game Already

Cons

• Rulebook Issues on Previous Game

The Page

This is a really fun looking page and game. They lean into the absurdity of drop bears and how they look like koala bears. And they have a good amount of content on the game. They have a good amount on the rules and theme of the game right away which is nice. I don’t need to go digging for that information on the page.

I also like that they explain what drop bears are. I fear that most people would assume that they are just koalas and be in big trouble. It definitely helps the game theme come through. And for a game with a silly theme that is very regional specific, I think it’s a nice little nod to have that in there.

Price point and shipping seem in line with everything that I’ve seen. I like that they aren’t trying to make it too deluxe. The components look good, but I’m glad that the campers are just tokens. A lot of campaigns would make them minis but that adds tot he price. This feels like a game that doesn’t need that higher price point.

The Game

The game itself seems interesting. A horror survival game as you build out the map, deal with the drop bears, and get gear. What stands out to most about game play is that you have a pool of campers. You might have a camper die, but as long as there is another camper, you add them into the game and keep playing. You run out of campers, you lose the game.

It’s also interesting that this is a game where it’s more about survival than it is about beating up the drop bears. Another thing that I like. There are a lot of games where it is go in and beat up the monster and when you do you win the game. Drop Bears is about survival and I think that is what interests me most.

Back or Brick

I’m very torn on this one. I absolutely adore the theme, and if I saw this in a brick and mortar store, I’d immediately go over and look at it. But is it one that I’m going to back? Right now I think this is a Brick for me. Mainly because I’m just being a little bit pickier on what I back right now. And I know that there are some things coming up, I’ll talk about one next week most likely.

But everything about this game screams of one that I should back and I might end up backing it. I love the theme as I said. Not just the horror element but the drop bears as well. And the game looks amazing. My main concern will be if it has issues with the rule book. And that might be fine when all is said and done. I do have it saved, so I might come back and get this one yet.

How about for you, is this a Back or Brick?

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Pros

• Horror Theme
• Price

Cons

• 3-5 player range
• Board Aesthetic

The Page

This is a well done page where they highlight the game play first and then show off the minis and everything for the game. You get some idea of what is in the game right away but it doesn’t show off like it’s a minis game.

However, the aesthetic of the game is lacking. I think that the characters look good. The sculpts are on the minis are solid, not that dynamic in some cases but solid. But the other components, the board, and the cards, they are underwhelming. It almost feels like two different games. Yes, you can see the symbols do match fairly well with the character art, but it’s so minimal on the cards and board that it just doesn’t look as polished as it should.

The Game

Dead by Daylight is then underwhelming me as a game also. Mainly the game seems like it could be tense in what it does. Killer going around and wounding people to take them back and sacrifice them. But it looks like it’s a play a card and do that action. There is going to be strategy in what actions you take when, but less than the game would seem like.

I am not sure that this feels like a more complex game than something like a Pandemic game. So maybe that is more of it, Dead by Daylight doesn’t seem like as modern a game. In fact, if they could save some money and give me tokens with character artwork or pawns instead of minis and make this a $35-$40 game instead of $50, I’d be more interested in it.

Back or Brick

So, no suspense here, this is a Brick for me. Mainly, I think that the theme, while I like horror, is just okay for me. This is a really dark version of horror with sacrificing characters, and things like that. Just too dark when it comes to horror, I prefer more monster than serious slasher.

But to go with that, I feel like this game is one that doesn’t need to be on Kickstarter. $49 is not bad for the retail version of the game. But when it comes to retail if Miniature Market, CoolStuffInc, or GameNerdz get it, I can get it cheaper than I can on the Kickstarter. And they will get this game.

The biggest thing, though that makes it a brick for me is the player count. 3-5 player games really limit who I can play it with. Obviously, that’s a lot of one versus all game where you need at least 3. But a two player variant officially in the game, I’m sure someone will come up with one, would be smart.

How about for you, is Dead By Daylight a Back or a Brick?

