Search
Sky Gamblers Air Supremacy
Games and Entertainment
App
TODAYSIPHONE - 5 out of 5 APPLENAPPS - 4.5 out of 5 TOUCHARCADE - 4.5 out of 5 148APPS - 4 out 5 ...
Style Girl! Dress Up Game for Girls and Teens - Fantasy Fashion Salon & Beauty Makeover Studio
Lifestyle and Entertainment
App
*** Hey dolls, welcome to the fantasy game world of fashion styles that will knock you off your...
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.
Amy Christmas (171 KP) rated The Cruel Prince in Books
Dec 24, 2017 (Updated Dec 24, 2017)
Expansive and immersive world (3 more)
Doesn't constantly focus on love
Lies, deceit and betrayal
MC is human
Use of clichés for quick character building (2 more)
Abrupt climax
Unfulfilling ending
Can't wait for more
I received this for free for an honest review.
In The Cruel Prince we follow Jude a human in a fearie world along with her twin sister Taryn and her fearie sister Vivienne. Vivo is the son of the high kings general Madoc who had Vivi stolen from him by his ex-wife who he murdered in front of them.
Jude has grown up in this fearie world and has adapted to it's customs and seeks favour among one of the royal family courts by way of a knighthood. All in an effort to amass power to protect herself from people like Prince Cardan who bully and attack her.
We watch Jude struggle as she goes way in over her head and may be a little to bold and blunt when it comes to standing up to royalty and in some cases bending a knee to it.
I loved this book, there were times it had me grinding my teeth and sitting there talking to myself asking questions and complaining about people dying.
However I have to take marks away for Blacks use of clichés with some of the characters like Cardan and his cruel group for a quick character build. I understand that sometimes clichés are needed but Black could have made the characters more unique in their backstories.
The story is a good first book in a new series as it builds the world well and how the politics work. I do feel as though the climax was too short and could have been expanded on in an extra chapter as things seemed a little too rushed. The epilogue as well left me feeling a little underwhelmed after reading the last chapter, which left me wanting more.
Overall a good read if you enjoy YA fantasy, I've read better, but it's still good and I will be following up on this series.
In The Cruel Prince we follow Jude a human in a fearie world along with her twin sister Taryn and her fearie sister Vivienne. Vivo is the son of the high kings general Madoc who had Vivi stolen from him by his ex-wife who he murdered in front of them.
Jude has grown up in this fearie world and has adapted to it's customs and seeks favour among one of the royal family courts by way of a knighthood. All in an effort to amass power to protect herself from people like Prince Cardan who bully and attack her.
We watch Jude struggle as she goes way in over her head and may be a little to bold and blunt when it comes to standing up to royalty and in some cases bending a knee to it.
I loved this book, there were times it had me grinding my teeth and sitting there talking to myself asking questions and complaining about people dying.
However I have to take marks away for Blacks use of clichés with some of the characters like Cardan and his cruel group for a quick character build. I understand that sometimes clichés are needed but Black could have made the characters more unique in their backstories.
The story is a good first book in a new series as it builds the world well and how the politics work. I do feel as though the climax was too short and could have been expanded on in an extra chapter as things seemed a little too rushed. The epilogue as well left me feeling a little underwhelmed after reading the last chapter, which left me wanting more.
Overall a good read if you enjoy YA fantasy, I've read better, but it's still good and I will be following up on this series.
Goddess in the Stacks (553 KP) rated Sing, Unburied, Sing in Books
May 14, 2018
I know, I'm late to the party. This book made a big splash back in September - everyone was talking about it, and it won the National Book Award. My library, however, did not have enough copies to go around, and I was late putting a hold on it, so the hold I put on it in January finally came around to my turn!
In Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward returns to the same neighborhood in Mississippi that Salvage the Bones was written about. (Two of the siblings from Salvage the Bones show up in a scene in Sing.) The story is told from three different viewpoints: Jojo, a thirteen-year-old boy and the main character of the novel, Leonie, his drug-addicted mother, and Richie, the ghost of a boy Jojo's grandfather met in prison.
