I had not expected a BGWS video when I turned on the computer today but there the announcement was in my inbox. I wasn't really in the mood and when I saw it way Prophecy and not Agricola I didn't feel like watching but then I thought: Hey, it's another BGWS video! After downloading and making lunch I watched it

Been thinking about Prophecy before but I had no idea about how it played so this movie was very useful. I like how fast the turns are compared to Runebound, a game that really draaags if you have bad luck. It's also not very expensive so I think it might make it into our next batch of games for my association.

BTW, Scott you look decades younger hiding behind the box without your glasses

YAY! I'm first

You opened your video with a shot of you LARPing, and then revealed you helped write Cthulu Live. Sir, you just cranked your geek cred to eleven.

Much respect.

Prophecy looks really neat. Seems like it's the adventure game that's usually left out of the discussion, but from the video I was very impressed.

Combat is very simple (it doesn't get much simpler than single d6 rolls really does it?), but I can see a lot of strategy in moving here or there based on your available health and will and items, on the enemies you know are there, etc. Also, nifty little bits like those bats that you have to kill 3 times and the other guy that you can get a pile of gold from if you take him alive sound really immersive and different (something Return of the Heroes badly needed, where the enemies might as well have just been blank white chits with stats on them), giving you interesting options of how to deal with them. For example, I can kill this with magic, but since it's depleted if I use it I might need my magic next turn somewhere, but I have this item that would help that or could go to this space to remedy it, etc.etc. It just sounds like there would be a lot of little interesting things like that to think about (as opposed to Return of the Heroes, where most of the time you're just slowly trudging across the board for an item on the other side).



I've previously played Arkham Horror (co-op just isn't my thing), and Return of the Heroes (just felt very bland and "multi-player solitaire"...you've probably figured out I'm not a fan by now!); but I've been trying to find the right adventure game for me. Your review (Scott's review I mean) of World of Warcraft: The Boardgame made me want to turn it off...actually I'm not sure if I finished that episode. The game was just soooo involved and fiddly and it sounded soooooo loooooong that I'm sure I'd never get it played, and if I did play someone else's copy I'm pretty sure I wouldn't enjoy it. Runebound sounds like it would suffer from the same drawbacks (though probably not to the extent that WoW would).

That leaves Talisman (which is only liked nostalgically it seems), HeroQuest (out of print and expensive, and probably more nostalgia than game there too), the World of Warcraft Adventure game (which looks really good) and Prophecy.

So for my dollars (I look for light'ish games good with 2 players)...I guess I'd be looking at Prophecy or the World of Warcraft Adventure game.

Did I leave out anything?

Just wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS on your 50th superb video review.

Here's to the next 50

Nice review Scott - hit the spot in that it encouraged me to order the game, and I and my son (who needs something like this to tempt him away from Lord of the Rings Online)are both looking forward to giving this one a go next week!

Excellent review as always.

I...I...I never knew!


ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

Happy 50th Scott! You old LARPing rapscallion you.

I too am a Prophecy fan. Though I haven't play all of those other games yet, I came to play and own Prophecy because of exactly those things you highlighted - movement speed, combat speed, and character development. When people are familiar with the system, the game can move quite swiftly. And I concur that the short version ending is the way to go. The standard version seems to be sort of a nod to Talisman but it's too long for my taste. My next "nerdy" step is to buy some D&D minis and paint them up to match the various Prophecy characters.

Great Video. Thank you very much!

Thanks a lot!

Liked the video... but I thought you were going to talk about Descent in the final comparison, the same as the other games Know I wonder what makes Descent so popular.

And I agree, you look much better with the trimmed beard and without glasses.

Best regards and thanks again,

Fermin.

I talked about it at the beginning as it's a completely different experience from the other games - it really didn't belong in the comparison at the end; those 4 games are all very similar to Prophecy, which Descent is a tactical miniature combat game, focused on combat, moving one-step-at-a-time and hitting monsters many times over many rounds of dice-rolling. Fights take 15-30-60 minutes for one combat, and that's the focus (as compared to roll a die and you're done..)

Scott

Yeah, Decent is not an adventure board game

Oh! Thanks Scott!

Now it's much clearer (i guess, Boardgame-RPG vs. Fantasy-Tactical-game).

Best regards from Munich and hope to have the chance to meet you in Essen (probably in JKLM Games stand, wont you?)

Thank you Scott for all the good work you have done until now and thank you for making me discover Prophecy.

This game has been laying over a year discounted at 75 % at my nextdoor gaming shop. Actually most of the European reviewers have marked this game quite low. Maybe because it came out at a moment when this type of games were not at the top of the hype, or maybe because the printed material of the game is not the "usual" Fantasy-Flight-quality.

Anyway I rushed at the store and bought the last copy.

I particularly like your reviews because they explain all the game in details in plain english that even non native english speakers (like myself) feel no difficculty in understanding every little detail. I also like your illustrations and your humour that makes your videos very enjoyable to watch. Please keep this videos going.

I'll look forward for #51


best

lapja

Good review -- I'm adding Prophecy to my Want List.

One thing: the way you described the combat system makes it sound like it was lifted word-for-word out of Talisman. In fact, the whole game sounds a lot like Talisman with a few cosmetic changes. The skills sound like an improvment, at least.

Doesn't matter though, because I always liked Talisman, and would be happy to have a nice quality, shorter version.


Edit: Oh, one minor suggestion, so trivial as to be barely worth mentioning.... How about adding a hyperlink to the game when you post these threads?

Congratulations to your fifties, Scott!

Onwards to 100! Yoohoo!!!

iTunes warned me that it could not sync this episode to my iPod since the iPod cannot play it (wrong format I think). Did you do anything special with this episode? All the other episodes works just fine on my iPod.

Try deleting it and downloading it again - I uploaded a new version a few days ago based upon the request of someone else with the same problem..

Scott

Scott, I love all your reviews but this was the first time I got that "I really really want to purchase this" feeling. I bought the game the day after I read the review and have already played it several times. It's loads of fun! Many thanks!

Let ZMan know that!

I want to know how it compares to WoW:TAG.

Excellent review!

Thanks for making a special episode that features/compares many of the leading fantasy adventure boardgames. Great idea to compare/contrast - I wish more reviewers did this more.

I agree! It'd be excellent if a video reviewer took up the banner to do "genre" explorations. Scott has done this at least once before with his train games episode, and I wish he'd do that more often instead of focusing on a single game.

Edit to change stuff

I'm sorry to say this but I'm quite disappointed in Prophecy. There's a lot of cards that covers the board, making a huge mess and there's barely room for them. The game really drags on three players, especially when someone don't understand the rules and can't count the rolls. And you count the rolls all the time. All the graphics (of the Z-man edition) are off center and the artwork is not made to work with the, like white lines at the bottom of some hero cards. But the most frustrating thing of all is how luck dependent the game is, if you have bad luck with cards (close to you) and die rolls the game is just a pain in the neck to play. It's more forgiving then Runebound and the traveling is way better but can still be quite frustrating to play, especially since the game takes way too long for what it is.

However, I really love Caylus as a two player game. It takes a while to get into it but it's really fun to try new strategies and start thinking about the opponent's actions. I believe you have to play with someone of your skill level, just like in Chess and Go. The more players you get the more chaotic it will get and the longer it will take, but on two is simply great. It also doesn't take long to set up a game, even better if you separate the cubes into separate bags. Maybe I'll make a custom inlay some day, so you don't even need to pack the stuff out.