I’m like the Goldilocks of board games right now. Instead of porridge, though, I consume deck-building games. And whiskey. Nom nom nom. Delicious.
Last week we looked at Baby Bear’s game, DC Deck-Building Oh God I Need A More Original Name Game. Before that was Mama’s Bear choice, with an intro to Dominion. Today I’m going to settle us into Papa Bear’s seat and take a look at a deck-builder even he’d find filling: Thunderstone: a dungeon crawler that’s as robust as Father Bear.
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[I swear to god my talent as a tagline artist is wasted on these damn image captions: Here’s my cat in the game box. Damn that’s good.]
If a casual game night is what you’re looking for, Thunderstone might not be the game for you this evening. It’s a heavy hitter in the realm of deck-building games, mainly because the plot of this franchise is dungeon crawling adventure party. It’s the same old, same old as far as a market and things to buy to put into your deck, the big difference with this game is the dungeon, where you presumably crawl in and defeat monsters? Why are dungeon crawlers called dungeon “crawlers”? I would not want to get on my hands and knees in a dungeon. That’s just.. well there’s certain things you don’t make games about, in public.
Ahem. Anyway.
Where Dominion simply has a market and STAOBMDBGBMACOWOADCNTAW has a line-up with villains, equipment, and heroes, Thunderstone divides the game into two very distinct areas of play: The Village, and The Dungeon. The Village is where you go to recruit adventurers and heroes to your party (ie your deck), and buy equipment; the Dungeon is where you go to fight baddies and search out the legendary Thunderstone. Every turn you have to decide, using only the resources in your hand, whether to go to the Village or to the Dungeon. The Village supplies you with what you need to face the monsters in the depths of the Dungeon; the Dungeon presents you with said monsters from which you can earn experience, money, and most importantly, victory points. Just like every other game out there, victory points are how you win the game.
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[The Village offers a decent random selection of items and heroes that are constant throughout each game, until their limited supplies are dwindled.]
I don’t want to write anymore. This is stupid. Blah blah blah, this game is like every other. The only difference is in the fine print with the need for torches to go deeper into the Dungeon and heroes have to be strong enough to carry said torches (and weapons). That’s right, you have to have bloody weapons on these idiotic heroes you found at the bottom of your pub bill. So the issue of getting a hand that provides both your strongest fighters AND the most effective weapons means that your deck needs to be the best built machine since Turing’s. What? That was deemed impossible to ever construct? I rest my fucking case.
This side tangent of fed-up exhausted ranting may lead you to the conclusion that I don’t like Thunderstone. That I don’t like a game where you need a finely executed plan and team to consistently take out the monsters present in the Dungeon over yonder. Instead, you get the team of adventurers that were rejected by DnD Academy and left to drown their sorrows in whatever podunk village you keep finding them in. That’s unfair of me, I know. It’s not their fault that you can’t bloody shuffle right.
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[The Thunderstone, which triggers the end of the game, is found somewhere in the last ten cards of the Dungeon deck. Once it reaches the first level of the Dungeon, the game ends.]
That’s the niche with deck-builders, though, isn’t it? It all comes down to your shuffling. You can buy all the right cards and fight all the right monsters but if the five cards you draw every turn are just completely incompatible? You’re screwed. With games like Dominion and DCDBG, those hand issues aren’t as apparent. You’ve only ever got one goal with your deck: get cards from the market to get points. With Thunderstone, you’ve got two goals, one of which builds and directly interferes with the other. You want to go to the Dungeon and fight the most monsters, to get the most points. To do that, however, you need to also go to the village, with money you’ve earned from monsters, to buy strong fighters and helpful items for them to use. It builds upon itself, your deck, which is obviously a good and a bad thing. The larger your deck, the less likely you’re drawing what you want, or need, every turn. Want to defeat that zombie lurking in the first level of the Dungeon? Too bad! You just drew a hand of weapons and torches, and no heroes to wield them. Looks like it’s time to wait for your next turn, again.
I guess that’s another issue I have with these kinds of games, especially Thunderstone. They’re very sandboxed. I mentioned the concept of games, like Dominion, where you only interact with what’s in front of you. There are cards which have effects that can affect your opponents, this is true, but it’s also downright boring. Every turn you look at what’s available in the dungeon and then you look at your hand and you decide what to do. Then, on everyone else’s turn you just sit there and wait for your turn. That can take a long while.
