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Capo touch
Music and Education
3.0
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Capo touch helps you learn to play the songs in your music collection by ear. By slowing down songs...
Purple Phoenix Games (2266 KP) rated Shadows of Kilforth: A Fantasy Quest Game in Tabletop Games
Sep 3, 2020
Have you ever sat down to read a rulebook and had to split it up into several reading sessions? I have multiple times. This happened just recently when I sat down to learn Shadows of Kilforth. Granted, I have two kids that take up the majority of my time and they provide plenty of adorable distraction, but even still, this absolute unit of a rulebook took me a good few days to actually finish. Was the time and effort worth it in the end? Yes. Absolutely. Keep reading.
Shadows of Kilforth is subtitled, “A Fantasy Quest Game.” Right there in the title you find out exactly what you are up against in the very foreboding but unassumingly-sized box. A game set in a fantasy world that is focused on questing. I have to admit up front that this review will be treated a little differently as the rulebook is hefty and nobody wants to read a thorough rules essay on Shadows. So I will give you a very high-level overview of the main steps and then give you my thoughts on how it all works together.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -T
Shadows of Kilforth is essentially a card and dice RPG-esque adventure game with an Asian-style theme but set in a fantasy world where locations will be devastated into gloom (building upon the first in the series Gloom of Kilforth). The players, as the heroes, have the daunting task of journeying throughout Kilforth’s 25 locations to collect items, allies, spells, and titles to overcome main quests and subquests before every location falls into gloom. These quests usually have the players gathering specific card types to satisfy and complete. Once main player storyline quests, called Sagas, are completed the hero levels up and when they complete their fourth quest in their main Saga they may attempt their Finale and then may finally assault the big boss, the Ancient.
Each turn players have Action Points (AP) to spend on doing different actions: movement, discovering rumours (yes, I know it’s the Queen’s English), confrontations, and regaling a Saga chapter, among several others. Some actions are free actions, called Deeds. These include resolving loot tokens, assaulting an ancient, exchanging items between players, and several others. By using combinations of Actions and Deeds players will be able to travel around collecting those items, allies, and so forth needed to complete their Saga chapters.
To complete objectives and quests, players will typically be rolling dice to meet requirements on the cards. This, as all role-players know, can be either supremely lucky or incredibly and predictably debilitating. Skill checks are abundant in Shadows and diversifying characters may or may not have advantages by being able to complete Fight, Study, Sneak, and Influence tests. Players will win if they can complete their Sagas and defeat the Ancient before all of the locations fall into gloom, signaling the end of the game.
All this, again, is very high-level and there are many intricacies in Shadows that I just cannot go over for the sake of time and the health of my typing fingers. But, the game can be played solo, cooperatively, or competitively. So depending on the mode of play and number of players Shadows can range from a 45 minute foray to multi-hour epics. This is why I have played this solo with one character for my plays.
Components. Shadows of Kilforth is very card-heavy, but also includes other goodies. The cards themselves are firstly quite numerous, but also good quality. I can see myself sleeving this and loving every minute of that process. Aside from the cards, the game includes standees for player pieces on the card map, wooden components to track HP, AP, Fate, Obstacles, Gold, Hidden characters, great swirly 6d6, and also cardboard chits for Loot tokens. I haven’t even mentioned the art yet and that may be the most stunning component in this game! I LOVE a game with great art, and Shadows has simply amazing art. This is not usually my style of game art either, but it is so pleasing and everything makes sense and gets me immersed in the game. Everything provided is wonderful quality and an absolute joy to use during play.
Ok so like always, we place our ratings graphic right at the top of our posts so our readers can see right away what we think of the game. As you can tell, I love Shadows of Kilforth. It has essences of so many games I enjoy pieced together in a very attractive and captivating package. The movement and subsequent destruction of map-cards are reminiscent of Forbidden Island/Desert and Tiny Epic Defenders, which I really love (don’t hate – it’s a good game). The gathering of select card types and returning to a location to complete feels like fetch quests in MMORPGs (Final Fantasy XI being my main squeeze for many years). Obviously dice skill checks and level ups from tabletop RPGs are in there as well.