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The Game

So, I did a review already. I explain some in the video how to play the game. Instead, I want to talk about the replayability of this game. I now have five or six, forget which, plays under my belt. And with those, a couple of them were learning how to play the game, and one was me dying off with some poor dice rolls. But the start of the game, I have played multiple times. And even with that, by the time I hit chapter 2 of the story, I am skipping cards that I still have yet to see.

So the game has a lot of content to it. I question long term ability to replay the game, but in the short term, I have a number more plays of it ready to go. And I do want to see what else the game has to offer in it. I reached two spots, where in true Choose Your Own Adventure fashion I died, and I want to find a better ending. What does a win in Spire’s End look like? I think until I find that, I will want to go back to the game.

That is the sign of a good game to me. In particular the sign of a good story driven game. I want to go back to Gloomhaven at some point in time, not because of the story but because I still have characters to play. Tainted Grail might leave the collection once I’m done, not because I don’t love the game, I do, but because it’s such a big campaign. Spire’s End, I will explore the story again and again until I hit a good end.

The Drink

A mocktail play on a Mojito that I made into not a mocktail, it was some mint, blueberry, club soda, water and sugar and it was fine. The issue that I had with it was that the flavor was too subtle. If a drink has mint and blueberry, I expect to taste that. I got a little mint hint, but nothing more. And the blueberry almost wasn’t there at all. It is a drink recipe that I wouldn’t make again, nor would my wife who made it, without increasing the amount of blueberry and mint substantially.

Upcoming Streams

So I believe it will be a week from Monday when I do the second party of Should It Stay or Should It Go over on Malts and Meeples. That series is going to be biweekly.

On Wednesday, I am not sure what I will stream. It will be another one off solo game. I am not jumping into a campaign again yet. It might be Ratcatcher or maybe Under Falling Skies, though that one is hard to fit on camera. Ratcatcher would be an easy one to learn and get played though for sure. And there are some roll and writes, Paper Dungeons and Dinosaur Island Rawr ‘n Write I could play as well. So lots of options, let me know what you want me to play.

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Pros

• Horror Theme
• Mix and Match Final Girls and Bad Guys
• Solo Game Play
• Thematic Game Play

Cons

• Price
• Solo Only

The Page

Van Ryder Games has been doing Kickstarter and Crowdfunding games for a while. This page doesn’t disappoint in that it tells you what is going on with the game right away. The first thing it does is get you to the table very easily, which I think is one of the cooler features of the game production.

Though, I wish in that section that they talked about the game play. Granted, if you want to watch some good game play, GloryHoundd has a playthrough that they did. And you can watch that down below. The game play isn’t that much further down the page. And they do a good job of laying out everything that you can do. Plus the game is out there, this is season 2, so you can find reviews on it.

This might sound odd, but I also like that the stretch goals are at the bottom of the page. Too many pages have it in the midst of everything, which makes them harder to find. But also too much focus is placed on stretch goals. Here, they are an added bonus, not the main focus of the game. The game is done, and the stretch goals won’t add that much to game play.

The Game

Here’s the GloryHoundd Playthrough that I promised. And I will say it was one of my favorite streams of theirs to watch and to chat in. So subscribe and you can join in the chat live. But let’s talk about game play.

The game has a nice flow to it and an interesting mechanics to your action. You can play cards, but every card takes time. So the more cards you play the more time it takes. And time is used, once you are done taking actions, to purchase new cards. You then use those cards for the next turn, assuming you are alive.

Then the killer attacks based off of the character. But then also based off of a terror card that is flipped. So they activate twice and as they kill off victims they become even stronger. I like that escalation that is tied, in what feels like, into the fear you have of them. On the flip side, you rescue victims, then you can unlock an ability and become stronger.

Back or Brick

This made it to my Top 10 Hyped Crowdfunding Games for Quarter One of 2022. You can see that here. So yes, this is a Back for me. The only thing I’m disappointed in is that I didn’t back this the first time around. That would make it easy to determine what I want to get.

