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Dark Domains Review: Well-Designed Worker Placement with Conflict

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27 Aug 2019 00:00 #301118 by Kevin Klemme
Players take on the role of secretly evil followers of...

Dark Domains, from Laboratory H, is a worker placement game with a few other mechanics layered on, including means of disrupting other players’ plans. This makes for an intriguing game if you like a lot of player interaction and rules that promote a changing game environment—and I do. But it could make Dark Domains a frustrating experience for players who prefer a more peaceful and stable game setting.

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27 Aug 2019 10:52 #301119 by ubarose
This game totally flew under my radar. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. It sounds like a game I might like.

Also, I really enjoyed reading this. Although it didn't make me laugh out loud, it did make me cackle evilly to myself a few times.

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27 Aug 2019 13:02 #301127 by Josh Look
Yeah, this sounds like it’s totally in my wheelhouse. I need to try it.

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27 Aug 2019 13:33 #301130 by Shellhead
I generally dislike worker placement games, because they tend to focus on artificial economies built around victory point generation, and the only interaction is passive-aggressive blocking. Dark Domains looks a little better, but I think that I would rather play Sons of Anarchy, which features very direction interaction and conflict.

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27 Aug 2019 19:36 #301143 by Scott_F
I backed this on KS and was excited to get it. Components, map, theme everything looks great. I set up a solo game with 3 players to learn it and halfway through I quit and immediately sold the game.

It isn't a normal worker placement game where players fight over tight resource spots. I don't honestly know where the tension in the game is. Resources are easy to acquire thanks to the spells that are random but often just better than the resource gathering spots on the board. The 4 decks are all very powerful and early you can grab from the resource and defense decks and just get free stuff. Or grab from the mean decks and fuck over an opponents pricey building/monster. In my solo play the best spots every turn were draw more spells, and from what I remember there is no significant hand limit either. The henchmen that provide upgrades are kinda fun in a generic "get more resources" way. The concept of generating resources for a while and then flipping a building dark for evil is cool. The adventurers semi randomly will try and destroy a dark building, which often costs a decent amount of effort to build. Their success and whether they will target you is based on dice rolling. Or again play a card to just destroy a building if you're lucky enough to draw one.

Again I couldn't even get through a full solo game of this so maybe I'm missing something. But there was nothing here, simply hope you get better spell card draws and that the adventurers roll low or attack someone else based on a dice roll. This was the most disappointing KS game I've ever receieved by a wide margin.
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27 Aug 2019 21:39 #301147 by Kevin Klemme
@Scott_F, to each his own. I'm not surprised the game doesn't work solo, as it seems to be designed for player interaction.
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27 Aug 2019 21:50 #301148 by Scott_F
Oh no, I don't play games solo. I setup new games solo to learn the rules before I teach other people.

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27 Aug 2019 23:25 #301151 by Shellhead
Sometimes the most elusive component for a game is the fun.
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28 Aug 2019 09:52 - 28 Aug 2019 09:58 #301160 by Josh Look
Well, I think I’ll do something at least halfway constructive here and actually thank Kevin for bringing this game to my attention. I’d never heard of it but like I said before, this looks to be exactly the kind of thing I’m into.

“I haven’t played this, but I think I’d rather play old game X instead” and “Euros/abstraction bad” is really killing this site for me and get closer and closer to seeing myself out everyday because of it. If there were any real, meaningful contributions to the discussion because of it, it might not be so tiring, but that’s not the case. It’s like trolling, only worse, there’s no punchline, just miserable, useless BS.
Last edit: 28 Aug 2019 09:58 by Josh Look.

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28 Aug 2019 10:24 #301161 by Shellhead

Josh Look wrote: Well, I think I’ll do something at least halfway constructive here and actually thank Kevin for bringing this game to my attention. I’d never heard of it but like I said before, this looks to be exactly the kind of thing I’m into.

“I haven’t played this, but I think I’d rather play old game X instead” and “Euros/abstraction bad” is really killing this site for me and get closer and closer to seeing myself out everyday because of it. If there were any real, meaningful contributions to the discussion because of it, it might not be so tiring, but that’s not the case. It’s like trolling, only worse, there’s no punchline, just miserable, useless BS.


According to a quick search at BGG, over 1,300 worker placement games have been published in the last five years. I'm interested in reading about new games, but also quick to dismiss anything that looks like more of the same.

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28 Aug 2019 14:34 #301169 by ubarose
Yeah, but this sounds different.

I know Kevin has not written enough here to have established his taste in games, but if you read his bio, you know that he is a wargamer and likes games that have a lot of player interaction. Based on knowing that about him and his review, it sounds to me that the heart of this game is NOT in the economic engine building, but rather in the player interaction and generally screwing with each other. It seems like it has an Argent the Consortium type vibe.

