16/02/2015 Cardboard Children – Arcadia Quest | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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By Robert Florence on February 10th, 2015 at 9:00 pm.

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Cardboard Children – Arcadia Quest

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Hello youse.

Part 2 of my XCOM: The Board Game coverage will have to wait. I’m yet to sufficiently explore the different player counts. It’s such an interesting game. You can read the first

part of my review here, if you missed it. To fill in, I’m going to tell you about a fun new game called Arcadia Quest.

ARCADIA QUEST

Arcadia Quest is a light dungeon-crawl board game from Cool Mini Or Not. It’s a big giant box, heavy as a mug, full of beautiful little miniatures and thick cardboard tiles. It’s alavish production – the kind of production that Kickstarter has afforded the hobby. Cool Mini Or Not has really been able to go to town with the miniatures – they are beautiful

sculpts – and the artwork throughout the game’s boards, cards and rulebook is of the highest quality. It’s a big, expensive, luxury item.

Is it for you? Let’s take a look.

The board game world is hardly short of a dungeon crawl or two. Let me list some ones I love. You like lists, don’t you? Of course you do. You are a child of the internet.

HEROQUEST – The old classic. Still a fun ride when you get it on the table.

WARHAMMER QUEST – An incredible, expandable dungeon adventure sandbox. A masterpiece.

DESCENT – From the brilliant, intimidating first edition to the fun and streamlined second, Descent is an essential game.

CLAUSTROPHOBIA – A brilliant 2-player dungeon crawl with some fresh ideas and very streamlined gameplay.

SUPER DUNGEON EXPLORE – The videogame themed one-against-many monster bash. It’s a wonderful game, full of colour and excitement.

SPACE HULK – The GOAT.

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THE DARK NAME THAT SHALL NOT BE SPOKEN – There’s another game that I won’t talk about yet, because I’ve got something special lined up to tell you all about it

very soon.

Hey, and that’s only SOME of them. There are loads of dungeon crawling games out there, where players take some characters and run them through some dangerous places.We are very well served in that area. What does Arcadia Quest bring to the table? I mean, in terms of it being a dungeon crawl game. If indeed it even is one.

Well, for a start, unlike many dungeon crawl games, Arcadia Quest doesn’t need anyone to take control of the bad guys. Just like Warhammer Quest and the D&D Adventure

Game System, the enemies have behaviours that will trigger when certain game conditions are met. This allows every Arcadia Quest player the opportunity to play as the goodguys, building a little guild of their own.

There are 12 hero characters in the game – enough so that all four players can have their own team of three. The game can be played as a campaign, or scenarios from thecampaign can be played through in single sessions, and the objectives are always quite simple. Every scenario has some quests that must be completed – usually there are acouple of scenario-related quests (PvE) and quests that involve killing a character from another player’s guild (PvP). Every quest, kill and objective rewards the player with

coins, and at the end of each scenario the person who has completed all the quests and has the most coins is the winner.

The gameplay is extremely simple. On your turn, you can activate one character. They can move three spaces and attack, or attack then move. You choose a weapon your

character is holding and exhaust it, placing a token on the weapon card. Then you roll the number of dice printed on the card. Rusty Sword? Three dice. And if you roll swordsymbols, those are hits. If you roll a critical hit, that’s a hit and a re-roll. And then, if you haven’t completely killed the monster, it gets a swipe back at you, controlled by the

player to your left.

And that’s the basics.

In truth, there isn’t a great deal more than the basics. Movement, attack rolls and defence rolls. The game is purely tactical, with players all trying to mow down enemies and

complete objectives, while making sure to throw some obstacles in the path of opposing players. Monsters are triggered by player activity near to them, and there’s never anyreal need to keep checking the rulebook to see how that stuff flows. It all becomes second nature very quickly. Everything in this game could be distilled down to a page of rules.

Where the game gets interesting is when two guilds are going for the one objective. Let’s say one of the quests is simply this – Kill Three Monsters. If two players havecompleted two quests each, and are both chasing the Kill Three Monsters quest, everything tightens up in a very satisfying manner. Heroes face off against heroes, trying to

block progress towards any monsters still on the board. Special abilities are used and dice are chucked and laughs are in abundance.

Here’s how the campaign works – when a scenario ends, any characters who died get things called “Death Curses” and these weaken characters for the next scenario. That’s

fair enough, I think. It’s only for one round and it gives every single death an extra bit of pain. Between scenarios you can spend coins on new weapons, armour and abilitiesfrom a huge deck of cards. As players progress through the campaign, they choose which scenarios to face. You can easily play the campaign again and again and meet differentscenarios and experience different gameplay through the different weapons you acquire. Players who win scenarios will also find that they have additional bonuses later in the

campaign, and everything is pulled together in a very cool way. It’s replayable, fun, and a whole campaign could easily be blasted through in one long night of gaming.

In truth, this game isn’t a dungeon crawl at all. It wears those robes, sure, but it plays like a lovely little tactical skirmish game. The hero characters have great abilities that setthem all apart, and make the process of building your guild a real pleasure. The battles are short and thrilling, and as you get new weapons and skills you will be gagging to get

16/02/2015 Cardboard Children – Arcadia Quest | Rock, Paper, Shotgun

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out there onto the board to show them off.

It’s a big, expensive luxury item. But it’s a lovely game. It plays well with adults and kids, there’s a ton of content in the box, and it looks gorgeous on the table.

