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KYBG Kickstarter Spotlight

KYBG Kickstarter Spotlight

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pReview: Madstone Chronicles


What's going on everyone?! I've recently had a chance to play a great card game from Joe MagicGames called Madstone Chronicles. It's what I would call an Army Building Card Game.

So sit back, grab your favorite beverage and be sure to read this during the day time because we're gonna take a closer look at Madstone Chronicles!

 


As always, here's an excerpt:






In Madstone Chronicles players are going to be doing some army building, recruiting and battling. The board goes in the middle and setup is pretty easy to follow so I'll leave that out.




To start playing, players choose from a number of commanders that are part of different factions. Once this is done you place your commander in front of you. This place is where your army will be.

Now players are dealt 5 cards each from the deck and they have to decide which 2 to discard while keeping the other three. When you choose which cards you want to get rid of you place them in the "Field"(game board) on their respective colored faction.




Now the first player begins the game. You have a few simple actions to choose from. In the beginning of the game it's a little "easy" but once the game gets going you are able to more freely choose your strategy for the chance to win the game!

Before your main action phase you have a "Specials" phase. You see, some of the cards that have special abilities that trigger only once per turn and in this phase. Players are free to choose which of these they would like to use on any given turn but can not use them at any other time except this phase.

Once you determine which and if you have any special abilities you would like to use you apply them and move onto the main phase.

In this phase you can choose two of four actions; Draw, play a card to the field, recruit a card to your army or attack. For the most part everything is pretty straight forward.




Attacking is the only thing that is a bit different. You can attack the cards in the field which, when defeated go to your "spoils" pile for points at the end of the game. However, You can ALSO attack other players but only during the night when a card or ability allows by changing it to night time.

 After playing back and fourth and taking turns the game ends when the last card in the deck is drawn. Then, players finish one last turn each ending the game with the person who drew the last card.





To determine your scores you simply add up the cards in your "spoils" pile as well as any special abilities that may grant you bonus points for having certain cards in your "spoils" pile. The winner is the one with the most points.

There's a TINY bit more to the game than I've mentioned but I chose to leave them out as far as buying cards and earning crystals and such just in case things get revised a bit although I think it works great as is so we just have to wait and see. :)


On to my opinion:
Game Art: The art for this game is wonderful. From the board to the cards you can tell that this game was no slouch in the art department. It definitely has high value written all over it.

Gameplay: The game play is nice and easy to learn. Very evenly balanced and you get a real sense of reward when you are working towards the right strategies. It's easy enough for my 10 year old daughter to pick up and play and deep enough for me to strategize my moves while having fun.

Game Quality: The quality of this game is also top notch. Keep in mind that I've got a prototype copy so I can only imagine how great the final components will be. It already has a "finished" feel to it and it is something you would happily expect to buy and find in a retail store as is.

Card games like this are far and few between. Over the weeks I've had a BLAST playing!

So, should you buy this game? If you're a fan of cards, duking it out with other players or just slaughtering the neutral guys in the field then YES! It also has great tokens and as I stated above, the quality is great even for a prototype! If you're not into cards or battles or looking for a shorter play time then this game may not be for you. I still HIGHLY recommend you check it out as it may end up surprising you though.

HEAD OVER TO THE SHOP TO CHECK OUT MORE GAMES!


As always, thank you for reading and take care! :)
-Tim

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