Shadows is just such a great collection of mechanics that I love that I can see myself playing this game over and over and over. Caveat: I will never play this any way other than absolutely solo. My first play, yes a learning session, was just shy of two hours from setup to tear-down. Adding players will increase game length, and playing with AP-prone friends is a no-go for me on Shadows; I had to reference both the excellent provided cheat sheet and the rulebook throughout the play but I eventually got the hang of it and was able to fly through. I may play this solo but with multiple characters cooperatively someday, but I do not wish to play this with other people. Ever.
So here’s my final thought. Shadow of Kilforth is a beefy game, but is well worth the time and effort to learn and play a couple times before passing judgment. It has everything I love in a game and I can’t stop thinking about it. I want to play all the different Race/Class combinations and just dunk on all the Ancients. If only my dice didn’t hate me so much. I will certainly be keeping this one forever, and if you are a fan of fantasy themed adventure card games with heavy use of dice and cool components, DEFINITELY take a look at Shadows of Kilforth. As I am the only one who has played this, I speak for the team in saying Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a 6 / 6. Treat yoself to this one, folks.
Shadows of Kilforth is subtitled, “A Fantasy Quest Game.” Right there in the title you find out exactly what you are up against in the very foreboding but unassumingly-sized box. A game set in a fantasy world that is focused on questing. I have to admit up front that this review will be treated a little differently as the rulebook is hefty and nobody wants to read a thorough rules essay on Shadows. So I will give you a very high-level overview of the main steps and then give you my thoughts on how it all works together.
DISCLAIMER: We were provided a copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This is a retail copy of the game, so what you see in these photos is exactly what would be received in your box. I do not intend to cover every single rule included in the rulebook, but will describe the overall game flow and major rule set so that our readers may get a sense of how the game plays. For more in depth rules, you may purchase a copy online or from your FLGS. -T
Shadows of Kilforth is essentially a card and dice RPG-esque adventure game with an Asian-style theme but set in a fantasy world where locations will be devastated into gloom (building upon the first in the series Gloom of Kilforth). The players, as the heroes, have the daunting task of journeying throughout Kilforth’s 25 locations to collect items, allies, spells, and titles to overcome main quests and subquests before every location falls into gloom. These quests usually have the players gathering specific card types to satisfy and complete. Once main player storyline quests, called Sagas, are completed the hero levels up and when they complete their fourth quest in their main Saga they may attempt their Finale and then may finally assault the big boss, the Ancient.
Each turn players have Action Points (AP) to spend on doing different actions: movement, discovering rumours (yes, I know it’s the Queen’s English), confrontations, and regaling a Saga chapter, among several others. Some actions are free actions, called Deeds. These include resolving loot tokens, assaulting an ancient, exchanging items between players, and several others. By using combinations of Actions and Deeds players will be able to travel around collecting those items, allies, and so forth needed to complete their Saga chapters.
To complete objectives and quests, players will typically be rolling dice to meet requirements on the cards. This, as all role-players know, can be either supremely lucky or incredibly and predictably debilitating. Skill checks are abundant in Shadows and diversifying characters may or may not have advantages by being able to complete Fight, Study, Sneak, and Influence tests. Players will win if they can complete their Sagas and defeat the Ancient before all of the locations fall into gloom, signaling the end of the game.
All this, again, is very high-level and there are many intricacies in Shadows that I just cannot go over for the sake of time and the health of my typing fingers. But, the game can be played solo, cooperatively, or competitively. So depending on the mode of play and number of players Shadows can range from a 45 minute foray to multi-hour epics. This is why I have played this solo with one character for my plays.
