There are a lot of games that we have heard about. Games that we have anticipated the release of and know will be a hit. This is not one of those games. I had never heard of it, until the game’s designer offered a good deal on pre-orders for BGG.con. After I placed my order sight-unseen, I started doing a little research. There wasn’t too much available, but the idea looked great.
At the convention, I got to meet the designer and talk with him, and do an interview. He was amazingly nice, and my interst was peaked in the game. I brouht my copy home, and tried it with my family. We loved it right from the get-go.
The game is simple, and elegant in it’s rules and components, but rich and deep in the strategy and gameplay.
It is a cooperative play game, like Pandemic or Shadows Over Camelot, but there is still an individual winner of the game: if you survive.
It’s not too difficult sometimes, and almost impossible at others. I have modified the rules a little, and think it fits the type of gamers we have, but the rules as written are concose, clear and provide for great gameplay. Check out the video and at the end I’ll tell you the variations I’ve made that I think add another dimension to the game.
This is my choice for the absolute Sleeper choice of the year. One of my favorites out of all the games I own, and easily one of the best I’ve played this year. Pick it up, check it out, and buy it…….NOW. Seriously, you’ll love it.
Okay, my changes. We take the suggested starting forces that are listed in the game, but we roll the dice for each to create a more random and more difficult starting configuration. The rules say that we decide where they go.
This is the big one: Lately, we;ve been taking any monster that is killed/destroyed by in game mechanic or objects, are replaced back into the pool of monsters to be drawn. This means that we don’t win until we kill every monster ourselves. Anything removed from the game by way of wall damage, tower damage, boulders, etc… will be drawn again later. The strategy changes a lot becasue you have to decide when there are many enemies at the gate who you are okay with coming back again. This is especially brutal whenn you get the special bosses put back in the box. Try it out, it;s a lot of fun.
Thanks for watching,
Brian
