Product-Darkwood Adventure Arc #1- The Deft and the Deadly

Producer-Saga RPG

Price-~$13 available here

System-Pathfinder

TL; DR– A well done 1st product from a new company-90%

Basics– Welcome to Darkwood, Mudder.  Seeking either revenge, glory, or money, you and your friends stumble into Darkwood.  This is a town on the fringe where several powerful people (and not people) battle for dominance in a new world.  Can you make your name out here, or, will you end up face down in the mud you’re covered in?  This is the first adventure in a five part series.  Besides the adventure, the book provides large appendices on Darkwood, new items and diseases, example start characters, rules for coalition affiliations, NPCs, and a whole new world!

Fluff or Story– The people at Saga RPG put together a heck of a product for story.  Every part of the town gets a bit of writing.  All the shops have stories and a menu.  The main story is more sandbox and with linier sections.  This is to be expected as the characters are entering the world and have to be giving some quests to move them along, but eventually, the players are just told to have some fun and make some money in town.  It’s a lot of fun.  Aside from the main quest, the book covers a whole new world and its kingdoms.  That’s pretty ambitious for a new RPG company’s first product.  For less than a Paizo adventure product, you’re getting a higher page count of stories. I’m pretty intrigued on what going to happen over the course of this story. 5/5

Crunch or Mechanics-You don’t expect much mechanics from your standard adventure or a third party, but, these guys went above and beyond on this.  There are a new mechanics ranging from measuring faction relationships to a new god with two new domains.  Of course, there are new items and all the other standard things expected for a Pathfinder adventure, but, this comes from a third party.  It’s well done, thought out, and an excellent addition to the systems library. 5/5

Execution– Here is the ONLY place I have negative things to save about this product, and at WORST these guys are above average.  One thing I hate is recycled art.  These guys reuse the same art a few times across their first book.  The second thing I don’t like is there are some layout problems.  It opens a little slow on my iPad, but that’s ok.  However, there are some layout choices I would not have made for spacing.  That leads to the third problem I have-“text book problem”.  This book has A LOT to say.  The book moves from AMAZING depth in a town to a whole new WORLD.  That’s a lot of ground for one book to cover.  That said the book covers it in depth, but does so with more than just a few pages of just text.  That’s not the worst sin out there, but it makes this read a little like a text book in places.  I would have liked a bit more art to interrupt the text, grab your attention, and guide the reader’s eye.  But, I’d like to put that in perspective.  I am complaining about there being too much in this book.  3.5/5

Summary-This is a well done product.  If you’re tired of the Paizo product scene, this product is done well enough that is up there with a standard Paizo project with a compelling story and interesting additions to the system.  I would like a player handbook like the other Pathfinder products I’ve read, but, this product is already full enough.  My complains are in how this thing looks, not what it contains.  This is one of the best Pathfinder products I’ve seen in a while. 90%

Disclosure– I was provided a review copy of this product.

Game– Castles of Burgundy

Producer– Alee

Cost– ~$40

Set-up/Play/Clean-up-30 min per player (2-4 players)

TL;DR-Theme, instructions, and execution hurt excellent mechanics. 78%

Basics– Time to prove who the best duke is!  In Castles of Burgundy, players take the roles of different dukes trying to develop their land better than their rivals.  The game is divided into rounds and turns.  A round is five turns.  At the start of each round, new tiles are set out.  Tiles represent new places to build onto your kingdom.  At the start of each turn, new goods are delivered by ship to different locations on the main board, and, each player rolls two six sided dice.  Each turn players get to do up to three actions.  Two of these actions are controlled by dice, and, one is controlled by money.  With the dice, a player can get tiles from the main board, place tiles on their own board, sell goods, or get workers.  The main board has six spots for tiles representing different types of locations to develop.  By spending a die you can take a good from the main board in a section on the main board that matches your number and put it in your reserve. You can also spend a die and place a location on a section of your board that matches your die AND the type of location (town, field, castle, shipping, etc).  Thus placing tiles must match color and number.  When locations are placed you get extra effects that range from getting free tiles, placing tiles, points, or getting good from the main board.  The goods also have numbers ranging from one to six, so as an action, you can sell as many goods of the same number as the number you have on a die.  Each good is worth points and money.  The last action you can do with dice is spending them for workers.  Workers can be spent to change the number on a die by one, increasing or decreasing the number as desired.  The dice in this game are looped, so, a increasing a six by one makes the value a 1.  And, decreasing a 2 by two makes the value a 6.  Aside from the dice actions, a player can once per turn, spend two money to get a tile from the center board and place it in his/her supply.  The player can’t place the tile in his/her own board with money though.  After the 5 turns, the land tiles are removed, new tiles put out, and more goods added.  After 25 turns or 5 rounds, the game is over, and the player with the most points wins!

Mechanics– This is a really strange one, but it’s really awesome.  The game is a mix of complex and simple mechanics and ideas.  The game is also a mix of strategy and randomness.  Here’s the really strange thing:  it all “works!”  The workers make the randomness work.  Nothing to do with the dice you have?  Get workers and next time that happens you have options! You can create combos if you plan your tile placements well.  I never felt cheated by options I had or didn’t have because of the randomness or strategy.  Honestly, this game plays well and is a blast to sit down and play. 5/5

Theme-Here things fall a bit flat.  You’re royalty, but I never felt like I was royalty.  I enjoyed the game, but, that was more for the mechanics and less for the theme.  I did feel like I was developing a town and land, but it was a bit divorced from the royalty theme.  Theme is here, but, it’s not that amazingly strong. 3.5/5

Instructions-These instructions are not the best instructions I’ve ever read.  The get the point across, but I don’t think they do it well.  The first game we played, we only played 5 turns, not rounds, because we were all confused.  Some parts of the game the rules don’t do a good job of addressing important issues like how turn order works with shipping and who goes where on the board.  It’s not bad, but it’s not great. 3.5/5

Execution– The execution is fine, but not great.  The player boards are nice and well constructed.  The main board is well laid out.  The box comes with nice sections to divide the different types of tiles.  However, the box doesn’t really help you separate the different types of tiles that need to be separated since they are randomly drawn.  Maybe I think different then the creator, but, I ended up using Ziploc bags to keep that stuff separated.  Also, the tiles are small and somewhat hard to read.  And the iconography is hard to keep track of too.  Making this game a bit larger would have helped make this game that much better. 3.5/5

Summary– I liked this game.  It was fun and made me think in a bunch of different ways.  I played this game a few times with people ranging from 10 to 50 years old, so, the game is easy to play for a variety of ages.  It scales well for different amounts of players.  The major flaws come from a lacking theme, instructions needing a bit of work, and the some problems with execution.  None of those are exceptionally bad, but they are not good either.  But if you can look past those problems, then this will be a fun mix of randomness and strategy. 78%