We call on our mightiest adventurers to save out kingdom from danger! Vile creatures roam the land, on a quest to resurrect the unhallowed creatures and stop anyone who might get in their way. It’s up to you to work together and use your weapons, abilities, and skills to protect the kingdom. Can we count on you?

What Is It?

Cooperative Game – Everyone will win or lose together as a team. Each round 1 character will go back to camp and take actions to help the rest of the team get ready (i..e scout monsters, look at the map, chop firewood, et cetera). The rest of the characters will go on watch and fight off monsters that are at that location.

Variable Player Powers – Each player plays as a different character (or multiple characters when playing with less than 4 players, as 4 characters must always be used), and each character has unique abilities for both camp and watch. Players may even have the opportunity to swap out their abilities during the game for different ones.

Who Is It For?

  • 1 – 4 Players – The game works at any player count, but if you don’t like handling multiple characters, you’ll probably prefer it with more players. I like a full game of 4 best.
  • Ages 10+ – Rules are fairly simple to learn and all ages will love rolling dice!
  • Fans of dice rolling and cooperative games, plus having unique abilities
  • Players who don’t mind when a game can be full of randomness

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Nice art across the board for monsters, adventurers, et cetera, clean graphic design as well
  • Components – The cards/player sheets have a nice finish, I love the use of the box as the board, everything is really nice overall
  • Theme – Strong use of the theme; abilities helped the theme shine
  • Rules – Clear, well-written, good examples
  • Variety – Different characters to choose from, each with variable abilities, plus the summons cards let you adjust difficulty which is nice
  • Extra player sheets double as player aids
  • Although a lot comes down to dice rolls, there are ways to mitigate the luck, or use lower numbers in effective ways, which is nice
  • Rounds play smoothly with simultaneous play between players

CONS

  • Length – For what it is, I think the game is a little bit long; it could definitely use less rounds
  • Components – Most of the dice are nice, but the blue and purple d8s are just too dark with the black numbers, I wish they had white text instead
  • Luck – Sometimes, there is just a lack of control for the players, whether due to bad rolls or cards just coming out in an order that continues to beat on players without relenting
  • At less than 4, players have to control 2 characters (at 2), share the 4th character (at 3), or control 4 characters (solo). It works fine, but just isn’t my favorite form of gameplay
  • Could lend itself to alpha play since there isn’t really hidden information between players

Final Thoughts

I’m not usually huge on cooperative games that have this level of randomness, but I’m kind of charmed by this one. It’s not something I want to play all of the time, but the theme really draws me in and keeps me coming back every so often. I love the characters, their abilities, and the little world the game plops you into.

I do think it’s a little long for what it is, and there can be some really bad games where you just know you have no hope of winning, and it’s super discouraging. But on the other hand, there are also some super epic games where you get into such a groove, and it feels really rewarding to win!

Overall, it’s a smooth and pretty simple game, and if you’re a fan of cooperative play, you might want to try it out!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 6.5/10

Designers – Mike Gnade, Todd Walsh
Artists – Andreas Rocha, Robert P. Schneider
Publisher – Rock Manor Games
MSRP – $30 (Retail); $40 (Deluxe)
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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