Components. Shadows of Kilforth is very card-heavy, but also includes other goodies. The cards themselves are firstly quite numerous, but also good quality. I can see myself sleeving this and loving every minute of that process. Aside from the cards, the game includes standees for player pieces on the card map, wooden components to track HP, AP, Fate, Obstacles, Gold, Hidden characters, great swirly 6d6, and also cardboard chits for Loot tokens. I haven’t even mentioned the art yet and that may be the most stunning component in this game! I LOVE a game with great art, and Shadows has simply amazing art. This is not usually my style of game art either, but it is so pleasing and everything makes sense and gets me immersed in the game. Everything provided is wonderful quality and an absolute joy to use during play.
Ok so like always, we place our ratings graphic right at the top of our posts so our readers can see right away what we think of the game. As you can tell, I love Shadows of Kilforth. It has essences of so many games I enjoy pieced together in a very attractive and captivating package. The movement and subsequent destruction of map-cards are reminiscent of Forbidden Island/Desert and Tiny Epic Defenders, which I really love (don’t hate – it’s a good game). The gathering of select card types and returning to a location to complete feels like fetch quests in MMORPGs (Final Fantasy XI being my main squeeze for many years). Obviously dice skill checks and level ups from tabletop RPGs are in there as well.
Shadows is just such a great collection of mechanics that I love that I can see myself playing this game over and over and over. Caveat: I will never play this any way other than absolutely solo. My first play, yes a learning session, was just shy of two hours from setup to tear-down. Adding players will increase game length, and playing with AP-prone friends is a no-go for me on Shadows; I had to reference both the excellent provided cheat sheet and the rulebook throughout the play but I eventually got the hang of it and was able to fly through. I may play this solo but with multiple characters cooperatively someday, but I do not wish to play this with other people. Ever.
So here’s my final thought. Shadow of Kilforth is a beefy game, but is well worth the time and effort to learn and play a couple times before passing judgment. It has everything I love in a game and I can’t stop thinking about it. I want to play all the different Race/Class combinations and just dunk on all the Ancients. If only my dice didn’t hate me so much. I will certainly be keeping this one forever, and if you are a fan of fantasy themed adventure card games with heavy use of dice and cool components, DEFINITELY take a look at Shadows of Kilforth. As I am the only one who has played this, I speak for the team in saying Purple Phoenix Games gives this one a 6 / 6. Treat yoself to this one, folks.
Conductr - Ableton Live and Traktor controller for iPad
Music and Entertainment
App
"I’ve found the Traktor controller module to be a delight. Easy to set up, stable and completely...
Kevin Wilson (179 KP) rated the PlayStation 4 version of Trials Fusion in Video Games
Jul 10, 2018
Super addictive (3 more)
A lot of fun with friends
Hundreds of tracks
You will never get bored
Almost impossible for completionests (1 more)
Would get headaches and become achy from time to time
Addicting platforming racer!
I had brought this over a year ago but never found the motivation to play it until it became free on ps plus and all my friends got it.
We played a few races together and I instantly became addicted. I was always last but I gradually got better at the game which makes it more fun and it convinced me to play the career mode which I will get more into later.
Starting with multiplayer, all the tracks and bikes are open to you. No need to unlock them. All the tracks from the career mode which there are so many as well as hundreds of user created which are excelllent, fun and sometimes weird. I played 1 where your bike turns into a squirrel and a fun track where everything is moving and messes with your head. There's always something new with these game. Even the extreme tracks where I can't even get past the first obstacle (I'm looking at you inferno) is frustratingly fun and to this day I have not got past that first bit.
There are 6 dlc packs with the season pass (not including the unicorn dlc) and all the tracks from these packs become available in multiplayer too. So if your with a group and only you have the packs, as long as your hosting, they will also be able to play them which is insane.
The career mode has so much to offer too. About 8 sections, each with about 7 tracks. Each track makes you want to go back again and again thanks to medals and leaderboards. I'm constantly wanting to go back to beat my friends scores which I've never been into before.
