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1
One night in Arkham...
Nov 11 2016 04:00 AM |
istaril
in Articles
Today was the release of the Arkham Horror LCG and my first opportunity to play the game. Here are some first impressions!(Article contains a very minor spoiler, as an image of the B side of the first agenda you encounter in "The Gathering")
The easiest comparison is to the LotR LCG, a game I love, and so if you're not familiar with that (the first iteration of a co-op LCG), much of what I say will seem meaningless. The game as a whole was a little clunky to set up at first, but after a first go at teaching it, wound up working quite smoothly. I played with 3, 2, then 4 players through the introductory scenario, and here are some brief first-blush thoughts.
The Good:
- Doom tokens, the Agenda deck. This drives the game forward and ensures a steady pace; it's not possible to 'stall' or drag your feet in the same way you can (strategically) in LOTR, and as a clock on the game works far more dynamically and interestingly than threat.
- Locations. Locations feel like places, rather than some obstacle/speedbump. They matter mechanically, as does proximity to your friends.
- The 3-action limit. Another mechanic that helps keep up the pace of the game, as well as help the narrative feel of not being able to do everything. This is further helped along by the number of limited use cards.
- Readily scaling difficulty. We tried once on hard, and, to my surprise, it really did feel like a different experience.
- Readily scaling for player count. Unlike the many scenarios in LotR that are drastically different as 1 or 4 players, the per investigator features (especially the individual card draw) makes the experience much more consistent.
- Thematically: the art, card titles and organic thematic play that emerges from the game. Throwing a dynamite stick really does what you'd think it does.
As an example, check out the fun art on this card: 
- The "RPG" feel. Yes, I felt guilty not helping my friends for a turn to deal with my own personal demons and set up a little cover-up, but damned if I was going to leave clues behind!
- The co-operative aspect of skill tests.
- The out-of-box experience. Jumping straight in with the suggested decks was still a great experience.
- Monsters. They feel clunky - they'll limit your actions, regularly die before they've ever attacked, and, because the amount of time you spend constrained by them varies with your tokens drawn, your choices with regards to handling monsters can feel far less tactical than in LOTR. In fact, these feel more like the speedbump/obstacles locations in LOTR did. Furthermore, it's irritating to keep track of monsters at locations (rather than in threat areas)and whether they're exhausted or not.
- The "2 cores" problem. No, I do not object to buying multiple cores (I have 4 for Thrones), but boy is the second core diminishing returns, even compared to LotR. No sense in having additional encounter cards or investigators, but as the neutrals are all in 2-4 copies, you're really only getting ~70 cards. For 39.95$. Ouch.
- Text. I love a good narrative, and some scenarios in LotR could really craft a great story, and do it with very little text. When Caradhras first pops up, you really feel like you're pitting yourself against the mountain's will! The Arkham game has more room for text on the act, scenario, location cards and the campaign guide... so it uses that. In doing so, it seems to regularly use 2 words where one would do, or where mechanics might suit better. This feels like relying on the RPG feel of having a DM describe the game to you, but it can be done more elegantly with card art and game mechanics.
(Agenda 1B, from the 4th turn you'll play in the 1st scenario spoilers ahead)
That's a lot of text for a mechanic that doesn't really match.
- Skill tests pulling from a random bag, drawing weaknesses from your deck - these add variance to the game. They create narrative moments that feel RPG-like, and they can be a lot of fun. Relative to LotR, through, and (I suspect) compounded by the desire for campaign mode to have players keep the same decks throughout, the game feels less about puzzle solving and judiciously using 'just the right' tools/resources for a job, which creates a very different experience. I happen to like the problem solving in LotR!
- The idea of campaign play appeals to me, as does the fact that you're attached to *your* character. That element of role-play rwhen you decide "screw it, I'm not risking death here - let's run!", if it's handled well by the story in subsequent scenarios, could really be delightful. Having played only the initial scenario, though, I'll have to see how this plays out. I do feel the narrative continuity will limit what strange things the designers can put into a scenario (no more 'build a deck just to beat it' puzzles).
- Replayability (esp. Locations). A large element of the appeal of the Arkham files and Cthulhu mythos is the unknown. The next time you play through a scenario (even if you won't know exactly what locations are in play), you will have a pretty good idea of where the story and mechanics are headed. Is that fundamentally incompatible with the Cthulhu mythos? The other Arkham Files games seem to say that lots of players don't think so... but I've not yet been convinced by them.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask!
