Dead of Winter Review

Dead of Winter is the latest game from Plaid Hat Games. Despite not being a huge fan of any of Plaid Hat's games (except for Summoner Wars, which I love), I always get very excited about each of their releases. They always have really interesting themes mixed with neat twists on game mechanisms. Does Dead of Winter buck the trend of disappointment? Would I even ask such an obvious rhetorical question is the answer was "no?" Read on to find out!

Dead of Winter is a semi-cooperative game that takes place after a zombie apocalypse has ravaged the world. Players take control of survivors in this world, struggling to live in this new world. The survivors need keep the hordes at bay and make sure the colony is safe and fed.

In a round, players will roll their action dice. On their turn, players will spend their dice in order to take actions with their survivors. These actions are things like searching locations in order to gain resources or items, fighting zombies, or building barricades. The zombies will keep coming and bad things will keep happening to the colony, until either the survivors complete their shared objective, or the colony's morale falls to 0. 

Sounds simple enough, except that Plaid Hat and Mr. Gilmour and Mr. Vega have added quite a few interesting little twists and turns to make Dead of Winter quite a unique experience. First is the fact that although the group as a whole has a common objective, each player has a personal objective. Each player's personal objective states what the player needs to accomplish in order to win. These objectives most often have a bulleted list that includes the group completing the common main objective, but also some other conditions that must be met that will likely make the group's completion of the main objective more difficult. Even if the main objective is competed, players can only win if they also completed their individual objectives as well. 

The great thing about this system is that there are also betrayer objectives. These objectives require that the game end not because the main objective has been completed, but because the colony's morale has fallen to 0. The game also includes the option to exile players from the game if they are suspected of being a betrayer. This adds a lot of tension to the game, and keeps the players from devolving the game into a mess of "well Idecide on a 'm not going to win, so no one is going to win," which, in my opinion, has been the biggest issue with semi-cooperative games in the past.

A huge source of tension in the game is the exposure die. It must be rolled every time a survivor either moves around town or fights a zombie. On about half of the sides is nothing - which is what you'll be hoping to see each time you roll that accursed die. On the other half are bad things, which cause either normal wounds, frostbite wounds, or even instant death. The fact that players can lose a survivor with a single roll of the die is a lot of fun. 

The last twist in the game is the deck of Crossroads cards. At the start of each player's turn, the player to the right of her draws a Crossroads card, and reads the it. Each Crossroads card has a condition on it, which the reader of the card does not reveal to the current player, unless the player fulfills it. These cards contain conditions like, "If the current player controls a survivor at the Police Station, read the following:" and the rest of the card has a bit of story, and then a decision. The player (and sometimes all the players) then need to decide on their course of action concerning the story, and deal with any consequences that decision presents.

Not a super exciting photo, but I didn't want to spoil anything about these awesome cards!!

This mechanism is brilliant. I know reviews can rely on hyperbole a little too often, but really the Crossroads cards are my favorite part of this game. It creates a weight to each player's turn, since she has to go about the things she wants to do, knowing that she might be interrupted at any moment by the player holding the Crossroads card. Not only that, but the Crossroads cards have really interesting story beats that can create some extraordinary moments for the players. I wish I could say more about how much fun we had with these cards, but I really don't want to give anything away.

In fact, one of the things I don't like about the game is that the Crossroads deck is limited. Don't get me wrong, Plaid Hat have provided 80 Crossroads cards, which is a lot - and a Crossroads card won't even be triggered each turn. And I'm usually the first to call out people who complain about this sort of stuff - how many times are you really going to play this game, no matter how good it is? Despite all that, (and perhaps because the cards are just so friggin' awesome) just the fact that the deck is limited (whether or not said limit will ever be reached by me) makes me want more cards.

I also mentioned how much fun that exposure die is. Well, it can also be painful (which is part of why I love it). Rolling a Bite (meaning instant death) on your first turn can really knock the wind out of you and the group - but having to deal with the consequences of that so early can definitely make things interesting for the right players.

Dead of Winter is a great game. There is a lot going on in the game, but not so much to make the game a slog. As the players internalize the rules, the narrative of the story really starts to shine through. The tensions of the individual objectives, the Crossroads cards, the exposure die, and the fact that its a pretty tough cooperative game to begin with all make for a seriously engaging experience.

The first time I played Dead of Winter was with my lovely wife, who is a seasoned gamer, and my dad, cousin, and sister - all three of whom have played some of "my games" in the past but need some encouragement to sit down with one that isn't Wits and Wagers or Telestrations. Right after we lost the first game, we started talking about the stories of our survivors, and what we would do differently when we played again. We didn't have to wait long to find out, because we played again the very next day. And after losing a second time, we set it up to play again...twice. We were up playing Dead of Winter well past 2 AM, laughing and dying horrible deaths.