So I am pretty curious about it. I'd definitely play it if the opportunity presented itself.
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28 Aug 2019 17:34 #301181 by Space Ghost

Scott_F wrote: Oh no, I don't play games solo. I setup new games solo to learn the rules before I teach other people.


Your entire other post was about running through it solo (which sounds like enhanced rulebook reading -- which isn't meant derogatory, just descriptive).

The author of the piece is saying that you need to play it with other people. I would just say that sometimes a game will show more than can be seen by just understanding the mechanics (the whole "emergent gameplay" thing, I guess); it's not that different with other things where people have "aha" moments once they start doing it than when they just learn from a textbook or lecture.
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28 Aug 2019 17:37 #301183 by Space Ghost

Shellhead wrote:

Josh Look wrote: Well, I think I’ll do something at least halfway constructive here and actually thank Kevin for bringing this game to my attention. I’d never heard of it but like I said before, this looks to be exactly the kind of thing I’m into.

“I haven’t played this, but I think I’d rather play old game X instead” and “Euros/abstraction bad” is really killing this site for me and get closer and closer to seeing myself out everyday because of it. If there were any real, meaningful contributions to the discussion because of it, it might not be so tiring, but that’s not the case. It’s like trolling, only worse, there’s no punchline, just miserable, useless BS.


According to a quick search at BGG, over 1,300 worker placement games have been published in the last five years. I'm interested in reading about new games, but also quick to dismiss anything that looks like more of the same.


The entire review is about how it isn't the same as other worker placement games. Just because a lot of alternatives exist (that is an absurd amount of worker placement games), doesn't mean this is "more of the same".

At the same time, you are pretty biased against worker placement, so you are quick to lump everything into the general category of "stay away". As it turns out, I am biased as well -- it is probably my least favorite type of game because so many of the restrictions are arbitrary -- that being said, this sounded interesting and different than the others.
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28 Aug 2019 17:40 #301184 by Shellhead

Space Ghost wrote:

Scott_F wrote: Oh no, I don't play games solo. I setup new games solo to learn the rules before I teach other people.


Your entire other post was about running through it solo (which sounds like enhanced rulebook reading -- which isn't meant derogatory, just descriptive).

The author of the piece is saying that you need to play it with other people. I would just say that sometimes a game will show more than can be seen by just understanding the mechanics (the whole "emergent gameplay" thing, I guess); it's not that different with other things where people have "aha" moments once they start doing it than when they just learn from a textbook or lecture.


I think that you make a good point about games in general. But the specific issues that Scott identified with Dark Domains don't seem connected to live interaction and emergent gameplay, they seem like valid observations about how certain design choices reduce potential conflict and interaction because the game economy is overly generous.

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28 Aug 2019 17:50 #301185 by Space Ghost

Shellhead wrote:

Space Ghost wrote:

Scott_F wrote: Oh no, I don't play games solo. I setup new games solo to learn the rules before I teach other people.


Your entire other post was about running through it solo (which sounds like enhanced rulebook reading -- which isn't meant derogatory, just descriptive).

The author of the piece is saying that you need to play it with other people. I would just say that sometimes a game will show more than can be seen by just understanding the mechanics (the whole "emergent gameplay" thing, I guess); it's not that different with other things where people have "aha" moments once they start doing it than when they just learn from a textbook or lecture.


I think that you make a good point about games in general. But the specific issues that Scott identified with Dark Domains don't seem connected to live interaction and emergent gameplay, they seem like valid observations about how certain design choices reduce potential conflict and interaction because the game economy is overly generous.


Perhaps. But, it could also be that when one person is trying to "simulate" three players, they simulate how they play each player the same way -- we are very bad about playing entirely different strategies, both in how we would theoretically interact and how we would respond to someone else's style. This is why AI opponents are so hard to build in coops -- because we have a hard time building an appropriate amount of plausible unpredictability into the automated response.

From my reading, it sounds like this could be highly interactive with the spells used to aggressively attack other players throughout. Scott's conclusion was then that nothing was better than getting spells, watering down the standard economic engine that is built in worker placement games. The question is whether there is a balanced response to that kind of game play -- I would be surprised if someone could discover that on their own in one half of a simulated three player game. Maybe Scott doesn't think it is worth the time to find out -- that is perfectly fine, but I doubt the "interaction doesn't matter" is the correct conclusion, especially given the points made by the person who has played the game (probably more than once).

Another point in its favor is that Jeff Horger is one of the designers and he did a great job with Thunder Alley in making it very thematic for a NASCAR game (I know Josh disagrees from a podcast, but I think he is wrong in a lot of ways on that particular point).
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