- Veetek, MightyToenail, bigboss010 and 1 other like this
9 Comments
How limited do the deckbuilding options feel with only 1 Core set? I know card-count wise the 2nd Core sounds like it's a low value proposition, but is this one of the LCGs where you really need that second core to have any deckbuilding flexibility/consistency (thinking single Star Wars LCG core set)?
In the long run, almost certainly not necessary. Decks are small (30 cards + signature/weaknesses), and cards are max 2x. It won't take long for you to have a lot of different ways to build it, and potentially share no cards with the demo deck. I mean, 5 different cards will allow you to change a third of your deck. Furthermore, because you can "dig" for a card (use 3 actions to draw, plus your default draw), you can see 4/25 non-starting cards a turn if necessary, so consistency... is evaluated differently, I suspect.
However, out of a single core, there's almost no deckbuilding flexibility. You choose which of the 5 investigators you want, mash up the two card-types that they can include (e.g. 10 Guardian and 10 Seeker for Roland), and put in neutrals to reach 30. You can fiddle with the neutral content a bit (include more in order to replace faction cards, or different ones) - but it doesn't feel like 'themed' deck-building.
So yeah, there are 5, mostly 'pre-built' experiences. I don't think I'd consider it deckbuilding - so that second core, which gives you another 10 guardian and seeker cards for that Roland (to include some as x2s, and ommit some), despite being low-value, felt necessary if I wanted to experience that aspect of the game before the Dunwich box comes out.
Without 2 cores, your deckbuilding is limited to having opposing-class characters only for 2 players. For example, Roland is Guardian with Seeker primary. There's only enough Guardian OR Seeker cards in the base set for one deck, period. So if you're playing Roland, your friend can't make a deck that uses Guardian or Seeker cards, which rules out using Skids or Daisy. So Roland can only roll with Wendy or Agnes (who are Survivor/Rogue and Mystic/Survivor).
But each core gives you only 1 card from each class, and a playset is 2 cards. So, for instance, a full playset of Guardian and Seeker cards would require 2 cores, but if Roland then uses those, that *still* leaves no Guardian or Seeker cards for a potential Skids or Daisy player in your group. 2 playsets lets you divvy up the cards so that, say, Roland only takes one each of the Rogue cards he wants, leaving Skids the rest, but that means neither deck can get a full playset of Rogue cards if they want.
So if you actually want a true full potential playset for even 2 players, you need 4 cores for 2 copies of each class card. If you don't mind sharing cards in a class, or don't mind playing opposing class characters, 2 cores can completely fill your collection.
That's a good question... and I'm not sure I have an answer. I do love LotR's ability to capture Tolkein's feel, but I've rarely found a game that touches on what I love most about Lovecraft : the uncertainty, the madness, the powerlessness. To some extent, I think those are not really compatible with a game (where you need a feeling of agency), and a lot of the Arkham files games FFG has include quite a lot of conflict/combat, which is atypical for Lovecraft. To be fair to the game, it has a lot of (viable) outcomes that aren't that great for anyone involved, and it's not a rosy situation of taking a shotgun to Cthulhu's head and asking him if he feels lucky (punk), but... you still get to feel, usually, like you've 'won' the first scenario. Once again, that may just be the intro scenario... but it's still a far cry from "winning" by succesfully ramming Cthulhu with your ship only to watch his head reform....
I certainly prefer this game (in the 1 scenario I've played) to the Arkham Horror board game, which I disliked for a number of reasons. But it's clear that it's set in the Arkham Files IP, which is Lovecraft inspired... but isn't Lovecraft itself. For a game, maybe that's necessary.
Thank you for the nice review.
Just a question and a remark concerning a second Core set.
Wouldn't each player have their own Core set, like in LotR: TCG?
That would make the whole discussion in regards to having enough cards for 2 players and up not an issue.
And as for coughing up nearly $40 just to get some duplicates, some of which will become obsolete as soon as more cards are released into the game, personally I would save my money for the upcoming expansions and packs.
This is technically about video games, but still a really good exploration of the 'Can games ever do Lovecraft right' problem, so y'all might find it interesting:
Trouble with that video is that it ignores a lot of actual Lovecraft stories. The Old Ones (what are usually called "Elder Things" in gamer lore, the flying tentacle dudes from At the Mountains of Madness), whom Lovecraft takes pains to explicitly call out as "men like us", managed to fight Cthulhu and his species to a billion-year stalemate war.
It's a great video about choice vs. meaning in games, but have to dock it points on actual Lovecraft knowledge.