This book covers so much that it's difficult to categorize - between discrimination and outright bigotry, bi-racial romance and children, drug addiction, poverty, prison life - deep south gothic, I suppose, would be the best description. Sing really only takes place over a couple of days, but it feels much longer, because Jojo's grandfather tells stories of his time in prison decades prior, Leonie reminisces about high school, and there's just this sense of timelessness over the entire novel.
It's not an easy book. These are hard issues to grapple with, and too many people have to live with these issues. Poverty, bigotry, addiction - these things disproportionately affect the black community, and white people are to blame for the imbalance.
I'm not sure how I feel about the ghost aspect of the book; on one hand I feel like people will see the ghost and decide the book is fantasy - that they don't really need to care about the problems the family faces. On the other hand, the ghost allows us to see even more bigotry and inhumanity targeted at black people. So it serves a purpose.
I'm not sure I like this book. But I'm glad I read it. And that's pretty much going to be my recommendation; it's not a fun read, but it's an important one.
You can find all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.wordpress.com
In Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward returns to the same neighborhood in Mississippi that Salvage the Bones was written about. (Two of the siblings from Salvage the Bones show up in a scene in Sing.) The story is told from three different viewpoints: Jojo, a thirteen-year-old boy and the main character of the novel, Leonie, his drug-addicted mother, and Richie, the ghost of a boy Jojo's grandfather met in prison.
This book covers so much that it's difficult to categorize - between discrimination and outright bigotry, bi-racial romance and children, drug addiction, poverty, prison life - deep south gothic, I suppose, would be the best description. Sing really only takes place over a couple of days, but it feels much longer, because Jojo's grandfather tells stories of his time in prison decades prior, Leonie reminisces about high school, and there's just this sense of timelessness over the entire novel.
It's not an easy book. These are hard issues to grapple with, and too many people have to live with these issues. Poverty, bigotry, addiction - these things disproportionately affect the black community, and white people are to blame for the imbalance.
I'm not sure how I feel about the ghost aspect of the book; on one hand I feel like people will see the ghost and decide the book is fantasy - that they don't really need to care about the problems the family faces. On the other hand, the ghost allows us to see even more bigotry and inhumanity targeted at black people. So it serves a purpose.
I'm not sure I like this book. But I'm glad I read it. And that's pretty much going to be my recommendation; it's not a fun read, but it's an important one.
You can find all my reviews at http://goddessinthestacks.wordpress.com
Dana (24 KP) rated Sabriel (Abhorsen, #1) in Books
Mar 23, 2018
This was an interesting read for me. I would not say it was my favorite high fantasy novel in the world. That't mainly because this is one of my favorite genres to read, so I have read quite a few as of late.
This book took me a while to get into. There was a lot going on in the beginning, and it being a relatively short beginning of a story, it was hard to follow along. I am not saying I didn't like it, not by a long shot. Overall, it was a generally interesting and fun read. It just took a little longer than I had hoped to get into.
This book has been on my to be read list for over two years now, ever since a classmate of mine told me about it after our French class one day. I thought I would finally give it a read.
I do like Sabriel. She is pretty cool. I think I started liking her more in the second half of the book because she was growing into her role of the Abhorsen. She didn't shy away from her duties or try and get rid of them as she had more in the first half of the book. I like that she started taking charge of the situation.
Touchstone is interesting because I don't know how I feel about him. Honestly, I have no opinion of him at all, which is weird. We spend almost three hundred pages with him, and I can't find a connection with him. I do love the cat though. He's a demon, in cat form. So, a cat. (Don't get me wrong, cats are one of my favorite animals.) I am just not sure about Touchstone.
I still don't quite know what happened at the end of the book. It felt like it was wrapped up really fast and I didn't have time to process it.
I hope that if I get the next book, I will have a better understanding of how I feel about the characters and the story than I do right now.
This book took me a while to get into. There was a lot going on in the beginning, and it being a relatively short beginning of a story, it was hard to follow along. I am not saying I didn't like it, not by a long shot. Overall, it was a generally interesting and fun read. It just took a little longer than I had hoped to get into.
