Darkest Night Expansions in Review

A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed Victory Point Games’...

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Michael - what are your thoughts on Mistfall vs. Darkest Night? To me, Mistfall seems like an ambitious, if coming up short, attempt to meld Mage Knight and the Pathfinder games. Even though it was on kickstarter, it seems light on unique content. The two times I have played it, I didn't see a lot of variability in terms of loot. Also, the "challenge" curve seemed not to scale well -- the game became progressively easier as we worked towards the boss....but perhaps this was just randomness?

From what I've read Mistfall seems interesting but pretty much wholly focused on combat. Sort of a Sentinels of the Multiverse dungeon crawler. Which, I love Sentinels but I really only need one Sentinels. And unlike Pathfinder I don't think there's really any campaign sense of building your character up right?

The copy I played had a campaign as a stretch goal add-on. I looked through it, and it seemed to look like it was added on after the fact. I haven't played it, so I can't comment to whether it will integrate well or not.

Oh wow, OK, so folks have played it/heard about it!

I just soloed it yesterday...it looks really, really interesting but it's such a sloppy piece of work. It is definitely more Sentinels than Darkest Night, Mage Knight or Pathfinder. But unlike Sentinels, it seems like it may actually be a good design and not rely on endless +1/-1 modifiers and completely capricious difficulty. It seems like you have A LOT of options with your cards and it feels like there is a good sense of tension when you've got monsters stacked up on you and you have to puzzle out how to beat them all or at least mitigate their damage. There's a lot I really liked about it, but it feels VERY much like how- for whatever reason- these kinds of Eastern European games always do. Slightly overcomplicated, baffling rules, non-standard nomenclature. Like, why fuss around with "in the hero area" stuff when everybody else just says EQUIP.

The setting isn't particularly unique, but I like that it's a sort of barbarian-ish winter thing.

I did think of Darkest Night to some degree, at least in having the very unique characters, but DN is way different on every level. Just not even the same genre. I didn't really think of Mage Knight at all, to be honest. Pathfinder, eh, maybe. But this is a more detailed, complex game than Pathfinder for sure.

Is everyone who is enjoying Darkest Night playing it solo? If so, perhaps it should have been marketed as a 'solo' game in the first place.

(I'm not a solo gamer, so I would have passed it over for sure.)

I played it multiplayer and found it Not Fun.

wkover wrote: Is everyone who is enjoying Darkest Night playing it solo? If so, perhaps it should have been marketed as a 'solo' game in the first place.

(I'm not a solo gamer, so I would have passed it over for sure.)

I played it multiplayer and found it Not Fun.

Uh oh, I'm about to introduce my friends to Darkest Night this weekend after having learned it solo to prep. Do you think that the things you don't like about the game are related to the multiplayer?

Regarding a possible Darkest Night Kickstarter or version 2, I guess I wouldn't be surprised if Victory Point Games were to go that route. It looks like it's their #1 seller by a country mile right now, and they just Kickstarted a new edition of Dawn of the Zeds and are about to open a new KS campaign for their Captain Nemo game. I certainly wouldn't object to a new edition of Darkest Night even though I just jumped all in on the current stuff. However, the game as it is right now has a great mix of graphic design, art, and components, and with a new edition I'll bet that the urge to tinker with that stuff will be impossible for VPG to resist.

Barnes, I see what you mean about the seams between the expansions showing. In some sense it's inevitable when an expansion adds new stuff that interacts with existing game systems. The expansions out there that just add more cards for every deck or more characters are usually quite welcome and they don't introduce that issue, but I think it's to this game's credit that its expansions generally are more ambitious than that. Just how visible or troubling those seams are will vary by taste, of course, and I'm going to experiment with my friends by not introducing them to the base game at all. For example, to them a key will just be there to unlock a card from the Mystery deck, and that will be that. I'll be sure to ask them afterwards what they think about this topic.

I enjoy Darkest Night, but I've only played it solo. I wouldn't play it any other way. I'm not sure there are enough interesting choices when parceled out four ways. Also, with all expansions in, to beat the necromancer requires a fairly intricate level of coordination. Probably more coordination than can be expected from four people bullshitting around a table and drinking beer. If I had to play it multi-player, I would only play with the first expansion, and maybe use the optional rule that generates a quest when the necromancer rolls a specific number for movement.

I got Mistfall from the giveaway contest on the other site. Forgot about it until it showed up, and haven't had a chance to play it yet. I feel guilty not playing a free copy.

wkover wrote: Is everyone who is enjoying Darkest Night playing it solo? If so, perhaps it should have been marketed as a 'solo' game in the first place.

(I'm not a solo gamer, so I would have passed it over for sure.)

I played it multiplayer and found it Not Fun.

Well,it kind of depends. I've played with 2, 3 and 4 and there is something of an issue in terms of player engagement and coordination. It's the kind of game where you don't get much to do on your turn as it is, and what that may be is literally just rolling a die to search or something. And you might have a character that needs to be the one doing that. For 10 turns. Or you might have a support character that really just kind of needs to tag along with others to buff them. All of this is not a problem if you are soloing or even playing two characters in a two player game. But yeah, some of the folks I've played with were pretty bored by it. Strategically, it's also more interesting- and rewarding- if you are setting up the plays and not trying to work it out with others.

Like Mage Knight, I think it's best alone.