Farewell to The Darkness

Alas, it is time to put the game away. I was hoping the game would hold my attention longer, but I found some significant flaws that I was unable to move past. If I stuck to solo gaming, it might have taken me longer, but a friend joined me in the game and we played it all day, for a couple of days. At first, with the miniatures, the treasure, and the leveling up, the game feels like a lot of fun. And it is fun. The fact that it could hold our attention all day is something to mention. However, even then, we only focused on one or two "difficult" scenarios. I think we spent three full days on it, possibly a couple more, and at the end we found the game play was predictable and repetitive. The game play did not offer us engaging decisions to make during the game and most often it was too easy to win. When we did loose, it felt like it was merely a stroke of bad luck and dice rolling, not necessarily bad decision making. Because of this, we never felt the tension or excitement during the game. In the end, although there were a few scenarios we hadn't finished, we simply weren't interested in trying them out.

I am still happy with the purchase for a couple of reasons. One: I really enjoy the miniatures and I am hoping to finish painting them before I move on to another painting project (I really, really hate leaving projects unfinished, although that doesn't prevent me from not finishing them). Two: I can use the miniatures in other games. Three: I do think the game is a good introduction to RPG/miniature games. We were able to pull in a third player and the game helped inspire him to get into painting and collecting miniatures. Four: I am hoping the fix the game in an expansion.

I really wanted to love this game and I hope a future expansion will bring me back in.

Where am I going from here? Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago. For next week, I'll show case some of the heritors (Frostgrave captains) that may be participating in the games. I'm not planning on a long campaign, probably the eight scenarios or so that come in the book. I'm looking forward to exploring jungles, seeing how the heritors and their crews develop.