Board Gaming - Clank! and Tiny Epic Quest

ratticus (58)in #gaming • 7 years ago

Clank!

When I first saw this game it struck me as something I'd been waiting for ever since Dominion brought the deck building mechanic successfully to my attention. I loved that game, but also saw that something more could (and possibly should) be done with the mechanic.

Clank! is such a game. It takes a deck builder, and a dungeon dive, and combines them. Your movement, combat, and ability to gather more abilities (cards) all depend on the cards you draw from your deck. Like other deck building games, you start with a 10 card deck that is identical to all the other players, and you draw 5 cards each turn.

Unlike earlier deck building games, there is also a board, which you move your character around on, exploring room to room, picking up random loot before grabbing an artefact and trying to escape before the dragon kills you.

2017-11-30 18.56.30.jpg
^{Early in the game. Characters are still heading towards the deep, Dragon is still quiet, and all the treasure is still on the board}

That starting deck you have just won't cut it if you really want to get a good treasure and get out of the dungeon. Best use it to purchase some better cards that give you more movement, or higher purchase power, or maybe just more swords so you can kill more monsters. With 3 other players all racing to steal the dragon's treasures, you really want to be able to get in quickly, grab a decent enough treasure and get out.

2017-11-30 19.48.22.jpg
^{Blue has done a smash and grab run and is trying to escape, while everyone else is still in the deep collecting their loot}

As you're playing, there are cards that make you add clank to the board, which in itself isn't a problem, but when the dragon attacks, they are all put into the dragon bag before some are randomly drawn out. Any player coloured ones deal damage to that player. The bag starts with 24 black dragon cubes in it also, which don't damage anyone. As the game goes on, there becomes less black and more coloured cubes in the bag, so damage can happen quicker. Couple that with the dragon getting angrier as it realises it's treasures are getting taken (more cubes drawn with each attack) and quite a bit of damage can happen in a short period of time. There are ways of getting the clank off the board, or heal yourself, but removing things from the bag only happens through the dragon attacks.

2017-11-30 20.18.16.jpg
^{Looks like Blue didn't make it out. But then neither did Yellow. Red got out and then Green died in the race to get out.}

Even though only Red made it out in out game, because everyone was above ground, the townsfolk would come and rescue us, so we'd still score out loot, just no bonus for escaping. And that whole 'being dead' thing too. If Green had got out, they'd have won, and almost did even without making it out. It would have been an interesting race for everyone though if Blue had made it out, as there are only 4 turns after the first escape, and the dragon gets very angry very quickly.

2017-11-30 20.09.01.jpg
^{A selection of the cards that I had in my deck at the end of the game}

Tiny Epic Quest

There are a few games now in the Tiny Epic line, but this is the first one I've actually gotten to play. Unfortunately we didn't get a full play done, as we had a hard finish time this week, and we got about half way through the game before we had to bail on it and pack up.

Tiny Epic Quest Minion - Amazon.jpg
^{Source The meeples have the ability to hold 2 items each}

You control 3 characters that you move around the kingdom to different locations and performing the action there. The locations allow you to learn spells, progress through temples, battle goblins, and maybe complete one of the random quests that are near current. There is always a movement based one and a temple based one available, and a third one that could be either. Rewards vary from gaining artefacts to restoring health or power.

Tiny Epic Quest Kindom Layout - Notey.jpg
^{Source The 4 castles are always in the same locations, and the shape is the same, but other than that, random kingdom layout}

Scoring at the end is based on a table for each of the categories of 'killing goblins', 'spells learned', and 'quests completed'. All of them start off being worth a negative amount of points, and have different scale of gains, depending on what is considered easier to do.

When I get a full play of this I'll give it a better write up, but for now, I'll just say I really enjoyed playing it more than the play through suggested I would, though the whole spell mechanism seems odd and clunky, while being required for the fantasy theme. Other games in the Tiny Epic line have space and western theme (and probably others I don't recall right now).