Fruit Picking

So, this is a game that I mentioned on my game list yesterday (found here) of things that I’d have wanted to see. It looks like a pretty simple game with a mechanic I really like, Mancala style movement of pieces. The aesthetic is cute and it looks like a good game to play digitally and one that if it’s fun would fit into the collection that I have and would get played. I like that you can play it solo as well. Definitely one that I was curious about and wanted to see, so when it was available to play, I thought it would be easy to checkout.

The Librarians Adventure Card Game

Now, I love this show, so when I saw it as something I could demo, I was really excited. I think that you could have all sorts of crazy and wacky adventures in a game with this theme. I don’t know much about it, but there’s deck construction and it’s an adventure scenario driven game, so I think it could be right up my alley. I like that it is show focused as well, more so than movie focused, because while I like the movies, you get more characters to really play around with as the show, and I want to play as basically all the main characters. I’m hoping that this game has a good balance of fun mechanics and that you really get a lot of the story so the mechanics don’t get in the way. Really excited to try this one though.

The Night Cage

I’m backing this one on Kickstarter, and with that I’ll get access to a Tabletop Simulator version, but I still want to learn how to play it and play it in that con setting. I think that this is going to be a blast, I really like the idea of the game and the horror and push your luck element to it. Out of all the games, I’m the most confident that I’m going to like this one. I like board games that provide tension, I like spooky themes. And I like cooperative games. So I think that this one, while a bit abstracted, will still have some of the theme just based off of the tension that is in the game. Really excited to try this one and excited to be taught the rules so that I can teach it easily to people via Tabletop Simulator when I get access to that while waiting on the physical game to come in.

Those are the three that I’m doing, I definitely considered more. Roy Cannaday from the Dice Tower just announced and has games for his new 4X space game which I thought about trying out. There were also demos of Hel, the Viking Saga game that I backed on Kickstarter. So, if you are signed up for GenCon online, what events are you planning to checkout?

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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?

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In Village Attacks, the villagers are knocking down the doors to the castle and you, and the group of monsters you’re playing with are just trying to have a nice evening. The villagers have torches and pitchforks and it’s just going to be headache if they get into the heart of the castle. You roll dice to get your actions selected and you’re trying to take out enough villagers and survive the waves of attacks. As you kill those pesky villagers and complete scenario objectives you can get closer to winning the game, but it also powers you up so you can handle the stronger hero villagers who are going to be coming after you. If you can complete the objective of the scenario, you win the game.

Village Attacks is a fun cooperative game because it’s a tower defense game, but it turns it on it’s head. You aren’t these heroic characters fending off tons and tons of monsters, you are the bad guys who are fighting off the villagers who you’ve been terrorizing who are now terrorizing you. While it doesn’t really make much difference in the long run, it is fun to see themes that are twisted and changed up from the normal version of the game. If you were playing the villagers defending against Dracula and his thralls and Renfields, that would make a pretty normal game, but instead you get to be the monster. That isn’t enough to make it a good game on it’s own though.

What helps the game out a ton to start getting it to that good range is that you play scenarios. If it were just a pure tower defense style game it would get predictable, but the scenarios are going to change the game up. In the GenCon scenario from 2019, for example, you are trying to get a bunch of totems into position. So you’re fetching stuff around your castle and bringing them back to a room and placing them in certain spots. While you are doing that, the villagers are pouring into your castle and they are doing two things. They are attacking the heart of the tower, basically the mystical energy that keeps the monsters coming back, so if that hits 0, you lose the game. They are also trying to get into the crypt and destroy the place where you are reborn and if enough of them get there, you lose the game. So not only is it about killing the villagers, who were coming into the castle in three different areas, you’re also worried about keeping them away from the heart and unable to attack and keeping them away from another location. And that’s just one scenario. Some of them might be as easy as defend the heart of the castle, but most are going to have more, and that’s going to change up how you play the game. And while playing a cooperative game that’s challenging and doesn’t have scenarios is fun, Pandemic for example, I think that having the scenarios takes it up a notch.

The other thing is that your monsters level up as you go. I like this because each monster starts out with a unique ability, but then you can add in more as you go and leveling up goes fast. In a scenario, you might not level up fully, but you’re going to feel like you’re getting a lot of upgrades to your character, especially as there are more and more villagers who show up that you need to take care of. And each character has their own unique upgrades. So if you’re playing one with a bone whip versus on who is an archer, your upgrades are going to be different for your character and it’ll allow you tailor how you want to play that character. I like being able to tailor a character to play my way, and it isn’t just a single upgrade path for a hero, though it isn’t as branching as it could be.

As for the mechanics of the game, there is a bunch to track in the game, but for the most part it’s roll dice, select the dice you want to use, deal with the villagers, more villagers show up, and repeat the process. The game play is actually pretty simple with a few things that feel like will take a bit to remember. Mainly how the villagers attack, some of them are going prefer a certain monster as a target but if they are closer to the heart of the castle, they are going to attack that, and just keeping that in order can be tricky. The game designers knew that though and there’s a cheat for that and other things, such as turn order on the back. I like big games where it ends up actually not being that complex and Village Attacks (plus a million expansions) is one that has that feel.

I do want to wrap up a little bit about the theme. This is a dark game, you’re killing “innocent” villagers and the artwork can be monstrous or disturbing, for the characters you’re playing. The game doesn’t pull any punches and suggest that you’re the good guys or misunderstood monsters, you are the bad guys who are still being bad. This theme might be a bit dark for some people, but I think with how the game plays, it doesn’t feel like that. And when I’ve played it, people play it more as the misunderstood monsters or that it’s silly. I think of The Fearless Vampire Killers or a movie like that where the vampire is bad, but the whole thing is kind of absurd.

Overall, I liked this game a lot. Unfortunately it’s hard to get a hold of. Fortunately, at the end of last year, they ran a kickstarter which was success so I can get a copy of the base game. I believe that the pledge manager is opening up soon for that, so it might be possible to late pledge at that point. If you want to play a good tower defense/dungeon defense style of game that’s more than something like Castle Panic and has a unique theme, Village Attacks is amazing for that. The game length can be a bit long and seems to scale longer with a higher player count, but higher player is what some of the people running the demo recommend. And if you get the game, don’t let the bits and pieces intimidate you, the game isn’t that hard when you get into it.

Overall Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: A
Casual Grade: C

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