Right now I am backing the game for the Film Debut level. That gives the core box as well as a feature film of your choice. A feature film is one Final Girl and one Killer. So I added on two more feature films. That gives me three Final Girls and three Killers, so nine different combinations. And the randomness of the game should make even a previously played combination different.

What I don’t know is if I’ll keep the pledge at that level. Part of me wants to get Season One or Season Two and just make it simpler. That’s the core box plus five feature films. And that’d be 25 different combinations and give me a lot to play for a long time. But the question is, how much will I play. Because right now the GloryHoundd Playthrough makes me want it all.

But how about for you, is this game a back or a brick?

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100 Through 91

90 Through 81

80 through 71

70 through 61

60 through 51

50 through 41

40 through 31

Top 100 Board Games – 30 through 21

30. A Gentle Rain

A Gentle Rain is what I call a pallet cleansing solo game. All you are doing is flipping tiles and placing them, trying to get four corners to meet so you can put down a disc. If you get all the discs out you win the game. It is pretty lucky, I have won, I’ve also gotten only 4 of the 8 discs out. But it is nice and relaxing to play. The whole point of the game is to have a nice relaxing time.

It’s also nice because while it might take up a bit more space than small solo games ideally do, it is a small box and it plays very fast. So it’s a good little puzzle to play through and have something to think on, but without spending a lot of time or brain power on it. Plus it’s pretty cheap and really good quality.

Out of Stock

29. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

I will start by saying, I have yet to play Terraforming Mars. It’s on my shelf and I want to get it played. But Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition drew me in because it looked better. The artwork was really good on it, and when I saw it played, I really liked the mechanics. In particular, I like the action selection, how fast that goes. Each player selects an action and everyone gets to take it but as the person who picked it, you get an extra bonus. Any action that isn’t used is skipped that round. Gives good strategy.

Now, I wish I had backed this on Kickstarter. I did end up buying board overlays because the cubes will slide on the board. That said, the quality of the game is nice and the more you play it the faster you go. I think my first few two player games took around two hours, but by the third, we had the game down to basically an hour. And adding in more people won’t really slow down the game. Really fun engine building board game.

Buy On Miniature Market

28. Aeon’s End Legacy

I really enjoy Legacy games, and Aeon’s End was no exception. I knew I’d likely like it a lot, but you can see how much over on Malts and Meeples. What I wasn’t expecting is how good Aeon’s End Legacy is at teaching you how to play Aeon’s End. The game play is just slick and really enjoyable. And they start you off easy and teach you the game.

In fact, that’s one thing I do and don’t love about the game. I already knew how to play Aeon’s End. So when Aeon’s End Legacy dumbed it down a little bit, there were things that I wanted to do that I couldn’t at the start of the game. But this is an amazing way to learn Aeon’s End. The story is solid and the game play is a ton of fun, plus it’s cooperative which is always a bonus.

Out of Stock

27. Potion Explosion

Now we move onto a game with a ton of toy factor. The main mechanic of the game is pulling marbles from a tray that they roll down. You pick one marble and then like colored marbles that hit you also get, and it can cascade into a lot of marbles. You use those marbles to brew potions that give you points and give you one time abilities.

This game when it’s on the table people notice because of the marble tray and just how different it looks. The game play is solid with more depth than it first looks. Optimizing how and when you use the potions means that you get can give you really powerful turns. So while it is light and fun there is strategy.

Buy on Amazon

26. Sagrada

Sagrada is another game with a great table presence. This one has you making stained glass windows. You draft dice which you then have to place into your stained glass window based off of number or color rules. The game play on this one is pretty simple but getting the numbers and colors you need can be tricky.

I like this game a lot because it works well with family. My parents play board games, but they don’t play a ton of them. A lot of modern board games are going to be too complex, but something like Sagrada they were able to get quite easily. So with it’s great look and ease but interesting game play, Sagrada is a great game.

Buy on Amazon

25. Metro X

New game to the list, Metro X is a roll and write I’ve played on the Malts and Meeples channel before as well. This is about completing bus routes the best that you can. The game play, for me, is a lot of fun because of two things. Some routes use the the same stops. So if I fill that stop in I’m working on completing two or more of the routes. But you always are starting from the earliest spot on a route when you fill in, and you can’t skip. It makes it a really good puzzle.