Dead of Winter is the very definition of an immersive experience. My cousin, usually a "too cool for school" type, started reading the Crossroads cards in character, and was pushing all of us to do the same. We all started making up stories for our survivors about their motivations and why they always seemed to fail so miserably. Based on those memorable experiences alone, I can't recommend this game highly enough. 8.5/10.

Mousquetaires du Roy Review

A new game that I was incredibly psyched to play was Mousquetaires du Roy.

In the Musketeer game (as I will refer to it, as I can type it much more easily and not have to constantly check my spelling), one player takes on the role of "Milady" and tries to disgrace the queen, siege the city, and destroy the musketeers. All of the other players take on the role of different musketeers (yes, from The Three Musketeers books) and try to restore the queen's name by completing several epic quests (to find the queen's diamonds and whatnot). To start the round, Milady will secretly select which location she will go to (she can try to hinder the musketeers directly at certain locations, and at other locations, she can get extra cards that will let her indirectly hinder them by doing things like dishonoring the queen and causing the turn track to move faster). After she selects a location, she is able to play a new Paris card (quest that seriously jacks with the musketeers), and finally she can either draw or play a treachery card (continuing with the theme, this also jacks with the musketeers). Next, each of the musketeers can take their turn (in any order). They each get a certain number of actions based on the number of players in the game. With these, they can move, draw cards, attempt challenges and duels (these are how they complete quests like the Paris cards and the epic quests that win them the game), buy upgrades, and exchange cards/equipment. The heart of the game is in the musketeers working together to thwart Milady's evil schemes. Finally, there is some round cleanup - the siege is adjusted, the time track advances, and the queen is possibly dishonored. If the musketeers can work their way through all 4 of their quest boards before Milady reaches any of her victory conditions, they win!

The first thing that I found interesting about the Musketeer game is that the Musketeers could take their turns in any order. I can't think of any other games with this mechanic, and I think that it really added to the gameplay. Since Milady was able to determine many different things (such as what was at various quests and how they were to be completed), it was really important not only to make the most of each Musketeer turn, but also to do them in the best possible order. There will be many situations in which one of the Musketeers will be the best at completing a challenge and so the other Musketeers will go before him to clear out any potential duels that he may encounter or to help equip him by drawing extra cards and giving them to him. I can't speak highly enough of this mechanic - it is a very small thing and easy to miss (in fact, I missed it until about halfway through the first game), but it is a nice addition.

The next thing that I must talk about is the role of Milady. First off, I really enjoy cooperative and semi-cooperative games. I have put in lots of time in Pandemic, Shadows Over Camelot, and Forbidden Island. The problem is, the board is not able think, but can only react. Because of this, it winds up being quite random. You can play one game of Pandemic in which you win without the game even being close, and the next game you get absolutely destroyed, and it is all dependent on which cards are drawn. The Musketeer game fixes that. In the Musketeer game, Milady is essentially the role of the board and, if you find a strategic gamer to fill this role, it can cause the game to be incredibly challenging every time.  This is the second innovative element that I have seen in the Musketeer game, and so I appreciate this as well. However, if you noticed, I didn't directly call this a pro. Here's the reason - playing as Milady is wretchedly boring. Everyone may not share this opinion with me (I asked my wife, and she had no complaints about playing the role), but I definitely had that feeling. We played a couple games where I was a Musketeer but before writing the review I felt it was important to play both ways. When playing as Milady, I would spend about 1-3 minutes per round (if that) doing my turn and then about 5-15 minutes (or more) waiting on the Musketeers to take theirs (with very little that I could do to affect their turn, but still having to pay attention in case they went to my secret location). Now, I will admit that part of this may have been the people I was playing with not playing quickly, and part of it was definitely that we were still new enough at the game that we had to think through things, but I was still a much bigger fan of playing a Musketeer over playing Milady. Before wrapping up the discussion on this topic, there is one more thing to note - a rule variant is included that allows the players to play without Milady and for her turns to be executed randomly (returning the game to a more Pandemic-like state). If you run into an issue where nobody wants to play the role, this may be for you - hopefully, you will find at least one player in your group that enjoys the role (my wife) and you can allow them to play it in most games.  (Hmmm... my wife likes playing the role of the evil character......  I guess I'll try not to read too much into that.  Especially as she proof-reads this over my shoulder.)

The next pro is the balance of the game. This is a pro that I probably use too often, but this particular game's review would be completely lacking if I didn't cover this topic. The game in which I played Milady was just about the closest game of any kind that I have ever played. On the last round of the game, the Musketeers completed the final quest on the last Musketeer's turn (and by using the mechanic that allowed them to pick the order in which they went). If they had not been able to complete everything on that round, then I was going to successfully disgrace the queen to start the next round. Balance like this shows good playtesting, and I think that is one of the reasons that I bring is up so often. Kudos.

