12/28/2023 0 Comments Descent legends of the dark soloThis loss is almost linear with the solo mode coming across as the weakest mode of play.Īnother area where the game is interesting but doesn’t quite push through is with the various monstrous entities. I understand why all of this occurs in order to facilitate a wider opportunity for play, but as you lose protagonists the experience feels more procedural and flat. With less you have people controlling multiple characters – all four when playing solo – and with a fifth player the board feels a bit too large lacking the claustrophobia and exploration causation of the more confined space. There is a requirement for four characters, so it functions best at exactly that amount of participants. The scaling at work is also a little odd. It almost feels like you, and everyone else, are not really doing much of anything. A fiend or two may shake things up, but with enough time and space you maintain free will and shed consequence. Early exploration is warm-up, moving and placing new tiles as a matter of exercise. If that happens then: you’re dead/you’re dead/you’re dead/you’re dead and outta this world.īut those excellent discussion points are entirely absent in the first 30 minutes or so. Similarly if you burn too many tiles by exploring poorly or getting eaten by those waxers, then you may discard all of the gates. If enough keys are discarded in this manner then the game will close in defeat, light fading into pain and suffering. If they move away from the tile it will disappear, meaning the other prisoner a few spaces away will never find it. There are some solid decision points that must be addressed, particularly in sticky situations where a player discovers a key space when they already possess a key. The best decisions come late in the arc of play as you must coordinate with the group and decide whether it’s worth moving into certain spaces. The tactical facet of play is more burly but still marred. The coffins are ready, the death warrant signed There can be no real game plan besides player orientation to one another. The board features strong turnover and the results of exploration are mostly outside your control. That’s problematic for your interest of survival.īut the strategic engagement is quite low. This means no illuminating adjacent tiles. That visual of the tile column diminishing is one of the strongest artistic expressions in this box.Īnother effective thematic element is the fallout of extinguishing a character’s candle when they’re attacked. This is a powerful and lovely physical manifestation of the game’s central theme. Instead you discard tiles from the stack effectively burning time. Grouping together results in more efficient exploration, but it also risks inflicting damage on multiple players when stumbling into a trap. This is primarily a consideration due to the monster tiles – the perfectly named Wax Eaters – which pop out and attack all players down straight paths of open sight. There is strategy, but it’s quite shallow and centralized on whether you plan to cluster into groups or not. However, my adoration for this design begins to decay beyond that central conceit.įor all its promise, The Night Cage feels limited. It’s not forgiving but the biggest mistake would be to defang this warped cage. I’ve gotten close to victory, a tile away even, and that sense of dread is absolute and enveloping. I adore the challenge this game presents. This won’t happen because The Night Cage is smiling and you’re a pea. Instead there’s a tile, called a gate, and everyone needs to move on it together once you each have one of those keys. You take an actual metal little key although it’s just for smirks as there’s no actual little door to unlock. To do so each player will need to find a special key tile and move upon it. You don’t really beat The Night Cage, but you will try. They run away to the discard pile and they’re never seen again. As you move away from tiles and they’re no longer adjacent, they disappear. There’s a feeling of malevolence, as if the winding earth itself is playing with you furtively like a child rolling a pea across a dinner plate. Finally you draw another and fill the remaining opening.Īnd we do this, up to five us working in terrified unison, for roughly an hour.īut none of it makes sense. So you move into a passageway with two corridors jutting off like a wishbone waiting to be cracked, then you draw a tile from the large stack and decide at which exit to place it. You’re carrying this candle, delicate and fragile as your own bones, and it illuminates all adjacent spaces. In fact, you don’t even fight back – instead you run. There’s a heavy metal aesthetic but it’s not a conflict heavy game.
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