I also like that the game plays fast. This is a game that might trip some people up to start out with because it is doing some interesting things that might not be intuitive, but when you get into it, it’s quite simple to play. And it comes dry erase already which is a bonus. I wish that the expansion bus routes/maps would come to the US.

Buy on Amazon

24. Roll Player Adventures

This game is actually coming in the mail today. Normally I don’t like to put prototypes on the list, but I had such a great experience with this one at GenCon in 2019, that it has been on the list before. I think I dropped it last year because it was a prototype.

This is a more family friendly, from what I can tell, adventure game. It reminds me of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, not in game play, but in the idea that you are exploring at a higher level and then you drop out of that into combat, but it’s not a tactical combat. Plus you can bring your Roll Player characters into this game which I really like as a concept too.

Buy on Miniature Market

23. Letter Jam

Most word based games aren’t cooperative, but Letter Jam is. That is some of what makes it on the list. The game play is also really clever as you can’t see the letters that make up your word. They are facing away from you, so through clues you have to deduce what your letters are.

If I were to give the clue, and you can see the letter FR*M where the * is your letter, you can probably guess that it’s FROM so you letter much be O. But had I done F*RM now it could be FARM, FIRM, or FORM. So you need to be clever as you give clues because you want to limit how many letters it could be. And if you give a clue that means you aren’t getting helped so everyone needs to give clues.

Buy on Miniature Market

22. Betrayal At House on the Hill

Buy on Amazon

21. That’s Pretty Clever (Ganz Schon Clever)

Final one on this part of my Top 100 Games of all time is Ganz Schon Clever. This is the last of the Clever trilogy on the list, through the first one of them to come out. I really like Ganz Schon Clever because like Doppelt so Clever and Clever Hoch Drei, this game is all about combos. You fill in one thing, that unlocks something which allows you to fill in, in another spot.

This game also has an app that is really good. I do prefer playing the physical version, but sitting down and playing a quick game is a lot of fun on the app and it works really well. And while the game I think does take longer with more people, it’s still a really good multi-player experience and solo game.

Buy on CoolStuffInc

The Next 10

If you want to catch any of the remaining Top 10’s live, you can check them out and my normal streams on Wednesday at 8 PM Central time. If you subscribe and click the notification bell you’ll know whenever I go live or upload a new video to Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. When I’m not doing my Top 100, you can find me on Wednesday playing board games solo on the YouTube channel. I’ll be streaming next week but then a week off for Thanksgiving and Top 10 will be on December 1st.

Now, I did say I wanted to talk about my streaming times. Through the Top 100 list, I am going to keep my 8 PM Central time on Wednesdays for streaming. However, this might be changing. A channel that I like to watch and be part of their live chat, the GloryHoundd channel is adjusting their schedule. And I know I have crossover viewers from their channel. If they take that 8 PM Central Wednesday spot, I might look at making my main streaming day on Monday. Be aware that change may come.

But what game do you like best out of this part of the Top 100? Are there any that you want to get to the table that you haven’t played in this bunch?

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100 to 91

90 to 81

80 to 71

70 to 61

60 to 51

50 to 41

40 to 31

Plus a few notes on how I’ve put together the list:

• These are my favorite, you want what people consider best, see the Board Game Geek Top 100
• If a game you love isn’t on the list, it might be be coming, I might not have played it, and if I have, it’s 101
• If a game looks cool, I have links to buy it from CoolStuffInc or Amazon, or you can grab most at your FLGS
• There are a few games, Destiny 2 Player versus regular Destiny where if they are basically the same thing, I only do one of them

30. Homebrewers

This is one that I think is going to climb higher and higher over time because of how simple but fun the game is. And I have to say, I really like the theme of brewing beer. This game is basically an engine builder where you are trying to be the best at brewing beer and to do that you need to brew, and hone your recipes so that you can place well at Summerfest and Oktoberfest. To do this you get cards that are ingredients which you can use for a one time affect, like if you need an influx of money, get one that gives you some money, or you can add the ingredients to a beer, so maybe every time I brew my porter now it has oyster in it which gives me $1 versus a one time cash thing of $5. You can create some fun and crazy combinations, and in all honesty, I’d probably try them. I also like that in this game each character as a special power, so you can decide how you want to play the game and can do something different than everyone else. This is a fast engine building game, and definitely one that can work as an introduction to engine building.

