Shifting gears for our weekly game nights, we’ll be playing the cooperative board game ‘of Dreams and Shadows’ by Greenbrier Games for the next few weeks. (take a look HERE or HERE for more info.)
We played our first game last Tuesday evening and I wanted to bring it to people’s attention because it was a lot of fun. Really.
It’s different than our usual fare, to be sure. More a collective story telling session than tactical war game, your Champions move around a world map trying to stem the rising tide of evil in the land, preparing to face one of three Major Villains. Sounds easy, right?
Nope.
Overconfident and blissfully ignorant, three of our five Heroes were dead by Round 4 of Act One.
Not that we were complaining, mind you. It was on us, 100%. Our dead Heroes were a testament to the surprising depth and flow of the game. We hadn’t made the jump from miniature war game battlefield to meta-narrative strategy, and paid the price.
There are plenty of overview videos and reviews online already so I won’t repeat them here. They do a fine job explaining the theme and mechanics. oDaS isn’t for everyone, certainly not the crunchy RPGer or carnage-minded tabletop generals. Yes, there’s a fair amount of components and some set up, but our collective assessment is the artwork is gorgeous, the pieces are sturdy, the narrative bits are well-written, and the game mechanics are solid. It’s a genuinely fun, challenging game.
Reset and start over this coming week facing Morrigan, the evil Fae Queen, once more. Then we’ll most likely continue and square off against the other two villains before circling back to D&D 5e, the always excellent Symbaroum, the new Zona Alfa Solo/co-op KONTRABAND, and the in-development, post-alien invasion game, Insurgent: Earth. Watch this space.
Thanks and have a good weekend.
STALKER7 