Okay, I lied. There are three things you can do every turn. You can go to the Village, or Dungeon, yes, but you can also Rest Under A Waystone On the Way To Trebon and subsequently, permanently remove a card from your deck. That inaction is significantly less interesting, though, and doesn’t require its own paragraph. Yet, it got its own paragraph. Interesting… okay, so maybe weeding the crap out of your deck is important. Duly noted? Good.
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[Disease cards are dead weight in your hand. They get added to your deck by opponents and monsters and when you go into the Dungeon with them, the reduce your overall attack score. There’s nothing you can do about these, aside from try to get rid of them.]
Obviously this hasn’t been a review, persay, of Thunderstone. It’s more been vague references to things that you do in the game while Tiffany goes off on a tangent about what she hates about deck-builders. And yet.. and yet I write for a whole month about them? And play them nearly exclusively? What’s that about? I’ll tell you friends: Peer-pressure. That’s a lie, I just like cards. And I like the nature of deck-builders. In most of these games the biggest thing working against you isn’t your opponents – it’s how well you’ve constructed, deconstructed and shuffled your deck. Trading card games like Magic: The Gathering are all about constructing amazing decks that work with every match you ever play. You have months and years to make a good deck. Deck-builders are the speed versions of the craft of deck building. You and your opponents have the same amount of time and the same amount of resources available to you to try and build the best deck you can. Starting decks and in-game money are exactly the same; the only thing that differs is what you draw versus what they draw, and then, how you spend it. Will your twelve copper develop into a powerful, monster-slaying force, or will you be just like every other wannabe adventurer out there? It’s all in how you play the hand you’re dealt.
Oh god, this is turning into a life lesson, isn’t it? I better end this now. Um..
Thunderstone: You don’t go to the dungeon with the hand that you want – you go to the dungeon with the hand that you’re dealt. From the deck you built yourself. From previous shit hands that you were dealt. From the deck you had constructed thus far. Oh sod it, we’re done.
More Board?
There are a lot of deck-builders out on the market now, and a lot of them like to divide your deck’s focus between fighting and buying. Thunderstone itself has a lot of expansions that add more items, monsters, and heroes. Nightfall is a decent game with vampires and werewolves and other things of the night. Other options include games that I’m too lazy to look up right now. Bug off, it’s late and Colorado’s on fire.
Last week we looked at Baby Bear’s game, DC Deck-Building Oh God I Need A More Original Name Game. Before that was Mama’s Bear choice, with an intro to Dominion. Today I’m going to settle us into Papa Bear’s seat and take a look at a deck-builder even he’d find filling: Thunderstone: a dungeon crawler that’s as robust as Father Bear.
[I swear to god my talent as a tagline artist is wasted on these damn image captions: Here’s my cat in the game box. Damn that’s good.]
If a casual game night is what you’re looking for, Thunderstone might not be the game for you this evening. It’s a heavy hitter in the realm of deck-building games, mainly because the plot of this franchise is dungeon crawling adventure party. It’s the same old, same old as far as a market and things to buy to put into your deck, the big difference with this game is the dungeon, where you presumably crawl in and defeat monsters? Why are dungeon crawlers called dungeon “crawlers”? I would not want to get on my hands and knees in a dungeon. That’s just.. well there’s certain things you don’t make games about, in public.
Ahem. Anyway.
Where Dominion simply has a market and STAOBMDBGBMACOWOADCNTAW has a line-up with villains, equipment, and heroes, Thunderstone divides the game into two very distinct areas of play: The Village, and The Dungeon. The Village is where you go to recruit adventurers and heroes to your party (ie your deck), and buy equipment; the Dungeon is where you go to fight baddies and search out the legendary Thunderstone. Every turn you have to decide, using only the resources in your hand, whether to go to the Village or to the Dungeon. The Village supplies you with what you need to face the monsters in the depths of the Dungeon; the Dungeon presents you with said monsters from which you can earn experience, money, and most importantly, victory points. Just like every other game out there, victory points are how you win the game.
[The Village offers a decent random selection of items and heroes that are constant throughout each game, until their limited supplies are dwindled.]
I don’t want to write anymore. This is stupid. Blah blah blah, this game is like every other. The only difference is in the fine print with the need for torches to go deeper into the Dungeon and heroes have to be strong enough to carry said torches (and weapons). That’s right, you have to have bloody weapons on these idiotic heroes you found at the bottom of your pub bill. So the issue of getting a hand that provides both your strongest fighters AND the most effective weapons means that your deck needs to be the best built machine since Turing’s. What? That was deemed impossible to ever construct? I rest my fucking case.