Last Year: 45

29. Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl

This is a game that I need to play more, but it is a big game, so it’s hard to get to the table all that often. In Zona, you are trying to get into the vault at the heart of Chernobyl, but to do that you need to brave the wasted lands surrounding it where few go and where mutated monsters roam. You can play this game solo, or you can play it competitively, which I think is really interesting. So you are exploring, finding what you need to get to get into lesser locations and then fight monsters, survive, and get into these locations, get out with some new very useful cards and get into the heart of Chernobyl before everything falls apart and the game wins. I find that interesting where the game has a timer where it can itself win, in a competitive game, so it is possible that all the players will lose.

Last Year: 34

28. Just One

Just One is the top party game on the list, and I think that it’ll hold that spot for a while. The game is just clever and enjoyable to play. In this game one person is “it” like in so many party games, and they, instead of trying to get people to guess a word are trying to guess a word. Everyone else is putting down clues for them, one word clues, hence Just One. And everyone needs to write down a unique clue. If people cross over with each other, those clues are cancelled out. Again, hence why this is called Just One. The game works really well and it is a lot of fun. I also like that like Cross Clues, Just One is a cooperative party game. Most party games are meant to be silly, but if you are out of the game part of the party game, it just becomes purely silly, and for a game night, I like party games that can keep people in the game itself, and Just One does a great job of that.

Last Year: 22

27. Say Bye to the Villains

This game my record is probably 0-15, maybe 0-20 at this point, and it’s a cooperative game. This is not a game where you win 50% of time like a lot of cooperative games try to be, it is a game that is extremely hard to win, but clearly I still love it. In this game you are Samurai who are taking on villains. You are fighting honorably, so you know when the fight is going to happen, so you prepare. You do this by researching the villains, by increasing your stats and then eventually once you’ve used up all of your time, you select the villain who you are facing off against. The issue is that you need everyone to beat the villain they are facing off against, and you basically never have the time needed to completely research the villains or to get yourself completely prepared to fight. The concept just works really well for me, and the game play is very smooth. My only knock is that this game can play a lot of people, but it probably should max out at four or five, because otherwise it is a bit long.

Last Year: 43

26. Hats

I love this game as a different feeling card puzzle game. Like Parade, this game has been randomly given the theme of Alice in Wonderland. It could have been anything or nothing. In it you are trying to score the most points by having the best collection of hats. These hats have numbers, and you start out with a hand of them as well as some that are going to be determining what is scored on the table. The trick to this game, and I think what I like about it so much, is that you are trying to manipulate the table in such a way by playing down cards and then using the ones for scoring that you place in front of you, that when all is said and done the colors you have are scoring and they are scoring well and that whatever you opponent(s) were collecting doesn’t score well. It just feels like a twist as you have a set hand of cards and while you can change them up a little, it might not be enough to get it set-up as you want. This game plays fast and is a good thinky filler.

Last Year: 26

25. Point Salad

Another filler on the list up quite high. This must have just gotten played after I made the list last year, but Point Salad has been a game that has consistently gotten to the table and even 4-5 times in the past week. In this game you are building up the best salad possible to score as many points as possible. And that’s the joke, in a point salad style game, everything you do is going to give you some points, so AEG created a game where you are building up salads and everything might give you points. What determines if something gives you points though is based off of the scoring cards you draft. So this is an extremely simple game, you either take vegetables for your salad or you take a scoring card. But you have to pay attention to what is scoring for you and how. Maybe you have a card that gives you 4 points per tomato, but it probably also gives you -2 points per onion and carrot, so you need to build your salad right so that you scoring as many points as possible. The game is so simple and turns are fast, and while there is less depth than Hats, this is still a great filler with a bit of depth.

