Heroes of Darkwell, Game Review

Monsters are threatening the town of Darkwell. They are moving closer and it is up to someone from Darkwell to protect the people from the creatures that are attacking. There are no adventuring heroes, so it is up to some of the town folk to take up arms and battle the monsters before the town is overrun. And, if you succeed you will be known as the Heroes of Darkwell

Heroes of Darkwellis a fantasy themes cooperative board game. Two to four players must work together, battling the advancing monsters before the town is overrun, or the boss monster makes it into town.

Each player takes on the role of a character. The characters are all peasants of the town of Darkwell who accept the challenge of defenders. Battling the monsters earns the character experience and gold. Experience allows the player to advance their character into a hero (a choice between two options) and to improve their skills by buying cards to build a deck. Gold can be used by the individual, or more appropriately, used by the group to buy the equipment that best suits the each character.

There are several decks used to advance the game.

Individual player decks are built by defeating monsters, which earns treasure and experience. There are also side effects that can occur which make situations harder. Each player builds a deck of from the skills they buy, by spending the experience they earn, and side effects they are enduring.

Equipment, which is purchased with the gold collected as treasure, goes into play. Equipment and gold can be passed around (in our game it was mentioned that some groups combine their gold and we did that, which made it a lot easier to track) so it is on the right player, or, for ready use to remove those problems, like poison or fear. Since each player is building their own deck, consideration needs to be given on which player should be purchasing the skills to get the card into the right deck. Also, strategy needs to be developed to allow the person to be able to defeat monsters so everyone is earning experience to buy the skill and advance to hero. In our game we had to set a monster up so our cleric would be able to defeat it and earn the experience to become a hero.

Our game in progress

A monster deck times the game. The monster deck is built so as the game progresses the monsters become stronger. Somewhere near the end of the deck is the monster boss. The monsters win if three lower level monsters or the boss inhabit the town. The players win if the boss is defeated. The boss requires cooperation between the players to be able to defeat it.

The strategy through the game is to build the characters in a manner where they all are equivalent to each other. The more heroes fighting the boss gives you a better chance of defeating it. It is about preparing for that last major encounter.

I can see where there could be some added variation to the game by mixing up the monster deck or making it shorter, giving some harder challenges at different times which would require the players to change up their strategy.

We were able to play Heroes of Darkwell at the Salt Lake Gaming Convention this year (2017). We had three players and the game took about an hour and forty-five minutes. Heroes of Darkwell was easy to learn and the only questions we had after the first turn was some minor clarifications on some of the cards.

Me on the left and Rob "the photographer" on the right

The time frame is 60-120 minutes, roughly a half an hour for each player in the game. Our first game was close to this scale.

The designer wanted to create a board game with the flavor of early role-playing games. The artwork reflects that desire and is fun.

Heroes of Darkwellis designed for ages 12+ and I think that younger players would be able to be involved because of the cooperative nature of the game.

Heroes of Darkwellis from Exalder Games (Facebook Link) and is schedule for a Kickstarter for mid to late October 2017.

The monsters have been defeated and the citizens of Darkwell are cheering their new heroes.

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