Extreme tracks are so difficult to get gold medals so if your a completionest it may be difficult but the game is a lot of fun yet frustrating. I find myself getting headaches if a track is too annoying or my body starts moving in awkward psoitions to the point I feel so achy.
Best played with friends in my opinion but as fun to play solo and try to beat those times for bragging rights. Even the costumes you can wear are fun. I have the PS4 version so Im not sure if it's the same everywhere else but you can unlock Rayman, Aiden from watchdogs and an assassin from the creed games. There's also many more from hazmat suits to rhino helmets.
I can recommend this easily for anyone wanted to just mess around.
We played a few races together and I instantly became addicted. I was always last but I gradually got better at the game which makes it more fun and it convinced me to play the career mode which I will get more into later.
Starting with multiplayer, all the tracks and bikes are open to you. No need to unlock them. All the tracks from the career mode which there are so many as well as hundreds of user created which are excelllent, fun and sometimes weird. I played 1 where your bike turns into a squirrel and a fun track where everything is moving and messes with your head. There's always something new with these game. Even the extreme tracks where I can't even get past the first obstacle (I'm looking at you inferno) is frustratingly fun and to this day I have not got past that first bit.
There are 6 dlc packs with the season pass (not including the unicorn dlc) and all the tracks from these packs become available in multiplayer too. So if your with a group and only you have the packs, as long as your hosting, they will also be able to play them which is insane.
The career mode has so much to offer too. About 8 sections, each with about 7 tracks. Each track makes you want to go back again and again thanks to medals and leaderboards. I'm constantly wanting to go back to beat my friends scores which I've never been into before.
Extreme tracks are so difficult to get gold medals so if your a completionest it may be difficult but the game is a lot of fun yet frustrating. I find myself getting headaches if a track is too annoying or my body starts moving in awkward psoitions to the point I feel so achy.
Best played with friends in my opinion but as fun to play solo and try to beat those times for bragging rights. Even the costumes you can wear are fun. I have the PS4 version so Im not sure if it's the same everywhere else but you can unlock Rayman, Aiden from watchdogs and an assassin from the creed games. There's also many more from hazmat suits to rhino helmets.
I can recommend this easily for anyone wanted to just mess around.
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Paul Kellett (118 KP) rated The City of Kings in Tabletop Games
May 1, 2019
Great artwork (2 more)
Tons of content
Great for solo play
A bit fiddly (1 more)
Some scenarios are incredibly hard
A new take on the adventure game
The City of Kings is a tactical fantasy adventure, with procedurally generated monsters and some neat Euro mechanics. Frank West, the designer, has come up with a game that is massive in scope while being really simple to play and offering tons of replayability.
Set in an as yet unknown land, you take control of a hero (or, as this will be a solo focused review, a minimum of 2 heroes) to try and free the lands of the evil armies of Vesh Darkhand. The main story plays out over 7 stories, each with 4 chapters and 2 optional endings (Heroic & Legendary). There are also a bunch of stand-alone missions not tied to the main story.
The game is nothing less than stunning. The components are all top quality and the artwork is luscious. If you spring for the Deluxe version, you also get shaped wooden components for the resources as well as storage trays and some really useful plastic overlays to keep your character's stat cubes in place.
The game plays really smoothly. The rulebook is well laid out and gives the main rules in easily referenced sections. There is also a separate glossary which lists all the different creature abilities, location types, quest types and special tokens. This keeps the rulebook free of clutter and lets you learn about the different things as you play, giving the game a sense of mystery as you will be finding new things for many games to come. It's also really easy to open up and look up a skill.
The character sheets look intimidating but are wonderfully functional and quite intuitive as you start playing. Each character starts off the same, but as you kill monsters, complete quests and progress through the chapters, you will gain experience which lets you upgrade one of the several stats on your character sheet. This lets you customise your character and will make each play subtly different. You could go for attack and become the party's "tank" or you could focus on boosting your workers and be the one responsible for gathering the resources needed to buy better weapons or armour.