Last Year: Not Ranked

24. Aeon’s End: War Eternal

I love deck building games, and Aeon’s End: War Eternal is a very good one, in my opinion. And I would hazard to say, had I played more of the Aeon’s End games, I’d say all are great deck building games. Now, there are a ton of deck building games, so what makes this stand out. I like that you are facing off against a big boss, which isn’t unique, but you can start to whittle them down right away if you want, which isn’t always the norm. I like the breach system for casting spells. You can open up more breaches for your character and cast more spells per turn when you do that. And what really makes this different is that you don’t shuffle your deck. This is the only deck building game that I know of that you don’t shuffle. What happens when you run out of cards, well, you just flip your discard pile and you have your deck again. This means, if you are counting cards, you can set-up turns for yourself. You might want a turn with no spells just because with a lot of purchase power you can buy a better spell, or maybe you want a good mix so that you never have a turn where nothing happens. What also is interesting is that turn order isn’t set. The nemesis, monster you’re fighting, will have 2 turns for every six player turns. But you have a turn order deck that is shuffled, and in a two player game where are two player one cards, two player two cards and two nemesis cards. So the nemesis could go twice in a row at the start, then four player turns, you just don’t know. It makes the puzzle feel harder that way, but also can set-up some moments of calm.

Last Year: 16

23. Criss Cross

One of my top roll and write games. Criss Cross is very simple but so much fun. In this game everyone is playing at once, trying to place symbols rolled on dice adjacent to each other in rows and columns on a 5 x 5 grid. That doesn’t sound too bad, but you need to treat the two dice rolled each round as a domino, basically. That means if the symbols rolled are a circle and a triangle you need to place the circle and the triangle adjacent to each other on the grid. You need to also make sure that you don’t leave yourself with a single spot separated from everything else because it means you won’t be able to fill that spot. The game is super fast and very fun. Scores can and will vary wildly based off of how things are rolled, but it is fun crossing your fingers hoping that the write combo is rolled. I like that you are scoring both the rows and columns too, and in the expert version the diagonal, so you can’t just focus on rows or columns and expect it to go extremely well.

Last Year: 23

22. Deranged

This game, why isn’t this game out yet. It was so amazing playing at GenCon last year that it is on my list because I got the full game experience there. It should, fingers crossed be coming out yet this year, I have a preorder in for it, and it might, just might, be coming out this month, October, still. Which would be perfect because this is a horror adjacent game. In this game you are spending time and moving around trying to get rid of your curses and be the first player to get out of the town. The issue is the town is keeping you trapped in as long as you are cursed and there are monsters roaming around. Plus, the other players, they don’t mind if you get attacked so they might be encouraging that. And they might be deranged and attacking you themselves. This game has nice card play for determining what actions you are doing and how good they are. And then if you’re deranged, you flip the card upside down and use a similar but different set of actions. The game is just clever and while not short, turns play pretty fast. So much fun in this game and has a good theme that I like.

Last Year: 17

21. The Lost Expedition

Some games have a fair amount of alpha gaming in them if they are a cooperative game. That is to say that one person tells everyone what to do on their turn. The Lost Expedition is a game that has, built into it’s mechanics, ways to prevent that from happening. Players, without communicating, place down cards for both a daytime and evening hike as they work their way toward the lost city of Z, so no one knows what the other people are going to play. In the day, the cards are then sorted into numerical order and you’ll have to navigate them, and even the evening, they are played in whatever order they come out. And most of these cards don’t do good things. So no one can tell other people what to play, then collectively as a group, you decide how to spend resources and what actions to take, of the optional actions on a card. Sometimes it’ll be good like giving you more food or bullets, but most of the time you are hurting yourself as spending resources from your guides, from your food supply, or bullets, and if you run out of life on your guides you lose the game. The game is very clever and plays very fast. There’s always discussion around the table as you try and map out the best route of using and gaining resources and advancing closer to the Lost City of Z.