This side tangent of fed-up exhausted ranting may lead you to the conclusion that I don’t like Thunderstone. That I don’t like a game where you need a finely executed plan and team to consistently take out the monsters present in the Dungeon over yonder. Instead, you get the team of adventurers that were rejected by DnD Academy and left to drown their sorrows in whatever podunk village you keep finding them in. That’s unfair of me, I know. It’s not their fault that you can’t bloody shuffle right.
[The Thunderstone, which triggers the end of the game, is found somewhere in the last ten cards of the Dungeon deck. Once it reaches the first level of the Dungeon, the game ends.]
That’s the niche with deck-builders, though, isn’t it? It all comes down to your shuffling. You can buy all the right cards and fight all the right monsters but if the five cards you draw every turn are just completely incompatible? You’re screwed. With games like Dominion and DCDBG, those hand issues aren’t as apparent. You’ve only ever got one goal with your deck: get cards from the market to get points. With Thunderstone, you’ve got two goals, one of which builds and directly interferes with the other. You want to go to the Dungeon and fight the most monsters, to get the most points. To do that, however, you need to also go to the village, with money you’ve earned from monsters, to buy strong fighters and helpful items for them to use. It builds upon itself, your deck, which is obviously a good and a bad thing. The larger your deck, the less likely you’re drawing what you want, or need, every turn. Want to defeat that zombie lurking in the first level of the Dungeon? Too bad! You just drew a hand of weapons and torches, and no heroes to wield them. Looks like it’s time to wait for your next turn, again.
I guess that’s another issue I have with these kinds of games, especially Thunderstone. They’re very sandboxed. I mentioned the concept of games, like Dominion, where you only interact with what’s in front of you. There are cards which have effects that can affect your opponents, this is true, but it’s also downright boring. Every turn you look at what’s available in the dungeon and then you look at your hand and you decide what to do. Then, on everyone else’s turn you just sit there and wait for your turn. That can take a long while.
Okay, I lied. There are three things you can do every turn. You can go to the Village, or Dungeon, yes, but you can also Rest Under A Waystone On the Way To Trebon and subsequently, permanently remove a card from your deck. That inaction is significantly less interesting, though, and doesn’t require its own paragraph. Yet, it got its own paragraph. Interesting… okay, so maybe weeding the crap out of your deck is important. Duly noted? Good.
[Disease cards are dead weight in your hand. They get added to your deck by opponents and monsters and when you go into the Dungeon with them, the reduce your overall attack score. There’s nothing you can do about these, aside from try to get rid of them.]
Obviously this hasn’t been a review, persay, of Thunderstone. It’s more been vague references to things that you do in the game while Tiffany goes off on a tangent about what she hates about deck-builders. And yet.. and yet I write for a whole month about them? And play them nearly exclusively? What’s that about? I’ll tell you friends: Peer-pressure. That’s a lie, I just like cards. And I like the nature of deck-builders. In most of these games the biggest thing working against you isn’t your opponents – it’s how well you’ve constructed, deconstructed and shuffled your deck. Trading card games like Magic: The Gathering are all about constructing amazing decks that work with every match you ever play. You have months and years to make a good deck. Deck-builders are the speed versions of the craft of deck building. You and your opponents have the same amount of time and the same amount of resources available to you to try and build the best deck you can. Starting decks and in-game money are exactly the same; the only thing that differs is what you draw versus what they draw, and then, how you spend it. Will your twelve copper develop into a powerful, monster-slaying force, or will you be just like every other wannabe adventurer out there? It’s all in how you play the hand you’re dealt.
Oh god, this is turning into a life lesson, isn’t it? I better end this now. Um..
Thunderstone: You don’t go to the dungeon with the hand that you want – you go to the dungeon with the hand that you’re dealt. From the deck you built yourself. From previous shit hands that you were dealt. From the deck you had constructed thus far. Oh sod it, we’re done.
More Board?
There are a lot of deck-builders out on the market now, and a lot of them like to divide your deck’s focus between fighting and buying. Thunderstone itself has a lot of expansions that add more items, monsters, and heroes. Nightfall is a decent game with vampires and werewolves and other things of the night. Other options include games that I’m too lazy to look up right now. Bug off, it’s late and Colorado’s on fire.