I’m glad we’re getting back to these simple, fun-first designs. As much as I love Descent 1st Edition, the game is a BASTARD to play, with pages and pages of rules and errata.Arcadia Quest is not as great as Descent (or as great as any of the games I mentioned on that list earlier) but it does its own thing extremely well, and it will keep a place in my

collection for those times when I just want to enjoy breaking some heads with cool swords and spells.

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1.

10/02/2015 at 21:15 Judasgoat says:

Because you mentioned the timeless Hero Quest, and it’s listed as an influence by the designers, and because the Kickstarter is almost up and you get a ridiculous amount

of stretch goals at this point, I thought I’d make reference to the Conan boardgame from Monolith. I’m not going to directly link it, so as not to give the impression that

I’m shilling for them – I just figure that it’s a lot of good stuff that I would kick myself for had I found out about it 24 hours from now and anyone with at least a thumb canfind it themselves on the kickstarter page.

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10/02/2015 at 22:59 Temple says:

Pish, link away it does seem like a good ‘un $90 plus about $25 P&P gets you quite a bit and I’ve backed.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/806316071/conan?ref=users

Lighter and quicker playing than many with interesting fatigue mechanic – you can keep taking actions until you tire out, but then the Evil Overlord can attack with

you relying on armour rather than Dodge or Parry skills as you are puckered out.

I like how the person in charge of the Evil often has their own objective as well.

All those listed by Rab have different levels of heaviness and it is a case of find the sweet spot for you.Galaxy Defenders is my favourite at the moment (Sc-fi space marines co-op vs Alien AI), but plays a bit long and so does not hit the table much.

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11/02/2015 at 06:30 IT0039534 says:

3×1 HDMI Switch with remote control for set top box,DVD players,video game stations.I think everyone deserve to get one. http://www.hdgenius.com/3×1-

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HDMI-Switch-with-remote-control-for-set-top-box-DVD-players-video-game-stations—HDGENIUS-p-60.html

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2.

10/02/2015 at 22:53 Trodomir says:

I backed this and am so happy I did. It’s been a blast. Yes, it’s not really a dungeon crawl and we love that. Decent is a classic for us and I’m about to put Hero Quest

back on the table (with beer). But Arcadia Quest fills a different role: a real PvE + PvP game. We love our co-op games, but this is fast and furious bashing. I am reallyglad I got it and the first batch of stuff and bonus heroes. More options and combinations!

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3.

10/02/2015 at 23:22 Wounder says:

It’s pretty excellent for the 7-10 year old crowd. The PvP aspect doesn’t overwhelm anyone, as it doesn’t seem to be personal, more sort of “you were in my way”. It’s

pretty light for adults, but I have a good time with it (and them) anyway.

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4.

11/02/2015 at 01:54 teije says:

Seems like a good choice for those times when remembering the Descent rules seems like too much work (after a couple beers). I bet my son would like this one.

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5.

11/02/2015 at 04:30 It's not me it's you says:

I’ve finished one campaign and gotten a ways into a second, it’s definitely a good time. Sometimes indulging in the absolutely gorgeous production values and makingsome light but meaningful tactical decisions is all an evening needs to be a winner.

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6.

11/02/2015 at 05:38 Exitalterego says:

The production values of this game really are lovely with the minis all having a great amount of character. Plus I’ve found it a brilliant game for those people who would

find Descent and its ilk heavy going. I’ve played a few scenarios with my girlfriend and parents and despite not being gamers, they picked up the rules very quickly andenjoyed themselves despite being a little sceptical at the start. Definitely one of the better projects I’ve backed on Kickstarter!

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7.

11/02/2015 at 10:47 wraithgr says:

Agree with the above comments: fun game, great production. We’re on our second (2-player) campaign, and although it is great fun, I can see some issues with slippery

slope. Possibly this gets better with 4 players on the board, all of them tripping each other up, but with 2 players it is easy for one to get too much of a head start out of 1-2 lucky dice rolls… Still a good game though.

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8.

11/02/2015 at 14:29 GAmbrose says:

THE DARK NAME THAT SHALL NOT BE SPOKEN – There’s another game that I won’t talk about yet, because I’ve got something special lined up to tell you all

about it very soon.

Star Wars: Imperial Assault, by any chance?

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11/02/2015 at 14:46 Rymosrac says:

It’s that or shadows of brimstone, I’d bet my third nipple on it.

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9.

11/02/2015 at 15:41 Latro says:

I hate you, Rab Florence, and I hope you never write another article.

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In the last 2 months, I got Pathfinder, I got Shadowrun: Crossfire, I got Dead of Winter, the XCOM game, and Samurai Spirit. AND I DONT HAVE PLAYERS!!!!!!

And now you are seducing me into buying this … this … this pretty thing I have seen at the shop several times already and NO NO NO NO NO NO I CANT MYGIRLFRIEND IS ABOUT TO MAKE ME SLEEP IN THE COUCH NOOOOO

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11/02/2015 at 19:55 thekelvingreen says:

At least you have the games, even if you have no players; I bought Tragedy Looper back in November or December based on Rab’s review but it was out of

stock everywhere because everyone else bought it at the same time apparently and I’m still waiting for the next delivery!

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12/02/2015 at 16:46 jrodman says:

Does your town/city/village/hamlet/space igloo lack a gamestore/coffeeshop/casino/oxygen bar where people gather to play board games? Surely there must be

some such option?

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10.

11/02/2015 at 21:44 Shardz says:

I’ll wait for the Android version to come out. I just hope PlayDek doesn’t get the license…

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