Last Year: 32

This is an odd section of the list because two of these games are still really high after mainly just playing them at GenCon last year. Deranged isn’t out yet in the US, I believe mainly because of Covid delays, but I had so much fun with it, I had to make the list when I have played it. I have it preordered, I’m just waiting for it to eventually come, I suspect that Deranged will end up moving higher the more I play it.

What is your favorite from this section of the list?

Pros

• Cooperative
• Horror Themed
• Tense
• Great price point
• Known company
• Tough to beat
• Looks like Nic Cage on the cover instead of Night Cage

Cons

• Fairly abstract
• Horror Themed
• Tough to beat

Thoughts on the Page

This is a well laid out page that gives you a solid idea of what the game is like. It does a good job with that primarily black, white, grey and sepia tone to give it that horror vibe to it. And it does a good job of laying out the game play as well.

They’ve done a good job with the price point, not too high for what you’re getting and seems extremely reasonable where the cost plus shipping will be what you’d find it for at retail. And I like that they have a premium level that is just upgrades to components or a creepy soundtrack, not game play related.

And I think that they’ve done a good job with the stretch goals. There is a good balance of game play additions, like new types of monsters, pits, etc. but nothing that massively changes the game and nothing that makes it feel like they are just adding stuff, so no bloat in the game. Plus there are also some nice component upgrades as well to it.

Bonus Video

Bonus video content from GloryHoundd on YouTube, she and DrGloryHogg did a playthrough of the game via TableTop Simulator that they got from Smirk & Dagger

Back or Brick

So when I first saw this game, it was going to be a brick for me. The concept seemed interesting enough, but I wasn’t sure about the game play and the cover, I make Nic Cage jokes about it because it looks a bit like that to me. But as I dug more into it and they talked about it on GloryHoundd YouTube channel and did the play through, I saw the intensity of the game. This is one of those stressful cooperative games where, because the labyrinth is always changing and the candle is burning down, you are going to feel a version of the pressure that the theme is trying to promote. So while I don’t feel like I should back for the soundtrack as well, I did end up up backing it, so it’s a Back for me.

How about for you, is this game a Back or a Brick?

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Pros

• Established Company on Kickstarter
• Pedigree of Designer
• Viking Theme
• Cooperative Game
• Solo Game
• Horror Theme

Cons

• Too Many Minis?
• Replayability
• Kickstarter Exclusive

Thoughts On The Page

This is an established Kickstarter company at this point with Mythic Games. They know how to run a very good campaign and I find it interesting that they run short campaigns, so 14 total days, we’re at 13 when this was published. I understand why it’s a Kickstarter exclusive with all the minis that it has, but it does feel like one that you could do a standee version in a retail setting, and I’d maybe be more tempted by a standee version.

The layout of the page is going to be good for that reason and you can find basically all the information that you want quite easily on the page. I also like that they made it simple, there is a single pledge level that gets you all of the game play. They can add in add-ons but those will be for aesthetic reasons only, not for game play. That to me is the sign of a well thought through campaign so the buyer doesn’t feel like they are missing out on content that is really important. And the stretch goal content seems like it fits that model well as it’s just upgrading components or giving alternate sculpts.

Back or Brick

Now, I said above that this would be more tempting to me if it offered a standee version, that’s what I did for Oathsworn because it improved the price point a lot. That said, this is very much my type of game. It has a campaign element to it, it seems like it has some interesting mechanics to it, I like horror, I like Vikings. This will probably end up being a back for me. There’s enough going on, and as more is unlocked, there are definitely some cool upgrades. The artwork and aesthetic of everything really feel like they are drawing me into the game as well. Plus the story element is also legacy-esque. Now for some people legacy is a four letter word in gaming because they think it’s dumb to spend $70 for a lot of entertainment for a group of people as compared to a board game you can play again forever, for me that isn’t an issue, so the Legacy nature doesn’t bother me and the fact that you can reset works means that it can be played again.

How about you, is Hel: The Last Saga by Mythic Games a back or a brick for you?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.