Kickstart Your Week! Spelunking With a Dragon
Definitely a slow week on Kickstarter this week! A whole pile of expansions and re-releases, but at least there’s one exciting new game to talk about! By the way, spelunking is the activity of cave exploring, so not as dirty as it sounds. Although I guess that depends what kind of cave you are exploring…
Trove: The Crystal Caverns
There are few things I like more than a good sleep. Then there’s that lovely groggy period after you just wake up but before you actually need to get up. Just half thinking about what I want to do that day. What I wouldn’t like after a good sleep is to find my house full of goblins, some hero trying to kill me, and that the house itself has developed sentience and an overwhelming urge to collapse! That’s not news to put a fellow in a good mood!
Trove takes the idea of asymmetric play to the absolute max, with up to 4 players taking on the roles of a sleepy dragon, a determined hero, a collection of goblin tribes and even the cave itself. Everyone has their own win conditions, abilities and play style. The Knight must slay the dragon, but is being hunted by the goblins. Plus, she needs to explore the cave, revealing tiles with her torch as she goes, keeping the goblins at bay with her bow and dropping bombs on the stumbling dragon below.
Speaking of the Dragon, awaking from a 100 year long sleep, the Dragon needs to wake up, by completing some tasks, like eating some goblins, finding some treasure and just taking a breather for a turn. Harder than you think while the Knight is chasing after you! Then escape the cave through the entrance. The Goblins feature 3 different tribes who need to surround and kill the Knight, sticking from the darkness, they have a lot of possible strategies to play with. And then finally the Cave, who chooses how the dungeon grows and has an array of options to screw with the players moving around the board. The Cave will win if it is able to fully collapse before another player wins.
I love how the different faction’s requirements intersect and influence each other. The Dragon has to help the Knight by eating Goblins, the Knight’s sidequests take her into direct conflict with the Goblins, and the Cave will be free to make things harder for whichever faction appears to be in the lead. The artwork is great, and although the two player variant is currently limited to just Knights vs Goblins, more will be developed post-kickstarter. This game is absolutely worth checking out!
The Cave will collapse on September 21st.
Worth a Look
Crazier Eights – Mixing up the classic card game Crazy Eights, in which players must empty their hands of cards by playing cards matching either the value or suit of the top card in the discard pile, with a fantasy/Arthurian theme and abilities that occur when cards are played. Ends Sept 16th.
Rise of Cthulhu – A 2 player Lovecraftian card game. Players lead cultist faction vying for control of famous Lovecraft locations, with elements of area control and hand management. This Kickstarter is for a second print run. Ends Sept 17th.
Draco Magi: Expansion – The 2 player card game Draco Magi features two dragon mages battling for control of the rare gems thy need to collect. It mixes area control, hand management and a clever battle mechanism. The imaginatively named “Expansion” adds a pile of new dragons, locations and rules for pre-game deck construction. Ends Sept 18th.
Booze Barons – Set during prohibition, players are mobsters running booze for the biggest profit. Except there are 3 teams and no-one knows who is on which team! Trail your opponents as they gather and deliver booze and rat them out to the police. Just make sure you don’t accidentally rat out your own team! Ends Sept 19th.
Kings of Air and Steam: Worlds Fair – A steam punk themed pick up and deliver game, Kings of Air and Steam had the added twist of pre-programmed movement for your zeppelins. The Worlds Fair expansion adds various technologies, new teams and secret objectives to the mix. Ends Sept 19th.
Image credit to Board Game Geek users: GreenM, smrvl, EndersGame, kaatmal, Tinyelvis, skancke and UncleDragon.
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