This book has been on my to be read list for over two years now, ever since a classmate of mine told me about it after our French class one day. I thought I would finally give it a read.
I do like Sabriel. She is pretty cool. I think I started liking her more in the second half of the book because she was growing into her role of the Abhorsen. She didn't shy away from her duties or try and get rid of them as she had more in the first half of the book. I like that she started taking charge of the situation.
Touchstone is interesting because I don't know how I feel about him. Honestly, I have no opinion of him at all, which is weird. We spend almost three hundred pages with him, and I can't find a connection with him. I do love the cat though. He's a demon, in cat form. So, a cat. (Don't get me wrong, cats are one of my favorite animals.) I am just not sure about Touchstone.
I still don't quite know what happened at the end of the book. It felt like it was wrapped up really fast and I didn't have time to process it.
I hope that if I get the next book, I will have a better understanding of how I feel about the characters and the story than I do right now.
Kelly (279 KP) rated The Magicians: Book 1 in Books
Nov 22, 2018
Harry Potter for grown ups
Contains spoilers, click to show
I was a fan of this book long before the TV series of the same name, and a firm believer that the book in this case is better than the screen. Unlike the TV series, the book comes across more intelligently and the characters are a lot more relatable. Lev Grossman uses popular fantasy books such as The Chronicles of Narnia and the Harry Potter series for ideas for this novel, but adapts these childhood fantasies to an adult level.
Quentin, the main character within the novel is not your usual hero, being the high achieving teenager who could never quite best his peers, is fixated by a Narnia style story from his child hood (Fillory), which he could never quite overcome. The narrative shares Quentins journey from joining a magical college, making friends to early adulthood and finding that Fillory is real.
Despite the obvious links to other stories, Lev Grossman intelligently uses his story to explore a range of issues such as sexuality and depression, making his characters more relatable to the reader. The villains and events in the story are a lot more sinister than you might expect from a tale that combines so many of our childhood favourites, demonstrating Grossmans clever use in adult emotions. All of this succeeds in engaging the reader even further.
Although this was a book I enjoyed reading from start to finish, I did find the pace was a little fast at times, speeding from one time period in Quentins life to another. I realise that this is because Lev Grossman is portraying the events happening over the course of Quentins late teens and early twenties, but It did become a little frustrating as a reader.
The end of the plot was bitter sweet and did not follow the typical ‘all live happily ever after’ ending that you would expect from this type of tale. Ultimately the book ends on a cliff hanger and left me wanting to know more about what happened next. To me this makes the book a success.
Quentin, the main character within the novel is not your usual hero, being the high achieving teenager who could never quite best his peers, is fixated by a Narnia style story from his child hood (Fillory), which he could never quite overcome. The narrative shares Quentins journey from joining a magical college, making friends to early adulthood and finding that Fillory is real.
Despite the obvious links to other stories, Lev Grossman intelligently uses his story to explore a range of issues such as sexuality and depression, making his characters more relatable to the reader. The villains and events in the story are a lot more sinister than you might expect from a tale that combines so many of our childhood favourites, demonstrating Grossmans clever use in adult emotions. All of this succeeds in engaging the reader even further.
Although this was a book I enjoyed reading from start to finish, I did find the pace was a little fast at times, speeding from one time period in Quentins life to another. I realise that this is because Lev Grossman is portraying the events happening over the course of Quentins late teens and early twenties, but It did become a little frustrating as a reader.
The end of the plot was bitter sweet and did not follow the typical ‘all live happily ever after’ ending that you would expect from this type of tale. Ultimately the book ends on a cliff hanger and left me wanting to know more about what happened next. To me this makes the book a success.
Beautiful Wallpaper.s – Top Cute Image.s & Theme.s
Lifestyle and Entertainment
App
► Beautiful wallpapers * High quality wallpapers and backgrounds for phones and tablets! * This...
DRAGON QUEST II
Games
App
The second instalment in the celebrated Dragon Quest series finally comes to mobile! Explore fair...
The Oxford Book of English Short Stories
Book
The Oxford Book of English Short Stories , edited by A. S. Byatt, herself the author of several...