Each character also has a skill tree where you can gain different abilities unique to that character. With 12 different abilities and the restriction of only being able to pick up to 3 each game, it will take a good many games to try out the different combinations.
You get to perform 4 actions each turn and as well as being able to move your character across the map, you also start with a little worker that you can send out to the various resource locations on the map (when you have explored and found them) to gather the resources needed to purchase better equipment.
All (or most) of the map tiles will be face down at the start of the game, so you will be moving out of the city and exploring as you go, but when you flip over a monster spawn tile, you get to the meat of the game.
Unlike every other fantasy game, this is not your usual hack and slash, stand there and kill everything affair. This is more like a game of chess, you will need to be cunning and tactical to be able to survive and win.
You won't be facing the standard fantasy monsters, rather you will draw an enemy tile which will give you a description of the mob (yes, you are fighting groups at a time) you have encountered and then you will draw a stat card. These are numbered so after a couple of games you will know the basic stats of the next monster and be ready for it.
This sounds like it would become terribly repetitive, but each time you spawn a monster, you also have to assign abilities to it. these abilities are drawn from one (or more) of 3 bags containing Easy, Medium and Hard abilities so while you may know that the monster will do 4 damage and have 16 health, you won't know if it will spit poison at you, pull you into it's clutches or make you flee in terror. Or any number of other nasty things.
Line of sight, movement and combat is only done orthogonally, so as long as you are not in a straight line of the creature's range, you can leave him alone while you go about completing quests to either complete a chapter or to get the skills and equipment needed to defeat the beast.
On the whole it works very well. As is the nature of random token draws, you occasionally come across something that is just way too much to deal with and you will struggle to beat it, but that's all part of the fun.
I keep mentioning quests and equipment. There are two massive decks of cards, one you draw from when you interact with the quest location on the map. This will give you a quest that could be killing a monster, gathering a specific amount of a certain resource or, if you have the Deluxe upgrade, a dexterity quest. These are cool, you have to stack the wooden shapes in a tower without them falling :) and if you succeed you will gain XP and sometimes equipment.
The equipment deck is not quite a big as the quest deck, but still contains a load of cool tems which will be set out ready for you to purchase from the town or any discovered shop. To buy these you will need to have your worker running about the map harvesting the various resources scattered about the land and once you have enough, you can equip your heroes with mighty weapons and armour.
Be warned though, you can't just amble about the land at your leisure as each chapter has a strict time limit and if you have failed to complete your objectives by the time the clock strikes midnight after however many days you have been given, then the city will lose hope and you will fail. This makes for a very challenging experience where you need to work as a team and harmonise your skills to get the most efficient party.
Playing solo, you have to control a minimum of 2 characters, but it is not a complex task unlike a lot of other fantasy games. You don't have stacks of cards to shuffle through or tons of abilities or special rules to remember, just two character sheets with all the information easily seen and remembered. Depending on whether you play a single mission or a full story, the game will take between 1 and 2.5-3 hours and will offer a challenging tactical experience and a great narrative adventure that will be different every time.
This is such a good game and plays brilliantly as every player count (1-4) with different enemy stat bars to balance the threat against the number of players. Back on Kickstarter for a second printing along with some new expansion content, this should be on every gamers' shelf if you are a fan of great story driven fantasy games.
Set in an as yet unknown land, you take control of a hero (or, as this will be a solo focused review, a minimum of 2 heroes) to try and free the lands of the evil armies of Vesh Darkhand. The main story plays out over 7 stories, each with 4 chapters and 2 optional endings (Heroic & Legendary). There are also a bunch of stand-alone missions not tied to the main story.
The game is nothing less than stunning. The components are all top quality and the artwork is luscious. If you spring for the Deluxe version, you also get shaped wooden components for the resources as well as storage trays and some really useful plastic overlays to keep your character's stat cubes in place.