Now that I have covered the most important pros, the main con is the learning curve. The first time through the game, half of the time was spent trying to look up rules to see if we were doing things correctly. In fact, I would recommend that everyone playing read through the instructions before the first game. A single person teaching others how to play this game will most likely fail, but I do believe that a group of players introducing a single new player would be able to teach them sufficiently. I'm not really sure what it is about the game that made it so difficult to figure out at first, as the group we were playing with all consisted of seasoned gamers, but it was a definite issue that we experienced.  (For full disclosure, I was the one who had read the rules and was teaching the group.  Josh fail.)

One last thing to note: the game is easier for the Musketeers if there are more of them.  Whereas there are elements in the game that attempt to balance that (such as them having extra actions and cards in smaller games), there are a couple ways that aren't really offset.  First, if there are more Musketeers, the number of wounds that can be distributed among them before any of them if knocked out is higher, and second, having a Musketeer knocked out is less detrimental.  Think about it for a second, if you are playing with 3 Musketeers with 4 actions, and one Musketeer is knocked out you lose 4 actions, whereas if you're playing with 4 Musketeers with 3 actions, you only lose 3 actions when one is knocked out.  This doesn't really affect the gameplay either positively or negatively, but is something worth noting when you play the game.

Overall, I give Mousquetaires du Roy (the Musketeer game) an 8.0/10. I enjoyed the games that I have played, and I will keep it in my collection. I would recommend trying it at some point, and it would be on my "want list" (if I didn't already have it), it just wouldn't be at the top (because those are reserved for games that are closer to 10... but then again, as an educated reader, you should've been able to figure that out. And so maybe that entire last part was unnecessary. Oh well. You read it anyway.)

If Mousquetaires du Roy sounds interesting, you might also check out Mice and Mystics, Star Wars: The Card Game, and Talisman 4th Edition.

I would like to thank Rio Grande Games for providing me with a demo copy of Mousquetaires du Roy to review.

Betrayal at House on the Hill Review

For the first review from the horror genre, its time for Betrayal at House on the Hill.

In Betrayal, each of the players takes on the role of an explorer that is wandering around an old, creaky, haunted house. While they are wandering around, "scary" and "ominous" things begin occurring. They may run into a room where blood is pouring down the walls, they may encounter a family of skeletons, they may enter a mystic elevator, fall through the floor, find a secret stairway, or many other things. During this time, all of the explorers are on the same side, but because they don't trust each other much, they are trying to improve their character with items and stat bonuses because, eventually, an ominous event will occur drastically altering the rest of the game. (What actually occurs here is that certain rooms have an Omen icon, in which the player will draw an Omen card, and then roll several dice. If the total on the dice is lower than the number of Omen cards in play, then the "Haunt" begins). When the Haunt begins, one of the players will suddenly betray all of the other explorers (or die and take on the roll of the monsters - the determination of who is the traitor depends on which Omen started the Haunt and which room it was found in). The traitor will take the "traitor's tome" instruction manual, and the explorers will take the "survivor's guide" instruction manual, go to different places, and read the scenario from their character's perspective.

This leads directly into the first pro of Betrayal: replayability. There are about 50 different scenarios in the game. In some scenarios the house may be alive, Dracula or Frankenstein's monster may come out, you may be playing chess with Death, ghosts, mummies, vampires, etc. may be involved. For each of these scenarios the explorers and the traitor have their own rules about what they are trying to do in order to defeat the other side, and each has its own win condition.

Thus the second pro of Betrayal: the scenarios are well done. Each one plays very differently, and the concept that one side does not know what the other side is trying to do is an innovation that I had not seen in games other than Betrayal.

Now for the cons: First, since there are so many scenarios, each with different counters (for a total of approximately 8,000,000 counters give or take 7.5+ million), the amount of time spent looking for the correct counters can be somewhat frustrating. Secondly, since each side only knows their own rules, there can be situations in which the players don't necessarily know if certain things are legal - and so it is useful to have someone that is familiar with the game present to mediate these disputes.

Overall, Betrayal at the House on the Hill gets a 9.5/10. It is by far the best game of the horror genre that I have ever played. (Full disclosure - I don't play horror games especially often, and I only tried this one because I found a new copy of it for $3.) I highly recommend this game to anyone who is comfortable playing a game of the horror genre, but if you don't want to read cards that are about blood on walls, skeletons, zombies, etc, please don't bother with the game, because I know that the subject matter of the game can make people uncomfortable.

If Betrayal at House on the Hill sounds interesting, you might also check out Cargo Noir, Glory to Rome, and Battlestar Galactica.