The game plays really smoothly. The rulebook is well laid out and gives the main rules in easily referenced sections. There is also a separate glossary which lists all the different creature abilities, location types, quest types and special tokens. This keeps the rulebook free of clutter and lets you learn about the different things as you play, giving the game a sense of mystery as you will be finding new things for many games to come. It's also really easy to open up and look up a skill.
The character sheets look intimidating but are wonderfully functional and quite intuitive as you start playing. Each character starts off the same, but as you kill monsters, complete quests and progress through the chapters, you will gain experience which lets you upgrade one of the several stats on your character sheet. This lets you customise your character and will make each play subtly different. You could go for attack and become the party's "tank" or you could focus on boosting your workers and be the one responsible for gathering the resources needed to buy better weapons or armour.
Each character also has a skill tree where you can gain different abilities unique to that character. With 12 different abilities and the restriction of only being able to pick up to 3 each game, it will take a good many games to try out the different combinations.
You get to perform 4 actions each turn and as well as being able to move your character across the map, you also start with a little worker that you can send out to the various resource locations on the map (when you have explored and found them) to gather the resources needed to purchase better equipment.
All (or most) of the map tiles will be face down at the start of the game, so you will be moving out of the city and exploring as you go, but when you flip over a monster spawn tile, you get to the meat of the game.
Unlike every other fantasy game, this is not your usual hack and slash, stand there and kill everything affair. This is more like a game of chess, you will need to be cunning and tactical to be able to survive and win.
You won't be facing the standard fantasy monsters, rather you will draw an enemy tile which will give you a description of the mob (yes, you are fighting groups at a time) you have encountered and then you will draw a stat card. These are numbered so after a couple of games you will know the basic stats of the next monster and be ready for it.
This sounds like it would become terribly repetitive, but each time you spawn a monster, you also have to assign abilities to it. these abilities are drawn from one (or more) of 3 bags containing Easy, Medium and Hard abilities so while you may know that the monster will do 4 damage and have 16 health, you won't know if it will spit poison at you, pull you into it's clutches or make you flee in terror. Or any number of other nasty things.
Line of sight, movement and combat is only done orthogonally, so as long as you are not in a straight line of the creature's range, you can leave him alone while you go about completing quests to either complete a chapter or to get the skills and equipment needed to defeat the beast.
On the whole it works very well. As is the nature of random token draws, you occasionally come across something that is just way too much to deal with and you will struggle to beat it, but that's all part of the fun.
I keep mentioning quests and equipment. There are two massive decks of cards, one you draw from when you interact with the quest location on the map. This will give you a quest that could be killing a monster, gathering a specific amount of a certain resource or, if you have the Deluxe upgrade, a dexterity quest. These are cool, you have to stack the wooden shapes in a tower without them falling :) and if you succeed you will gain XP and sometimes equipment.
The equipment deck is not quite a big as the quest deck, but still contains a load of cool tems which will be set out ready for you to purchase from the town or any discovered shop. To buy these you will need to have your worker running about the map harvesting the various resources scattered about the land and once you have enough, you can equip your heroes with mighty weapons and armour.
Be warned though, you can't just amble about the land at your leisure as each chapter has a strict time limit and if you have failed to complete your objectives by the time the clock strikes midnight after however many days you have been given, then the city will lose hope and you will fail. This makes for a very challenging experience where you need to work as a team and harmonise your skills to get the most efficient party.
Playing solo, you have to control a minimum of 2 characters, but it is not a complex task unlike a lot of other fantasy games. You don't have stacks of cards to shuffle through or tons of abilities or special rules to remember, just two character sheets with all the information easily seen and remembered. Depending on whether you play a single mission or a full story, the game will take between 1 and 2.5-3 hours and will offer a challenging tactical experience and a great narrative adventure that will be different every time.
This is such a good game and plays brilliantly as every player count (1-4) with different enemy stat bars to balance the threat against the number of players. Back on Kickstarter for a second printing along with some new expansion content, this should be on every gamers' shelf if you are a fan of great story driven fantasy games.